SEPTEMBER 12, 2025
mississippicatholic.com
Minneapolis pastor recalls heroism amid tragedy at school Mass shooting By Joe Ruff and Josh McGovern
MINNEAPOLIS (OSV News) – For the first time since the Aug. 27 attack by a shooter who killed two children and wounded at least 21 more victims at an all-school Mass where he was presiding at Annunciation Catholic Church, Father Dennis Zehren publicly described his attempt to save the children. “If I could have got between those bullets and the kids,” Father Zehren said, his voice breaking with emotion at an Aug. 30 news conference outside Annunciation elementary school. “That’s what I was hoping to do. … the doors were barred, shut on the outside by the gunman,” said Father Zehren, Annunciation’s pastor. “We tried to get out. I think some of the fathers would have gone out there and gang-rushed him if they could have, and I would have been right there with them.
Parishioners arrive for the first Mass at Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis Aug. 30, 2025, following a deadly shooting at the adjacent church Aug. 27. The shooter opened fire with a rifle through the windows of the church and struck children attending Mass during the first week of school, killing two and wounding 21 others. (OSV News photo/Tim Evans, Reuters)
“But I think by that time, the damage was done,” and the shooter died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, Father Zehren said. “It’s a difficult memory,” Father Zehren said. “It just was loud (the gunshots). It just kept coming, and my first instinct was to just rush toward where the bullets were coming from. There were some fathers who were heading in the same direction, and I was on the phone with 911 just hoping to peek out the window to see which direction (the shooter) might be going in. So I could give them some help. But it was a flurry, and like I said, it seemed to keep coming.” The news conference took place before the first parish Mass – held at the Annunciation Catholic School’s auditorium instead of the now-desecrated church – since the shooting. The school is steps away from the church. Identified as Robin Westman,
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Hurricane Katrina 20th anniversary a call to racial equity, justice, say bishops By Gina Christian
(OSV News) – The 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina marks a call to “renew our commitment to racial equity and justice in every sector of public life,” said two U.S. Catholic bishops. Auxiliary Bishop Roy E. Campbell Jr. of Washington, chairman
of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Subcommittee on African American Affairs, and retired Auxiliary Bishop Joseph N. Perry of Chicago, chairman of the USCCB’s Ad Hoc Committee Against Racism, issued a joint statement Aug. 26 reflecting on the tragedy. The hurricane, one of the five deadliest in U.S. history, struck the nation’s Gulf Coast Aug. 29, 2005, as a Category 3 storm, with 120-140 mph winds and stretching 400 miles across the coast. At one point, the storm became a Category 5, but weakened before striking land.
Katrina made multiple landfalls, inflicting what the National Weather Service called “staggering” damage and loss of life, particularly in Louisiana and Mississippi. A total of 1,833 were killed by the storm, which at the time caused some $108 billion dollars in damage, according to NWS. New Orleans was ravaged by the storm, with at least 80% of the city flooded by Aug. 31, 2005, NWS noted on its website, adding that the impact was “heightened by breaks in the levees that separate New Orleans from Lake Pontchartrain.”
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