&imwidth=800&imheight=600&format=webp&quality=medium "‘End the pandemic of arms’: Pope prays for Minnesota school shooting victims")
Pope Leo XIV on Sunday prayed for the victims of a shooting at a Catholic school Mass in the United States and called for an end to the “pandemic of arms, large and small.” The first pope from the US spoke in English as he condemned the attack and the “logic of weapons” fuelling wars around the world during his Sunday noon blessing from his studio overlooking St. Peter’s Square.
“Our prayers for the victims of the tragic shooting during a school Mass in the American state of Minnesota,” said the Chicago-born Leo.
“We hold in our prayers the countless children killed and injured every day around the world. Let us plead God to stop the pandemic of arms, large and small, which infects our world.”
Two children, Fletcher Merkel, eight, and Harper Moyski, 10, were killed in the shooting on Wednesday while praying at the Annunciation Catholic school church in Minneapolis, and 18 people were injured. The shooter fired 116 rifle rounds through the church’s glass windows before he died by suicide.
The killing of children in the shooting reignited the debate over gun control in America. The US witnesses more mass shootings than other countries around the world.
Leo’s predecessor, Pope Francis, had long criticised the proliferation of arms and denounced gun manufacturers as “merchants of death.” In his historic 2015 speech to the US Congress, the Argentine pope asked the lawmakers why weapons were being sold purely to kill.
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“Sadly, the answer, as we all know, is simply for money: money that is drenched in blood, often innocent blood,” Francis said then.
Leo opened his appeal Sunday by demanding an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine and a “serious commitment to dialogue” from the warring sides.
“It’s time that those responsible renounce the logic of weapons and take the path of negotiations and peace, with the support of the international community,” he said. “The voice of weapons must be silenced, while the voice of fraternity and justice must rise.”
