Nobody Prayed | The American Spectator

There they were. Grim-faced and angry. Raced to their marks before the cameras. Not to console but to scold. The first to lecture was Governor Tim Walz. Lord, hasn’t this community suffered enough already…?

Nevertheless, he told that community, and the world, what we are supposed to think about the Morning Massacre at the Annunciation School. And ourselves, don’t you know. Then followed, seriatim, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey; the school principal; the police chief; and the city’s archbishop Bernard Hebda. They spoke  against violence and assured us that their “hearts were broken.” Even Pope Leo, in a letter written by the Vatican secretary of state, wanted us to know about his shock, too.

We were also chastised about prejudice and hate. Not so much about the emotions that motivated the shooter, no; but any negative feelings toward the shooter, a member of the amorphous transgender “community.” The killer, whose feelings we are supposed to respect, reportedly had barricaded the school’s doors and shot repeatedly into the chapel through its stained-glass windows. The children and a few elderly adults were at Mass. Suddenly, there were blood stains amidst the stained glass.

But you would be forgiven if you thought the local leaders regarded the shooter as the victim. In fact, he had not merely gotten up on the wrong side of bed that morning. He had, inevitably, prepared a manifesto; he carried three weapons; he scrawled hate-filled messages on his magazines like “For the children” and “Kill Donald Trump.” In their sociology lessons, the assembled politicians and officials managed, with all other factors addressed and avoided, to earnestly scrub God from the discussion.

The air was filled with obfuscation even as the guns’ smoke cleared. As always. During the day, Mayor Frey, like a wind-up toy, called for gun control. Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar decried “leaders more concerned with appeasing the gun lobby than keeping our children safe.” Others mocked those who shared their “thoughts and prayers,” not because that could be a routine cliche — though properly it is a minimal response — but asserting the futility of prayer itself. Jen Psaki, from afar, was one of several who even mocked those who prayed in the midst of their grief. Rather, “action” (somehow not a routine cliche) and “praying with your feet” became the memes of the day.

The Catholic school’s principal, who had the opportunity to minister to the hearts of his children and the larger community, said there is “nothing about today that can fill us with hope,” overlooking the many souls who survived, the myriad acts of heroism, and the maturity of the little children who protected each other. Let a little child lead him, and teach the man what hope can be.

Worse than the deficient response from politicians and officials was the message from Pope Leo, that is, what he did not say. It was the same thing that all the assembled people did not say: there was not one statement, written or spoken, that offered a prayer. Not an appeal to God, nor a painful thanks to God for signs of mercy that morning. Not even a perfunctory, generic prayer from the clergy or a speaker who has a personal faith. This, unfortunately, is the hallmark of our contemporary culture — no faith, or fear to express faith. Sympathy for a deranged, sexually confused murderer, more than for his victims. Values of faith were locked out of the debate, just as the killer constructed barricades at the chapel doors.

Perhaps if God had not been locked out of schools two generations ago, so to speak, the Annunciation massacre would not have taken place. Not that Jesus would have stood in the schoolhouse door — but maybe the shooter himself would have experienced prayer and public expressions of faith as part of his upbringing, and had different impulses.

The gunsmoke cleared, and the officials finished their TV moments. Then came the realization that nobody prayed that morning. Except the murdered little children and their classmates.

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Rick Marschall is the author of 75 books, including The Secret Revealed, a response to the new-age The Secret; and a Christian Encounters biography of Johann Sebastian Bach for Thomas Nelson. For 15 years, he has produced the weekly blog MondayMinistry.com.