There isn’t a word strong enough to carry what we all felt on Wednesday as news of the shooting at Annunciation Catholic school unfolded: Shock, outrage, sadness, anger.
Students were at Mass, beginning their school year with excitement and hope, and then the unspeakable horror of shots breaking through stained glass, the brutal murder and attempted murder of children at prayer.
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In the face of this enormous evil — children shot and killed, innocence destroyed, the house of God violated — we need to do something. But what?
We pray. We pray for the mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, teachers and friends. We pray for the children who survived this evil attack, who will forever live with trauma and fear. How can we not pray? How can we who are Christian not cling in prayer to Jesus, who wept for Jerusalem and his friend Lazarus; Christ who conquered death?
And yet, when we pray, we are met with scorn. “Prayer is not freaking enough,” some political pundits shout. Others even claim, “there is no hope” or that prayer is a cop-out, words echoed by others in media and politics.
Prayer is not a passive response; it is the most powerful action we can take. It unites us to the one who has conquered sin and death, namely, Jesus Christ.
When it feels like our prayer is useless, it can be discouraging, even infuriating. But we can’t stop praying, because it is precisely in the darkness of suffering and persecution that we most need prayer and hope. Without hope, we fall into despair. Without hope, we believe the lie that darkness is stronger than light, and death more powerful than life. As St. Paul urges us: “Rejoice in hope, endure in affliction, persevere in prayer.” (Romans 12:12)
Hope is not naïve belief in magical outcomes. Hope is rooted in the promise of a God who knows what it is to suffer, who gives us right guidance to act, and who makes known to us his love, healing, and comfort amid unimaginable pain.
Too often, we reduce tragedies such as this to issues of politics, policy, or psychology. These matter and must be addressed. We need wise leadership, good laws, mental health resources, and vigilance in protecting our communities. But none of these is enough on its own. Because beneath the surface, something deeper and more insidious is at work.
We must name it plainly: Evil.
The killer admitted to being sad, depressed, and suicidal. Some news outlets are holding that up as an excuse for what he did. They’re missing an important element: the presence of evil.
We enlightened moderns prefer to ignore the reality of evil. We would much rather not mention the enemy that Christ came to defeat. Talking about “the Evil One” is uncomfortable and even frightening, so we don’t. But there is evil in the world, and this evil is at war with the things of God.
C.S. Lewis warned that humanity makes two equal and opposite mistakes about the devil: one is to disbelieve in him altogether; the other is to become excessively preoccupied with him. The truth lies in between. Evil is real. It is not abstract. It seeks to destroy all that is good, true, and beautiful. And it will not be defeated by legislation, bureaucracy, or angry soundbites.
The Evil One would love nothing more than for us to despair of hope, to abandon prayer, and to blame one another. He delights when we reduce everything to politics or when we put all our trust in government to save us. Government has a role and there are actions we must take, but evil cannot be outlawed by the stroke of a pen. The problems we face are beyond the power of government. They are spiritual. So, we also need to bring spiritual weapons to the fight.
St. Paul says, “For our struggle is not with flesh and blood but with the principalities, with the powers, with the world rulers of this present darkness…” (Ephesians 6:12) It’s not difficult to imagine these dark powers orchestrating horrific events and then reveling in our discord as we assign blame to one another.
We pray and hope God would reign in our world. We pray hearts be changed, eyes opened, shackles broken. We pray men and women have Godly wisdom, strength, and courage to do what is right regardless of political outcome. We pray, because left to ourselves we are doomed to chaos, despair, and confusion.
Only last week, Pope Leo XIV called for a day of prayer and fasting to end violence. Clearly, he understands what is at stake and believes in the power of prayer.
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So, let us recommit ourselves to prayer, not as a slogan but as a lifeline. Pray and hope, now more than ever. Pray the Lord’s Prayer, a Psalm, or a decade of the rosary with your family. Stop by a church or synagogue on your way home from work. Pray with hope, “for the God who is with us is greater than the one who is in the world.” (1 John 4:4)
Evil is real. But Christ has conquered. The most important thing we can do in the face of such horror is to pray and to hope, and to never lose sight of the truth that darkness does not have the last word.
The Rev. Dave Pivonka TOR is the president of Franciscan University of Steubenville