Shooting of Virginia Tech students 'tremendously sad,' bishop [Francis DiLorenzo, Richmond] says

http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0702114.htm ^ | 04-16-07 | Jerry Filteau and Patricia Zapor .

[Salvation]

Shooting of Virginia Tech students 'tremendously sad,' bishop says

By Catholic News Service

BLACKSBURG, Va. (CNS) -- The April 16 shooting spree at Virginia Tech that left at least 32 people dead is "tremendously sad," said Bishop Francis X. DiLorenzo of Richmond.

In a phone interview just hours after the shootings, Teresa Volante, Catholic campus minister at Virginia Tech, said she had sent out an electronic notice that the Newman Center chapel was open for anyone who wanted to stop in and pray.

But she said the center, located just off the campus, was rather quiet at that time since the dormitories on campus were still locked down and the off-campus students had been instructed to stay away.

"I'm here for students to talk to," she said.

Later in the afternoon Debbie McClintock, a volunteer who came in to help, told Catholic News Service that a prayer service was scheduled for 7 p.m. at the center.

She said people at the center were calm and were focused on helping anyone who came in.

At St. Mary's Parish, the only Catholic parish in Blacksburg, the receptionist said the pastor, Father James Arsenault, had spent more than three hours at the hospital with those who were wounded before heading over to the university to help there.

She said the church would be open all afternoon, with the Blessed Sacrament exposed for adoration, followed by a special Mass in the evening.

The university president, Charles Steger, called the shootings "a tragedy that we consider of monumental proportions."

Bishop DiLorenzo said his heart goes out to the parents and family members of the dead students.

"At this time one cannot help but think of the endless years of commitment, of love and care these parents have invested in their children and then have it all cut down by a bullet is tremendously sad," he said.

"The tragedy really hit home with me," he said, because he learned of it at a chancery luncheon that included two women who have children studying at Virginia Tech. He said that fortunately their children were not harmed.

Emily Flach, a freshman business major who lives on campus, said, "People are just really shocked. It's unbelievable that something like this happened."

She told CNS at 3 p.m. that many students had not eaten all day because of the lockdown and a remaining uncertainty about whether it was safe to go out.

She said her dormitory is about three minutes' walk from West Ambler Johnston, the dormitory where the first shooting occurred about 7:15 a.m. Two hours later the gunman, who was not immediately identified, attacked a classroom in Norris Hall, an engineering building, shooting more than 40 people before he was killed.

The initial death toll was placed at 22, including the gunman, but as the day wore on the number of dead rose to 32.

When Flach learned there would be a prayer service at the Newman Center that evening, she said she thought that was a good idea. "I think the best thing we can do is come together ... and pray for everyone," she said.

Anne Greenwood, a second-year graduate student in history, said she was in a conference room in McBryde Hall, one building over from Norris Hall, where the majority of victims were shot.

She said the first notice the group she was with had about the shootings was when they began receiving campus e-mail around 9:30 a.m. In quick succession, messages from the administration said there had been a shooting in a residence hall, then warned everyone that a gunman was still on campus and that they should stay inside.

Greenwood said the people she was with were unsure whether they were hearing gunshots because of extreme high winds at the time.

"To be quite honest, it was scary as hell," she said.

Speaking with CNS a couple of hours after students were allowed to leave the campus, Greenwood said the impact of the gunman's toll was still hitting her.

"I'm having a hard time dealing with the fact that so many died," she said.

The April 16 shooting was the deadliest on-campus attack in U.S. history. Before that the worst was at the University of Texas in Austin in 1966, when a gunman climbed a clock tower and killed 16 people before police killed him.

Last year on the first day of classes for the 2006-07 school year at Virginia Tech, an escaped inmate was captured near the campus after he allegedly shot and killed a sheriff's deputy and a security guard. While the search for the inmate was on, classes were canceled, the Virginia Tech campus was closed and students and staff were ordered to stay indoors.

Virginia Tech has about 25,000 students. Volante said about 800 to 1,000 of the students regularly attend Sunday Mass at the Newman Center or are involved in activities there.

- - -

Contributing to this story were Jerry Filteau and Patricia Zapor in Washington.

[Salvation]

Such a sad story today.

[Salvation]

Catholic News Ping!

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[Salvation]

Did any FReepers have students there?

Prayers for those who were so brutally murdered as well as their families.

[Mad Dawg]

We have friends there, and the children of friends. But we are so far down the list that all we can do is worry pray, so that's what we're doing. We DO know that the son of one friend wasn't anywhere near the gunfire.

[Biggirl]

All we can do is pray. Incidents like this one renforces for me why we need the Divine Mercy of the Lord.

[Pinkbell]

That is such a tragedy. One can only offer prayers that the Lord will be with the faculty, students, and their families in such a difficult time. How horrifying this was.

It’s a shame they didn’t shut down or apprehend the shooter after the 7:15 AM shooting. At least only 2 would have been dead. Although 0 would be most preferable. I also wonder if this shooting in any is related to two bomb threats they have gotten this past month.

[dominic flandry]

What you won’t hear or read in any of the news reports that mention the Whitman shootings at the University of Texas in the 60’s is the students and townspeople went home or to their cars and got their rifles and returned Whitman’s fire helping to pin him down and keeping him from killing more than he did.

[Veggie Todd]

I haven’t read any other threads about this today, so please forgive me if this has been mentioned about 100 times, but I wonder if Rosie O’Doughnut has locked herself in her room sobbing, like she said she did after Columbine?

[Salvation]

Indeed, I had not heard that.

[betsyross1776]

Sometimes we wonder why things like this happen.We wonder how in a society that has so much to offer can have this happen in our country. Evil does exist , we all know this. When we look at the tv for the next week or so we must look to God for our answers. God was with the students who survived and those who went to Heaven are now with Him and his peace.We pray for the soul of the shooter and his forgiveness and the justice given by God for such a crime.We are taught to forgive and we will all pray at his time to forgive no matter how hard it is. Pray for the students who survived and now are remembering this horrible day in our nations history.Pray for VT , the students ,teachers, the nation at this time. As the days after 911 we now need God more then ever. Peace!

[Larry Lucido]

will all pray at his time to forgive no matter how hard it is

Pray to forgive who?

[betsyross1776]

The person who committed this horrible crime. if we are what we profess to be we should pray for God to forgive this man. He stated from the cross,as he forgave the people who put him on the cross, this man did not know what he has done. Pray for all who hurt today, even for that terrible man.Pray also for the police who are working to solve this crime.Pray for our country.

[Larry Lucido]

I have to respectfully disagree. It’s “forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.” It’s not, “forgive others their trespasses,” and it’s not “as we forgive those who trespass against others.”

The victim can forgive.

A person can ask God’s forgiveness, but only as he forgives those who trespass against him.

My prayers today are with the victims.

And I call on fellow Christians, including Bishop Francis X. DiLorenzo, to abandon and repudiate any past misguided support he may have ever given to the concept of citizen disarmanent.

[Pinkbell]

I watched a part of The View at the beginning to see what she and Elizabeth would say. Rosie claimed to be numb and went on a spiel about how she would like the Constitution’s 2nd Amendment amended but how it was impossible to fight with the NRA.

[pray4liberty]

What you won’t hear or read in any of the news reports that mention the Whitman shootings at the University of Texas in the 60’s is the students and townspeople went home or to their cars and got their rifles and returned Whitman’s fire helping to pin him down and keeping him from killing more than he did.

It's a Federal offense to take a gun into a gun-free school zone! You can't even have one in your car. You'd be arrested.

[pray4liberty]

Rosie claimed to be numb and went on a spiel about how she would like the Constitution’s 2nd Amendment amended but how it was impossible to fight with the NRA.

Could it be because an armed bodyguard follows her around protecting her very generous butt?

[SaltyJoe]

Before the devil convinces us that .22 caliber guns are the devil, realize that lack of Jesus Christ in our lives means madness and violent chaos.

Here’s the new sound bite, slogan, and/or bumper sticker to drive home a simple fact:

“School Prayer prevents school shootings”

Atheism took God out of our hearts and puts a gun in a madman’s hands. How many children brought weapons into class and acted with premeditated murder whilst there was prayer in schools, public and private? And, are there statistics to show a difference of school violence between those education institutions that mandate prayer and those that mandate a atheistic communist socialist manifesto?

Some politicians have already attempted distractions trying to put the blame on a war being fought on the other side of the planet. Those same also blame a president for these shootings and will even try to use the weather and combustible engines as evidence of criminal action. Further still, the same hollow chests and talking heads say that a ban on partial birth abortion is to blame (which again shifts the accusations back to a Pro-Life president). Did such a godless crowd wonder that South Korea, the murderer’s country of origin, has one of the worst track records for high abortion rates among Western nations?

No, the blame goes squarely on making Faith a criminal action. Banning pray in school is an unjust law and our young adults and school kids are now suffering without the protection of prayer.

Would that the deceased young and disturbed murderer had prayer in his American high school, even a prayer as simple and blessed as the “Our Father”, then this terrible event would most likely never have been. His peers would have been ashamed of bullying behavior, and all loners would have a light to guide them through difficult loneliness.

Atheism has taken Christ out of our children's hearts and put Prozac and Ritalin in their stomachs. Why? Was it to scare us into voting for them? How could such politicians see Jesus Christ’s pierce hands as a pair that would hold guns to our head? And as if education weren’t overpriced already! Are we to pay for metal detectors and bullet proof Kevlar uniforms now? What will be the godless solution now? Free pot and prescription drugs to keep us doped up slaves and away from falling on our knees to ask God for daily help?

I expect a knee jerk reaction to ban guns, but I hope that there’s more unquieted comments on a lack of Jesus in our schools, in our work place, and in our government.