Earlier today, during the opening Mass at Annunciation Catholic school in Minneapolis, a 23 year old man shot numerous children and adults before killing himself. Among those killed was an 8 year old and a 10 year old. Three adults and fourteen children were then taken to the local trauma center, some in critical condition.
What is the role of a priest and nun in such situations? Let’s consider biological parents before we look at spiritual fatherhood and motherhood. When a child is hurt, it is the job of a mother to comfort her children. However, a father is called to both comfort his children and to guide them on how to avoid similar tragedies in the future.
As a spiritual father, my article here is not to finger-point, but rather to warn that tragedies like today’s shooting can somewhat (not entirely) be avoided by teaching the true Catholic faith. As you will soon read, the shooter and his mother were baptized Catholics at the very parish where the shooting took place.
Robert, the shooter seen at the top-right picture (thinking he was a woman) drew the above battle-plan. Look close, and you can see it’s his own Catholic Church with the sanctuary and pews. This is where he planned his carnage, and executed it.
The Church of the Annunciation is where his mother, Mary-Grace Westman, had worked. The above post was celebrating her recent retirement.
Of course, it is not an absolute case of causality, but I frequently notice that lay people who can’t guide their own families often go and work for the local parish. This is frequently the case with permanent deacons and other Church ladies. They work for the parish while their family has never been catechized, while their family is in shambles.
Of course, I can already hear the angry comments towards me: “But Fr. Nix! You can’t say this horrible shooting is due to a mother working at a Church.”
My response: “No, I can’t. But the above picture is taken from the paperwork of the shooter’s own mother signing-off on him transitioning as a minor.” Yes, you read that correctly: The shooter’s own mother signed-off on him changing his name as a minor from “Robert” to “Robin.” Very few people were covering this story besides Frank at Canon212 and Harrison Krank.
So, put the facts together and you have this catastrophe where a Catholic mother encouraged trans-behavior in her son who eventually committed a mass shooting. Yes, I know “possessed” is a common insult hurled indiscriminately at one’s enemies in the Catholic world. However, I have been involved in deliverance ministry and I watched the extremely disturbing videos of the young man before he shot up the school Mass. And yes, I think he was possessed, no doubt linked to his transitioning behavior.
Was his mother who signed off on his transition ever challenged by their parish priests on this? I don’t know, but her parish retirement picture looks quite happy. This is why I label this post without any shame: “Liberal Catholicism is the Way of Death.” In fact, I had a front-row seat for a similar tragedy with fewer physical casualties (but just as many spiritual casualties) here in Colorado.
Yes, I blame the shooter’s parents and I blame the priests of the USA for not guiding their flock on these tough issues. In fact, I thought it would take a couple weeks for the US bishops to make stupid statements on gun-control following this Mass shooting, but their tone-deaf statements began just hours after the tragedy:
Above, Cardinal Dolan bemoans “gun-violence.” The shepherds of this country blame it on “gun-violence” because they won’t do their jobs of teaching the true faith to their families. They are hirelings who do not protect, but get fat.
In fact, the more I look at the state of the Church in America, the more I see that bishops and priests are simply liberals who occasionally make pro-life statements. Because of these occasional pro-life statements, the laity do not realize they too have become liberals under such self-serving shepherds. I was chided not long ago by a lay Catholic in real-life for saying Catholic schools need armed-guards, but today I doubled down on my insistence after the shooting:
It would be convenient if Minneapolis Catholics could simply blame their dead children on a Muslim or on bad gun-laws, but let’s remember it was a baptized Catholic who executed children at this opening school Mass. It was a tranny man who was misled by his parents. And it appears his parents’ leftists ways were never challenged by the local priests in their liberal ways. They were probably just told “to accept him as Christ would accept him.”
Of course, most lazy priests always leave-out the part that Jesus always said: “Go and sin no more.”
So, as a spiritual father, I pray for you readers, and everyone involved in this shooting. But I must also insist: It’s a spiritual father’s job to remind everyone that we reap what we sow. Good doctrine brings real people to life and bad doctrine brings real people to death. None of what I do on my site or channel is simply to be cerebral. There’s obviously real outcomes to life and death when it comes to our theology.