CBJ Note: Annunciation Catholic School has been serving South Minneapolis since 1923and is, according to their website, the only International Baccalaureate PYP Catholic school in Minnesota. CNA—After a pair of out-of-state school shootings in 2022 and 2023 shocked the nation, Minnesota’s bishops implored state lawmakers to provide security funding for local nonpublic schools. Now, two years after their appeals went unheeded, tragedy has struck one of their own. Tragedy at Catholic school in MN On the morning of Aug. 27, a gunman opened fire during an all-school Mass at Annunciation Catholic Church in Minneapolis, killing two students, aged 10 and 8; 14 other students and three adults were injured. But two years prior, requests for increased security by SIX Dioceses went unheeded by state The tragedy comes after the Minnesota Catholic Conference (MCC), the public policy voice of Minnesota’s six dioceses, made requests to state officials to extend funds for security upgrades and emergency-response training to nonpublic schools in both 2022 and 2023. The appeals, which came after deadly school shootings at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, and at the Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee, argued that students at Catholic and other nonpublic schools should receive the same level of protection as their public-school peers. “We need to ensure that all our schools have the resources to respond to and prevent these attacks from happening to our schools,” wrote Jason Adkins, MCC’s executive director, in an April 14, 2023, letter to Gov. Tim Walz and Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, who are both Democrats. The letter was also signed by Tim Benz, president of a...
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