Minneapolis pastor recalls heroism amid tragedy at school Mass shooting

MINNEAPOLIS (OSV News) — For the first time since the Aug. 27 attack by a shooter who killed two children and wounded at least 21 more victims at an all-school Mass where he was presiding at Annunciation Catholic Church, Father Dennis Zehren publicly described his attempt to save the children.

“If I could have got between those bullets and the kids,” Father Zehren said, his voice breaking with emotion at an Aug. 30 news conference outside Annunciation elementary school.

“That’s what I was hoping to do. … the doors were barred, shut on the outside by the gunman,” said Father Zehren, Annunciation’s pastor. “We tried to get out. I think some of the fathers would have gone out there and gang-rushed him if they could have, and I would have been right there with them.

“But I think by that time, the damage was done,” and the shooter died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, Father Zehren said.

“It’s a difficult memory,” Father Zehren said. “It just was loud (the gunshots). It just kept coming, and my first instinct was to just rush toward where the bullets were coming from. There were some fathers who were heading in the same direction, and I was on the phone with 911 just hoping to peek out the window to see which direction (the shooter) might be going in. So I could give them some help. But it was a flurry, and like I said, it seemed to keep coming.”

The news conference took place before the first parish Mass — held at the Annunciation Catholic School’s auditorium instead of the now-desecrated church — since the shooting. The school is steps away from the church.

Identified as Robin Westman, the suspected shooter was a former Annunciation student, then known as Robert Westman, whose mother had been previously employed by the school. Westman fired from three guns through Annunciation’s stained-glass windows around 8:30 a.m. during the first all-school Mass of the PreK-to-eighth-grade school’s academic year. Westman died by suicide in the parking lot.

Archbishop Bernard A. Hebda of St. Paul and Minneapolis joined Father Zehren at the news conference, at one point placing his hand on the priest’s shoulder in support. The archbishop concelebrated the Mass that followed.

The archbishop and Father Zehren opened the news conference describing the importance of the Mass to the Catholic faith. The fact that Annunciation parish would hold a public Mass so soon after the church shooting might surprise some, the archbishop said.

“And yet it’s so important for us in our Catholic tradition for Masses, where we most experience God’s presence and God’s love,” Archbishop Hebda said. “And it’s the place where we come together to be a community.”

Father Zehren said the Mass is what the parish community needs.

“This is why we’re here,” he said. “They just want to be together. They want to pray. They want to help and do anything they can.

“Mass is the heart of what we do,” Father Zehren said. “The Mass is not just a worship service. Because we recognize that as Catholics … we enter into the paschal mystery of Jesus.”

That mystery is presented to the community each time a Mass is celebrated, through joys and sorrows, the priest said.

“Whenever we gather at Mass, we are re-presented with Jesus as he gathered with his Apostles at the Last Supper. We are presented with his suffering. We are presented with his dying, and we are presented with his rising from the dead,” Father Zehren said.

Asked about the impact of the church attack occurring during a Mass, Father Zehren said he would be “reflecting on that for the rest of my life.”

“I will never be able to unsee,” Father Zehren said. “But in addition to the sorrow and the terror, we know that Jesus was there with us. … Jesus comes to the depths of what we are going through. That’s where he brings the healing and the salvation for whatever we go through.”

Attending the Mass with his family was Sean O’Brien, an Annunciation alumnus and parent who said he was at the Aug. 27 Mass in the back of the church with his 2-year-old daughter, Molly, when shots rang out. His son Emmett, an Annunciation preschooler, was in the basement. His other children, fourth-grader Conor and first-grader Finley, were sitting with their classmates.

“I saw a shaft of light going through the window and that’s when I knew we were being attacked,” O’Brien said. “I could feel like this evil force coming through, and that’s when I knew we had to get away from it.”

“I grabbed my daughter, and we went behind a pillar. I didn’t really feel safe, so I went to another pillar more up front. When the shooting stopped, we said, ‘OK, who needs help?’ And we did what we could.'”

O’Brien, 37, said he rushed to an injured student and remained there until the police came.

“There were people taking action that were motivated by the love they felt for the people around them, from the very moment things started,” he said. “And that’s only going to continue and get stronger.”

Sean’s wife, Mallory, said she learned that Finley was with her eighth-grade buddy, in a school tradition where older students accompany younger students to school Masses.

“They held hands all the way to the school” as students were evacuated, Mallory O’Brien said. Her daughter’s buddy “took her hand and held her hand the whole way” to her teacher in the classroom.

The O’Briens expressed gratitude that no one in their family was injured. And with service and community in mind, they are helping others where they can.

“We’ve really been getting together all week ever since Wednesday (Aug. 27),” Sean O’Brien said after the Mass. “The best thing for us has been to be together with the people that we love in this parish and in this community. … To be here, to be together again, really means a lot. There’s no place we’d rather be.”

At Mass in the school’s auditorium the following day, Father Zehren talked about the immense help parishioners and neighbors, community responders and others have provided one another. He compared it to the book of Exodus passage in which Moses lifted his arms and hands in prayer, and when he wearied, the Israelites fell back in battle. When Moses held up his arms, they prospered in the fight.

“That’s what we’ve been experiencing in so many ways around here. All of you. All of our neighbors, all of our community, police, first responders, they’ve been a rock underneath us,” he said Aug. 31. “And they will continue to be a rock for us. There (are) so many people who will be continuing to hold up our hands in prayer.”

Co-author Joe Ruff is editor-in-chief for The Catholic Spirit, the newspaper of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. Co-author Josh McGovern, a reporter for The Catholic Spirit, contributed to this story. This reporting was originally published by The Catholic Spirit and distributed through a partnership with OSV News.

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