Gun Violence

A young man painting a chapel in Puebla was killed when gunmen shot at a work crew involved in community service in what was the second recent act of violence targeting churches in one of Mexico’s largest and most traditionally Catholic cities.

On the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes — the Church’s World Day of the Sick — Bishop Stephen Jensen of Prince George called the people of northern British Columbia to prayer and penance following a mass school shooting that took place midday Feb. 10 in Tumbler Ridge.

Mexico’s bishops called on the country to “work together toward peace” after a massacre on a soccer field in west-central Guanajuato state claimed 11 lives and injured a dozen more.

The auditorium — which was used to celebrate Mass for nearly five months after an Aug. 27, 2025, shooting during an all-school Mass took the lives of the Merkels’ 8-year-old son, Fletcher, and 10-year-old Harper Moyski — was filled Jan. 10 with Annunciation parents and community members.