After Minneapolis Catholic church shooting, public leaders debate prayer

 

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Aug 29, 2025 / 18:13 pm (CNA).

After a man fired over a hundred bullets into a Minneapolis Catholic Church killing two children and injuring 17 others, thousands of mourners packed into an archdiocesan vigil to pray for the victims and their families with Archbishop Bernard Hebda and other clergy members.

“We know that there are a lot of other things that need to be done [and] we need to be able to address these issues in civic society, but what we do together tonight is to pray,” Hebda told grieving Catholics at the Academy of Holy Angels, just two miles from Annunciation Church, where the tragedy occurred.

“And we look for the words that are able to express inexpressible grief,” he said. “We look for those symbols that might bring some hope. … We come together in our trials and we trust that God will answer us, that he will hear our pain, that he will hear our prayers.”

Catholics across the country held their own vigils or offered prayers for the victims, as did many Protestants and people of other faiths.

Yet as communities sought comfort and a connection with God amid the tragedy, some figures in the media and even politicians went in the opposite direction. On social media and in public statements, those individuals derided prayer and dismissed its role in addressing suffering and societal ills.

“I’m tired of being told this is normal — and you should be too,” Rep. Brittany Pettersen, D-Colorado, said in a post on X. “Thoughts and prayers aren’t going to do anything to fix this.”

Rep. Maxwell Frost, co-chair of the House Democratic Policy and Communications Committee, echoed that sentiment, stating on X that “these children were probably praying when they were shot to death at Catholic school.”

“Don’t give us your [expletive] thoughts and prayers,” Frost added.

Jen Psaki, an MSNBC host who served in the administrations of former presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama, wrote on X that “prayer is not freaking enough.”

“Prayers [do] not end school shootings,” she added. “Prayers do not make parents feel safe sending their kids to school. Prayer does not bring these kids back. Enough with the thoughts and prayers.”

Why Catholics turn to God in times of need

Over the past few days, Catholics and other Christians have pushed back on the negative view of prayer promoted by some lawmakers and members of the media.

In response to Psaki’s comments, Franciscan University explained through its X account that “prayer is not an escape from reality” but is rather “the very place we meet Christ, who himself was unjustly slain.”

“We will continue to pray, not because we are passive, but because we know only God can bring true justice, healing, and peace,” the university added. “Evil wants us to stop praying and to despair. We will not. We cling to Christ, who has conquered death.”

Franciscan University held a prayer vigil Thursday night for the victims, which about 500 students attended.

University President Father Dave Pivonka, TOR, told CNA: “It makes sense that Catholics would come together and pray given that [the shooting] took place at a Catholic church.” He added: “One of the things that Catholics do is we pray.”

The insinuation of anti-prayer rhetoric, Pivonka said, is that “prayer isn’t doing something.” He rejected that notion, saying “prayer has a great impact.” In the midst of tragedy, he noted that many people are looking to help and offering prayers for “the Lord’s peace to be with them [and] the Lord’s presence to be with them” is a “beautiful way to do that.”

Pivonka said he also prays for public officials, “that God would give them courage, that God would give them wisdom” to address political issues. He said Catholics should also engage society, the culture, and the political world.

He noted that Minnesota’s Catholic bishops had been asking state lawmakers to provide funds for security, which was ultimately not given. He said: “That’s a very active thing that they were trying to do.”

“Yes, we’re praying, but yes we’re doing actions to try to bring about this change,” Pivonka said.

Bishop Michael Burbidge of the Diocese of Arlington, Virginia, wrote in an op-ed for the National Catholic Register, CNA’s sister news partner, that his diocese established a Mental Health Council to provide “guidance, responses, and resources to support those experiencing mental health issues as well as to their family members.”

He noted that Catholics can do “certainly, more than one thing,” such as security, mental health resources, engagement with public officials, and acts of charity and compassion.

“Above all, we can and must pray with daily fervency, calling out to the Lord, striving to remain close to him, and asking him to grant us all the peace only he can give,” Burbidge wrote.

Bishop Robert Barron of the Diocese of Winona-Rochester, Minnesota, told Fox News Digital that “prayer is the raising of the mind and heart to God, which strikes me as altogether appropriate precisely at times of great pain.”

“Prayer by no means stands in contrast to decisive moral action,” he said. “… This is not an either/or proposition.”

Vice President JD Vance, who is Catholic, also joined the conversation, posting on X in response to Psaki that any criticism of prayer is “bizarre.”

“We pray because our hearts are broken,” he wrote. “We pray because we know God listens. We pray because we know that God works in mysterious ways and can inspire us to further action. Why do you feel the need to attack other people for praying when kids were just killed praying?”