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Thousands of people gathered at vigils on Wednesday evening to remember and pray for the victims of the mass shooting at Annunciation Catholic Church and School in Minneapolis earlier in the day.
Two children were killed and 17 people were injured in the shooting, which police say happened during a morning Mass marking the first week of school in which children and adults were worshipping. Two children, ages 8 and 10, were killed in the pews.
One of the vigils was held at Academy of Holy Angels, a Catholic high school in Richfield. Many students at Holy Angels attended Annunciation as elementary students.
Hundreds prayed, wiped away tears and held each other during a packed vigil inside the school’s gym where Gov. Tim Walz and U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, along with Catholic clergy, joined the mourners.
Archbishop Bernard Hebda talked about the inscription at the front of the Annunciation Church that reads: “House of God and the gate of heaven.”
“How is it that such a terrible tragedy could take place in a place that’s the house of God and the gate of heaven?" he asked. “It’s unthinkable.”
Walz lamented that children just starting the school year “were met with evil and horror and death.” He and President Donald Trump ordered flags to be lowered to half-staff on state and federal buildings, respectively, and the White House said the two men spoke.
From the Vatican, Pope Leo XIV sent a telegram of condolences. The Chicago-born Leo, history’s first American pope, said he was praying for relatives of the dead.
Kris Kelly, the mother of a seventh grader who was inside the church at the time of the shooting, was among the people in attendance at Holy Angels. She’d waited outside Annunciation for 45 minutes to learn whether her child was safe.
“I mean the waiting was the worst part,” Kelly said. “And then they came out and we got to see them. It was the most beautiful moment ever seeing my kid. But also knowing there are some that did not go home.”
Avery Cheeseman, a college student at Augsburg University in Minneapolis, attended Annunciation School as a child. She came to the Holy Angels vigil to support people she cares about.
“I know that everyone in the community is really, really struggling right now,” she said. “I want to be there for anyone that I can and show up for my community.”
That sentiment was echoed before the start of another gathering, this one at Lynnhurst Park in Minneapolis, located just blocks from where the Annunciation shootings took place.
“It’s very important that we show up for each other,” said Dan Adolphson, pastor at First Christian Church in Minneapolis. “People are grieving. People are angry. People are hurting. In these moments, it’s really important that we are together.”
A large crowd gathered at the park to listen to several speakers, including Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison. He decried gun violence in America.
“No nation in the world that is not in an active war has as much gun death as our United States,” Ellison said. “We are Number 1 when it comes to gun deaths.”
English (US) ·