Seattle pastor urges ‘sensible legislation’ following Minneapolis shooting

Just hours after a gunman opened fire outside a Mass at a Catholic school in Minneapolis, St. James Cathedral in Seattle welcomed parishioners for a midday Mass.

Father Michael Ryan, the Pastor Emeritus of St. James, said he felt it was important that their services continued as scheduled.

“We’re not going to stop praying. We’re not going to stop gathering churches like this,” Ryan said. “If anything, we need to do it more.”

Andy, a frequent parishioner, agreed with the need to meet and pray in light of the tragedy. He attended Wednesday’s Mass to pray for the families of Minneapolis.

“The shock that the people have to go through—the parents, oh my God, and those kids. They’ll be changed for life to be in a situation like that,” Andy reflected.

Jake and Spike discuss challenge of covering Minneapolis shooting

KIRO host Jake Skorheim said when there’s not much you can do but shake your head, it’s hard to cover a school shooting.

“It’s just an awful story,” he said on “The Jake and Spike Show” on KIRO Newsradio. “It’s a horrible story. I hate every time one of these things happens, we have to figure out how are we going to cover it? How can we be sensitive to it? Because we feel it deeply.”

KIRO host Spike O’Neill echoed Jake’s sentiment.

“I’m afraid you’re so accurately describing what’s available to us,” he shared. “We can bring you how we feel about the story. We can tell you the details of how this transpired. Hopefully, we can examine the elements that led to this and learn from those, and maybe make course corrections. But as a society, where do you start to unravel the bag of snakes that led this individual to take this action?”

Ryan said Wednesday’s deadly shooting needs more than prayers.

“I can’t get my head around it, but I also look at our country, and see how unwilling we have been to pass legislation, sensible legislation, to control the use of these firearms,” he said. “This produces a great amount of anger in me, and because we’ve been here before, we know what needs to happen, but we won’t do it.”

Arlington High School allows student to come back to school

Jake pointed to a situation at Arlington High School, where it was recently announced that a student who carried a weapon onto the premises 18 months ago may be allowed back on school grounds when classes start Sept. 3.

Parents started a petition to block the student’s re-entry to the campus. It has nearly 1,300 signatures, as of Monday morning. Parents argued that the student should be limited to online classes only.

St. James Cathedral plans to continue its regular Mass schedule in the days ahead.

KIRO Newsradio asked the Seattle Police Department (SPD) if it planned to add additional patrols around Catholic churches.

“The Seattle Police Department allocates resources where needed, and if a credible threat is perceived, officers will be dispatched immediately to the location,” an SPD spokesperson responded.

Two children and 17 people were killed in Minneapolis, according to The Associated Press. The shooter died by suicide.

Contributing: Julia Dallas and Frank Sumrall, MyNorthwest; The Associated Press