I’ve tried to describe to my children what it was like in the United States after the horrific Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. My oldest child was 1 year old at the time and doesn’t remember the aftermath, when we came together to mourn and express our love for each other and our country, and our outrage at those who would attack us.
Somewhere in between 2001 and today, we lost our ability to feel the level of shared trust and warmheartedness toward one another required to cry together.
Our hearts all broke on Wednesday when, once again, a school shooter took the lives of children in a place where they should be safe. This time they were children who were in the act of praying and worshipping God during a schoolwide Mass at Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis. Two children, ages 8 and 10, were killed in the shooting, and 18 other children and adults were injured.
What comes next?
In an age where everything is political, apparently we fight.
Mourning together requires shared language and cultural norms. An example of that used to be the expression, “My thoughts and prayers are with you.”
This phrase was seen as a heartfelt way to let someone know you share and support them in their grief. When someone says they’re praying for me, I feel gratitude that they would include me in their sacred and personal communication with God.
But now, this phrase, like so many other cultural touchstones, has become politicized, and I wish it hadn’t. I see friends who want to express their love for someone who has experienced grief searching for words — any words — but those.
What felt like just moments after the shooting on Wednesday, the mayor of Minneapolis, Jacob Frey, took it one step further. “Don’t just say this is about thoughts and prayers right now: these kids were literally praying.”
They were literally praying. Does he misunderstand why those of us who pray, pray?
Minnesota Catholic Bishop Robert Barron was critical of the mayor’s choice of words.
“Catholics don’t think that prayer magically protects them from all suffering. After all, Jesus prayed fervently from the cross on which he was dying,” Barron said in a Fox News interview.
“Prayer is the raising of the mind and heart to God, which strikes me as altogether appropriate precisely at times of great pain,” he said. “And prayer by no means stands in contrast to decisive moral action. Martin Luther King was a man of deep prayer, who also effected a social revolution in our country. This is not an either/or proposition.”
While Frey was speaking from a place of pain and anguish for the children, their families and his city, he missed a moment to unite instead of divide.
Barron also spoke about the anti-Catholic, anti-Christian nature of the shooting. The children were shot while praying, doing something beautiful and important. And in that moment, someone who appeared to hate their acts of faith, attacked them.
Responding by criticizing people for sharing thoughts and prayers in this moment feels particularly tone deaf.
And now, what used to be a way to express shared grief — to show that you were mourning with those who mourned — is a way to identify someone’s politics.
Frey, in the immediate aftermath and later on CNN, wasn’t the only one criticizing “thoughts and prayers.” Following him, several others in the media and politics meted out judgment on those who share their “thoughts and prayers” in a time of grief, including former White House press secretary Jen Psaki.
“Prayer is not freaking enough. Prayers does not end school shootings. Prayers do not make parents feel safe sending their kids to school. Prayer does not bring these kids back. Enough with the thoughts and prayers,” she said in a post on X.
To those who sympathize with Frey and Psaki, their statements on thoughts and prayers land differently. They both want action on the regulation of guns, and this has become the battle cry of those who agree with them: “Enough of your thoughts and prayers, do something!”
Americans need to look across the aisle and recognize there is a deeply held shared desire to stop school shootings, but there is disagreement about what can and should be done. It was heartening that after the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, lawmakers came together in a bipartisan way to approve legislation at the state and national level — including a number of solutions offered from the left and right. It can be done.
But in truth, prayer is action, and the desire to share empathy should not be politicized. It is not the only action we should take, of course, but it is action. It helps us search for meaning, for comfort, for help in times of pain and distress.
If you’re angry at policy decisions made by lawmakers, join the club. We all have things we can point at to justify our anger and frustration. But anger gives us a false sense of power. While it may be a natural response to grief, it is not one that unites and heals, or gets us closer to resolving our differences and problems.
People of faith have too frequently been the target of violence in recent years. And the rise of political extremism on the left and right leads to more violence, including in this case.
Perhaps the lawmakers and media personalities who hope to score political points by heaping scorn on those who use expressions of faith and sympathy in the face of tragedy could reconsider.
It would be nice if we could find a way to mourn together again.