Three months after shooter killed two students at Annunciation Church Mass, Archbishop Hebda leads rite of reparation to restore sacred space.
Newsroom (10/12/2025 Gaudium Press ) On the morning of December 6, Archbishop Bernard A. Hebda of Saint Paul and Minneapolis, joined by Auxiliary Bishops Kevin T. Kenney and Michael J. Izen, celebrated a special Mass of reparation at Annunciation Catholic Church, formally restoring the south Minneapolis parish to full liturgical use three months after a gunman opened fire through its stained-glass windows during a school Mass.
The August 27 attack claimed the lives of two Annunciation School students — eight-year-old Fletcher Merkel and ten-year-old Harper Moyski — and wounded 18 other children along with three adults before the shooter, Robin Westman, took his own life at the scene. Westman, who was born Robert and identified as a woman, had posted anti-Christian and explicit content on social media in the days leading up to the shooting.
Speaking outside the church doors moments before the liturgy began, Archbishop Hebda invoked the Blessed Virgin Mary, to whom the parish is dedicated. “Our Blessed Mother lived this faith and cooperated with God’s plan for her life, despite the difficulties it would occasion,” he prayed. “We profess that our souls now will rejoin hers in proclaiming the greatness of the Lord in this church, dedicated in her honor, and now reclaimed for the glory of God.”
As the archbishop, his auxiliary bishops, and the congregation processed into the building chanting the Litany of the Saints, the altar stood bare — a deliberate sign of the desecration the space had undergone. The rite included prayers asking God to “restore the sanctity of this church, dedicated to your glory and the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary,” as well as petitions for healing for the injured and comfort for families who “suffered the harm done to their children.”
Annunciation’s pastor, Father Dennis Zehren, joined Archbishop Hebda in sprinkling holy water throughout the church, on the altar, and over the assembly. Media were not permitted inside during the Mass.
In his homily, Archbishop Hebda recalled the church’s dedication forty years earlier and the inscription carved outside its doors: “This is the house of God and the gate of heaven.” He contrasted that sacred identity with the events of August 27.
“This safe haven, this place of refuge, this foretaste of the order of the heavenly kingdom, was disturbed by a chaos that no one could have imagined,” the archbishop said in prepared remarks distributed to journalists. “It’s for that chaos that we’ve come together to engage in this act of penance and reparation this day.”
“This community will never forget what happened that day,” he continued, “and will forever remember with great love Harper and Fletcher, whose beautiful and inspiring lives were cut short as they and fellow students gathered for the Eucharist.”
Yet the archbishop highlighted what he described as an extraordinary witness of faith in the aftermath. “I’ve never seen such an outpouring of love and mutual support as I have witnessed here these last three months,” he said. “The sorrow understandably lingers, but there’s a Christ-centered resilience here that is remarkable — and praise God — it’s been contagious.”
Drawing on St. Paul’s words in Romans, Hebda declared, “We cannot undo the tragic loss of Fletcher and Harper, but we can communicate to the world that we recognize that the power of God is far in excess of any evil; that where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more.”
The Mass concluded with a resolute affirmation: “My brothers and sisters, the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead proclaims that evil and death do not have the final word; God does.” The archbishop closed by insisting, “We cannot let Satan win, and we, by God’s grace, reclaim this space today for Christ and his Church.”
With the rite completed, regular Masses and sacraments have resumed at Annunciation, a visible sign — in the words of its leaders — that the parish refuses to be defined by the violence visited upon it and chooses instead to proclaim the victory of the Resurrection within the very place where two young lives were lost.
- Raju Hasmukh with files from CNA
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