Where Is Your God Now?
A disturbed young man opened fire on school children attending mass at the beginning of their school year. Two students from the Annunciation School in Minneapolis, aged 8 and 10 were killed, and 17 others wounded, all of whom are expected to recover from their injuries.
The shooter had once attended the school as a boy. Social media posts, captured before they were taken down showed he idolized other killers, sharing slogans about killing Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and Jews. He also shared an image of a magazine on which he had written, “Where is your God now?” The FBI is treating the incident as a hate crime against Catholics.
The shooter changed his name when he was 17, with the court filing submitted by his mother showing that he wanted to have a female name in keeping with his female identity. The New York Post reported that the young man had grown “tired” of being trans, wishing he had just been born a girl. In a journal, the Post said he wrote “I wish I never brain-washed myself.” He conceded that he couldn’t “become a woman” because the technology wasn’t there and he didn’t have the money. He didn’t even want long hair, but left it uncut so he wouldn’t draw attention to himself before the attack.
Meanwhile, the press twisted itself into knots to avoid “misgendering” the killer. Commentary Magazine noted the shift: in the past, outlets hid shooters’ names to deny them glory, which seems reasonable. But as Matt Continetti pointed out on the podcast, the policy now seems aimed at something else: “to shield the killer and to shield the community that the killer identifies with, which is a very different sort of thing.”
There’s little doubt the difference in reporting would be if the gunman targeted black neighborhoods or a synagogue. His manifesto would be quoted extensively. Everyone would be forced to denounce not only him but the entire “ideology” that shaped him. But because this shooter identified as transgender, the mayor of Minneapolis scolded anyone even asking questions: if you “villainize the trans community,” he said, you’ve “lost your sense of common humanity.” Under this framing, even examining the links between gender dysphoria, mental illness, and violence becomes off-limits.
But how can we help people who are told that they are brave in their delusion and given special treatment for embracing it? Good physicians don’t encourage dangerous behavior, they look for the underlying cause, as John Podhoretz put it “You do not comfort the delusion. You do not serve the delusion. You treat the pain.” But that requires honesty, and maybe even revisiting hard policies like involuntary commitment for those who show signs of planning harm. (Saferwatch’s Geno Roefaro appeared on the Megyn Kelly show to encourage people to report threats that can help law enforcement.)
Both sides of the political aisle want an end to mass shooting, but the stalemate remains. Progressives push for more gun laws; conservatives argue for hardening targets. Democrat Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota said Republicans are thwarting restrictions on “automatic rifles” and background checks, but as with many other cases, neither would have upset the killer’s plan. Republicans say the Democrats are deluded if they think reducing the number of guns in America is possible, and that the refusal to address the crisis of disaffected young men—and the role of psychotropic drugs in mass shootings—guarantees little will change.
We’re not in a great space..
Senator JD Vance took up the defence of “thoughts and prayers” which so many godless and hopeless ones despise:
Politicians may chatter while Christian children are gunned down by someone who hates their Creator, and police will keep “searching for a motive.” But our first response must be prayer. The world rejects that—because the idol of “doing something,” the idol of “where is God now?” blinds them to the only source of mercy and comfort. But we know Jesus hears us. He knows the pain and grief. He was hated too. He promised we would have tribulation in this life. He is also the only source of words that give life now—and the hope of the life to come. We know where Jesus is now, upholding reality with his mighty word, coming near in the sacrament, soon to return in power. Hold fast.
More from the Sentinel archives:
Home Grown Horrors
Ep 137: Dr Koontz and Rev Fisk talk about the recent Covenant school shooting, the demonic influence available through the internet that seeks the destruction of children, the self destructive demands of self made victims, and other incidents of mass shootings in America.