Peter Finney Jr.

Saying he carried with him the sorrow of the nation for a “horrific act of terrorism” on New Year’s Day that claimed the lives of 14 people on Bourbon Street, President Joe Biden told grieving families at an interfaith prayer service Jan. 6 at St. Louis Cathedral that they would one day be released from their shared pain.

Archbishop Gregory M. Aymond and 600 worshipers struggled to make sense of the death and carnage perpetrated by a man who drove a pickup truck into a dense crowd of early-morning New Year’s revelers just five blocks away on Bourbon Street.