Shortly after a nurse was killed while protesting immigration enforcement operations in Minneapolis, a U.S. cardinal called on people of faith to counter violence with love — and to ask their elected officials to vote against an upcoming congressional appropriations bill that includes funding for what he called a “lawless organization.”
Cardinal Joseph W. Tobin of Newark, N.J., joined several religious leaders for a Jan. 25 “National Faith Call to Action,” organized and hosted online by Faith in Action, a global, nonpartisan, faith-based network that counts 1,000 congregations in the U.S., as well as in Haiti, Central America, Africa and Eastern Europe.
Organizers described the call, which was accessible by Facebook Live and Zoom, as an opportunity to “lament, pray, and take action,” following the Jan. 24 shooting death of 37-year-old Alex Pretti, a Minneapolis resident who worked in the intensive care unit at the city’s Veterans Administration health care system.
Pretti was shot by a Border Patrol agent while observing and filming on his phone an immigration enforcement operation, initial reports said.
The incident took place just over a mile from where 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good, another U.S. citizen, was shot to death Jan. 7 by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Jonathan Ross. Good had joined in a similar protest against “Operation Metro Surge,” part of the Trump administration’s crackdown on unauthorized immigration, when she was shot to death in her vehicle in an apparent attempt to leave the scene. Federal officials claimed the agent shot her in self-defense when she tried to run him over.
During the Faith in Action call, Cardinal Tobin said he has “always been consoled” by a passage from “Pane e Vino” by Italian novelist Ignazio Silone, which was written “in the dark days of fascism in Italy.”
The cardinal recounted how a distraught young woman in the novel seeks the counsel of an elderly priest amid the repression of the regime.
“And this old man looked at the young woman and said, ‘I’m not sure what we can do, but I am sure of this, that what topples empires and what keeps dictators awake at night is the sole person who steals into the piazza in the middle of the night and scrawls on the wall, “No,”‘” said Cardinal Tobin, adding, “I think if we are serious about putting our faith in action, we need to say, ‘No.'”
He said that “in my own faith tradition, I think one way that we say, ‘No,’ is that we mourn,” noting that “we do not celebrate death” and “we do not pretend it doesn’t happen.”
“We say names. We pray for the dead,” said Cardinal Tobin.
He pointed to the deaths of Pretti and Good, and also appeared to reference the detention of Liam Conejo Ramos, a 5-year-old child who along with his father was taken into custody by federal agents in Minneapolis Jan. 20 after arriving home from school, and sent to a family detention facility in Texas.
“We mourn for a world, a country that allows 5-year-olds to be legally kidnapped and protesters to be slaughtered,” said the cardinal.
Noting that he was speaking to call participants “within a couple of miles of two major detention centers” — ICE’s Delaney Hall Detention Facility in Newark and Elizabeth Contract Detention Facility in Elizabeth, New Jersey — Cardinal Tobin said, “Every day, people from many faith communities” go to the two centers “and they say no by standing at the gates, by talking with the ICE personnel, by insisting on the rights of the detainees within.
“They bring them human comfort,” he said. “They console the families of those who aren’t always admitted to see their loved ones.”
The cardinal asked call participants to ponder how they would in turn “say no to violence,” quoting the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.: “Hate cannot drive out hate. Only love can do that.”
Cardinal Tobin also looked ahead to an appropriations bill Congress will consider in the coming days, with funding for the Department of Homeland Security — the federal agency that oversees both Customs and Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement — part of the legislation.
“How will you say no?” he asked. “Will you contact your congressional representatives, the senators and representatives from your district? We ask them for the love of God and the love of human beings, which can’t be separated, vote against renewing funding for such a lawless organization.”
Referencing a passage from the novel, Cardinal Tobin asked participants in the prayer call, “How will you scrawl your answer on the wall? How will you help restore a culture of life in the midst of death?”
After the shooting of Pretti, the odds of a partial shutdown increased as key Senate Democrats said they would oppose a funding package that includes appropriations for DHS, which would fund ICE, as currently written.
Accounts by federal officials, including Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino, of Pretti’s death, claiming that he was a “domestic terrorist” intent on carrying out a “massacre” of federal agents who fired “defensive shots,” were quickly refuted by multiple bystanders’ video evidence showing an entirely different scene take place.
Videos show Pretti was holding his phone and had just helped a woman up, when he was pepper-sprayed and subdued by over a half dozen masked federal agents. As agents beat Pretti on the ground, including several times with a pepper-spray canister, one appears to have removed a gun from Pretti’s waist. As that agent in a gray coat walks away from the scene with a firearm that matches the description of Pretti’s Sig Sauer 9mm pistol, another agent is seen firing a single shot into Pretti’s back while the ICU nurse was on his knees. Another agent unholsters his gun and then fires into Pretti who slumps motionless to the ground. Together both agents fire 10 shots into Pretti within five seconds, multiple bystander videos show.
In response to a question about officials who labeled Pretti a “domestic terrorist,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said at a Jan. 26 press briefing she has not heard the president “characterize Mr. Pretti that way.”
Leavitt also said Trump “still has confidence in Secretary Noem” despite dispatching his “border czar” Tom Homan to Minneapolis.
The death of Pretti has led to growing calls from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle for full and transparent investigations. Local authorities have said that Pretti — who had a handful of traffic infractions and no criminal record — was lawfully carrying his gun, for which they said he had a permit.
Gun rights groups likewise condemned Trump administration officials’ assertion that law enforcement would likely have been legally justified in shooting Pretti for carrying a lawful firearm at a protest.
Six of the 12 annual spending bills for the current budget year have already been signed into law by President Donald Trump, but six more — including one funding DHS and ICE — are still pending in the Senate. Congress has until Jan. 30 to pass the bills or have a partial government shutdown.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Jan. 25 that Democrats will not support the package if it includes the current form of DHS funding, calling for it to be renegotiated to include new stronger constraints on federal immigration officers.
“Senate Republicans have seen the same horrific footage that all Americans have watched of the blatant abuses of Americans by ICE in Minnesota,” Schumer said.
“The appalling murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti on the streets of Minneapolis must lead Republicans to join Democrats in overhauling ICE and CBP to protect the public,” he continued. “People should be safe from abuse by their own government.”
The Senate Republican Conference wrote on X, “Democrats want to shut down the government — again — unless ICE is defunded. Not a chance.”
However, multiple Senate Republicans have called for a thorough investigation into Pretti’s death.
“The fatal shooting of Alex Pretti is tragic,” Sen. Jon Husted, R-Ohio, wrote on X. “My prayers are with his family and all who are grieving. Any incident involving law enforcement’s use of lethal force must be thoroughly and objectively investigated.”
In response to a statement from Trump that he spoke with Gov. Tim Walz., D-Minn, by phone, in the wake of the incident, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., wrote on X, “This is a positive development — one that I hope leads to turning down the temperature and restoring order in Minnesota.”
“I encourage local officials in Minnesota to work with the administration to keep communities safe and continue the important work of enforcing our laws and getting dangerous criminals off of America’s streets,” he said.
This story was co-authored by Gina Christian and Kate Scanlon of OSV News.
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