Pope prays for Texas shooting victims, calls for stricter gun laws

VATICAN CITY -- Saying his heart was broken at the news of at least 19 children and two adults being shot and killed at a Texas elementary school, Pope Francis said it was time to say "Enough!" and enact stricter laws on gun sales.

At the end of his weekly general audience May 25, with thousands of people gathered in St. Peter's Square, the pope prayed publicly for the victims of the shooting the day before at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas.

"With a heart shattered over the massacre at the elementary school in Texas, I pray for the children and adults who were killed and for their families," the pope told the crowd.

"It is time to say, 'Enough!' to the indiscriminate trafficking of guns," the pope said. "Let's all work to ensure that such tragedies never happen again."

Shortly before the audience, Archbishop Gustavo García-Siller of San Antonio, an archdiocese that includes Uvalde, tweeted: "Holy Father Pope Francis, say some prayers for the souls of our little ones killed today and two teachers. Uvalde is in mourning. The families are having a very dark time. Your prayer will do good to them."

Local authorities said the children and adults were killed by an 18-year-old student from a high school nearby. He also was reported dead and at least three children remained hospitalized for injuries suffered in the attack.

In a statement, Cardinal Cupich said:

Today, a gunman walked into a grade school in Uvalde, TX, and slaughtered at least 18 children. The shooter allegedly killed his grandmother before driving to the school. Authorities say the suspect is dead. He was 18 years old.

The parents were told, “Please do not pick up students at this time. Students need to be accounted for before they are released to your care.” Imagine being a parent with a child in that school. Imagine having to bury them.

Parents now face a delay in identifying the victims—such was the extent of the damage done to these children’s bodies by the killer’s weapons.

The NRA has its annual meeting on Friday in Houston, about 300 miles east of the massacre, less than a year after the TX governor signed into law a bill that allows people without license or training to carry handguns. 

We don’t yet know whether the Uvalde gunman took advantage of “permitless carry,” but we do know that America is awash in guns. We have more firearms than people.

It was not always this way. But more Americans died from gun violence in 2020 than during any other year on record: more than 45,000. That was a 25% increase from 2015, and a 43% increase from 2010. 

Mass shootings have become a daily reality in America today. Two people died and 7 were injured last week during a mass shooting just down the street from Holy Name Cathedral. Last weekend in Chicago, 28 people were shot. 

The size of the crisis, and its sheer horror, make it all too easy to toss up one’s hands and declare: Nothing can be done. But that is the counsel of despair, and we are a people of hope. What do we hope for our children?

That as a regular feature of their schooling, they learn how to behave should a shooter attack? That they feel endangered by simply doing what society says is good for them—going to school? That they come to wonder whether they even have futures at all?

Tonight our airwaves will fill with pundits who offer predictable lamentations and warnings and tut-tuts and thoughts and prayers. And we must pray—for the victims, their loved ones, for the parents who will send their kids off to school tomorrow.

We must weep and soak in the grief that comes with the knowledge that these children of God were cut down by a man who was just a few years their senior. But then we must steel ourselves to act in the face of what seems like insurmountable despair.

We know that gun safety measures make a difference. A 2021 Northwestern Medicine study found that the Federal Assault Weapons Ban prevented 10 mass shootings during the 10 years it was in effect. 

Researchers also determined that if the ban had remained in place in the years since it was allowed to expire, it could have prevented another 30 public mass shootings that killed 339 people and injured 1139 more. 

As I reflect on this latest American massacre, I keep returning to the questions: Who are we as a nation if we do not act to protect our children? What do we love more: our instruments of death or our future?

The Second Amendment did not come down from Sinai. The right to bear arms will never be more important than human life. Our children have rights too. And our elected officials have a moral duty to protect them."