The recent shooting of pupils and elderly parishioners during morning Mass at the Church of the Annunciation in Minneapolis has raised many questions. Some of them are of quite recent origin, while others are getting quite old.
According to reports, the shooting started just a few minutes into Mass, just as the responsorial Psalm was ending. The perpetrator, now identified as Robin Westman, 23, is said to have barricaded the Church by passing two-by-fours through door handles, and then stood outside shooting through the windows with a variety of arms, including a rifle, a handgun, and a shotgun.
Survivors hid beneath pews, in the basement, anywhere that seemed to offer save cover. Some students are reported to have protected younger children. Two children were killed – one 8 years old, the other aged 10 – and seventeen others were injured. The injured ranged in age from six to their 80s.
After firing “dozens” of rounds, the shooter committed suicide.
Westman appears to have been a troubled individual. Born as a boy, he at some point began to identify as female, and is reported to have changed names and possibly gender. For reasons not yet made publicly clear, Westman appears to have acquired a significant arsenal of weapons, developed a somewhat muddled manifesto, and published alarming videos and statements online.
It is also reported that Westman was a former pupil at the Catholic school attended by the children he shot, and that his mother had worked there.
Many questions have already been asked, such as what Westman’s motive was, where and how the firearms were acquired. It will likely require professionals to determine the things that truly motivated the shooting, though suggestions of fear, self-revulsion, and even demonism have surfaced. Many of the materials he posted online have been taken down by authorities.
A variety of further questions are being asked, such as why so many mass shootings take place in the world, and particularly the United States; whether stricter gun control might provide an answer; and what further security options may be required.
One might also wonder how any human being, let alone a 23 year-old from an apparently loving home, is driven into such shockingly violent, evil action against others, especially children of their own community. What are we teaching pupils in our schools, in films, in music and art, in social media? Are we focusing enough on practicalities like reading and history, arithmetic and other topics that might prepare children to face a challenging world in truth, with the strength of the gifts that have been given to them by their Creator? Are we helping them to seek and build lives based on shared social truths, or to turn inside themselves as arbiters of their own truths, accepting their own impulses as determinants of right and wrong? Should we be wondering why our children are so confused and enraged?
Are we allowing parents to raise their children in accordance with eternal truths, working with them to develop civilized behaviour; or are we dictating to parents how their children will be raised, what morals will be accepted, even if perhaps those morals are derived from least-common denominators rather than universal truth?
In their shock and grief, some parents of Westman’s victims are reported by mainstream press to have wondered where God was while their children were being terrorized, assaulted, killed.
Should we instead be asking ourselves how we, as a society, have wandered so far away from God? Are we, as a society, repeating the mistake of our first parents, seeking the fruit of the tree that gives the knowledge of good and evil, turning away from God and the commandments He has already given us? Perhaps these are questions we should ponder while we consider the others.
