Vice President JD Vance visited the victims and families impacted by last week’s Catholic school shooting in Minnesota that took the lives of two children and injured several others, urging Americans to pray for one student who is still fighting for her life.
On Wednesday, Vance met with victims impacted by the shooting at Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis, Minnesota, that left two students dead and more than a dozen others injured.
“I have never had a day that will stay with me like this day did because I really felt like these parents, in the midst of the worst grief of their entire lives, they opened up their lives, they opened up their hearts and they made me part of it,” Vance said in a press conference after the meeting.
Vance, a practicing Roman Catholic and father of 3, also delivered a message on behalf of the parents whose children were killed or injured in the shooting. He specifically mentioned Lydia Kaiser, who remains hospitalized: “If you’re the praying type, say a prayer for this innocent girl who’s actually in surgery right now, that the swelling will go down, that she will be OK.” As of Thursday afternoon, a GoFundMe fundraiser to cover Kaiser’s medical expenses has accumulated nearly $350,000 in donations.
The vice president lamented that so much of people’s focus is “about the brutal maniac who shot up this school and not enough about the innocent children who lost their lives and were full of life.”
Vance described one of the victims killed in the shooting, 10-year-old Harper Moyski, as “a beautiful young girl” with a “beautiful smile” that “would turn a bad day into a good one.”
She was “very proud of the fact that she just had her first communion a couple years ago,” Vance said.
The father of the other child killed in the attack, 8-year-old Fletcher Merkel, “revisited the chapel” where the shooting took place for the first time during Vance’s visit to Minneapolis, he said.
Vance urged American parents to “make sure that you hug your kids tight because there are families in Minneapolis who won’t be able to do that ever again.”
In an X post published Wednesday, Vance urged prayer for Sophia Forchas, a 12-year-old student who was shot during the attack, saying she “continues to fight for her life every day.”
“Pray for her health, pray for her swelling to be controlled, and pray for strength for her parents, doctors, and nurses,” he wrote. Forchas has received over $900,000 in donations.
Vance has weighed in on the tragedy multiple times over the week and the importance of prayer. After former White House press secretary Jen Psaki posted on social media that “prayer is not freaking enough,” Vance rejected her analysis in a response. “We pray because our hearts are broken,” he asserted. “We pray because we know God listens.”
“We pray because we know that God works in mysterious ways, and can inspire us to further action. Why do you feel the need to attack other people for praying when kids were just killed praying?” he asked.
Ryan Foley is a reporter for The Christian Post. He can be reached at: ryan.foley@christianpost.com
