There is an evil — an immense and powerful evil — afoot in our country.

The news out of Minneapolis is horrific. A shooter intent on murder and slaughter opened fire at a Catholic parish school while the kids were attending their weekly all-school Mass, which was scheduled for 8:15 a.m.

Local police responded to reports of gunfire 15 minutes later. Two children were killed, and at least 17 more are injured, some seriously. The gunman is dead, reportedly by a self-inflicted gunshot.

It was the first week of school in Minnesota. The nightmare of school shootings — and mass shootings in general — has returned once again to American life.

It’s not truly accurate to say, as some have claimed, that the trend of mass shootings began with the terrible events at Columbine High School in 1999. In August 1966, Charles Whitman murdered 17 people after barricading himself in the central clock tower at the University of Texas at Austin, firing down on passersby from an elevated position. There were horrific school shootings in 1976 in Fullerton, Calif., in 1989 in Stockton, Calif., in 1991 in Iowa City, and in 1992 in Olivehurst, Calif., to name a few of the worst incidents. It’s not even true that such horrors are a uniquely American disease. Just this past June, a 21-year-old former student walked into Dreierschützengasse secondary school in Graz, Austria, where he proceeded to murder ten people. There have been countless, systematic attacks on schools, and especially girls’ schools, by jihadist groups such as Boko Haram and the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan.

But it’s hard to argue that whatever force was unleashed by the two murderers at Columbine hasn’t accelerated and metastasized, here in America, into something that is the deranged and sinister shadow of American exceptionalism. For a generation, American kids have gone to school stalked by a peculiar social contagion — a disease that has been spread by the internet, especially social media and the darkest corners of the Web.

In the very worst places online — the kinds of places that attract the loneliest, most screwed-up kids — there is a horrifying tracking of new school murderers’ “scores.” The vast majority of these depressed and disaffected kids will never do anything to hurt their fellows. But a few will, and those few bring about immense suffering, inflicting it upon our most innocent.

In the coming days there will be an intense focus on the fact that the alleged shooter was transgender, that he had petitioned to legally change his name, and that he targeted Catholic schoolkids during the Sacrifice of the Mass. The murderer’s motive is important, supremely important — these kids died in the exercise of their Christian faith; they are martyrs, truly.

We will also hear about all about the politicians, political operatives, and partisan hacks with axes to grind that have said irresponsible things or advanced irresponsible policies in the orbit of this massacre, or will do so now. They should be held to account as appropriate.

The motive behind this incident does indeed matter — even if people say it doesn’t or shouldn’t — because there is a moral difference between a tragic accident that results in death, negligent manslaughter, a casualty of war, and premeditated homicide. But that need not mean that there is much difference to the families, in their heartbreak and grief. There will still be empty chairs at the dinner table regardless. As citizens, we should be careful to not make a fraught and disturbing moment worse through our words and actions. “Be better than the politicians and the terminally online” is a low bar but a necessary one.

What to do about it all? Perhaps better put: Is there anything to be done that would be efficacious, constitutional, and within the realm of political and social possibility?

Should we impose a social taboo — or even attempt a legal one — on speaking or printing the killers’ names, so as to not inspire copycats? Since such a taboo or ban would be ineffective at best in our internet age, should we instead prominently name, shame, and vilify the shooters for the murderers that they are? Your guess is as good as mine in what would be more effective or practicable.

As far as public policy goes, my own views in support of so-called red flag laws, when well-written enough in a way that provides sufficient due process, put me out of step with most of my colleagues at NR. Some of us, however, are more and more open to reversing the long-term American trend of de-institutionalization for the seriously mentally ill. Some of us would support a more liberal use of involuntary commitment when warranted. But no American — right or left, conservative or liberal — at this stage of our national life, should promise or anticipate the complete eradication of this scourge that is upon us. None of us should be naïve enough to think that our preferred policy suite would entirely “solve” this problem.

There is of course a medical, psychiatric component to all this. There are kids today who have been driven mad by their phones, or the culture, or pandemic-era isolation, or their broken homes. But we should not try to medicalize all this away.

There is evil — an immense and powerful evil — afoot in our country, an evil that cannot fully be fought through competent statesmen and prudent public policy or through the best medical care. At the same time, we are adrift in an ocean of grief. It is an ocean of sadness, waters that well up when we think of the loved and lost. And that’s why, instead of tweeting, or shouting into the void, or cursing our political opponents, the best thing to do — the thing we ought to do — is the very thing that is so often mocked at times such as these: pray.

Pray for prudence and resolve and courage. Pray for comfort. Pray for hope.

For as the Psalmist says, the Lord “healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds.”

We should also not hesitate to pray for protection and for final victory over the evil that walks among us, as when Catholics pray Saint Michael’s Prayer:

Defend us in battle. Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray, and do thou, O Prince of the heavenly hosts, by the power of God, thrust into hell Satan and all evil spirits who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls.

All holy men and women of God, pray for us, and for our country.