IMAGE: CNS photo/Jim Davis for the Flor
By Carol Zimmermann
WASHINGTON (CNS) — March 14, exactly one month since the deadly
school shooting in Parkland, Florida, students from around the country planned
to walk out of their schools in protest of the nation’s gun laws for 17 minutes.
The time is meant to pay tribute to the 17 students and staff members killed that
afternoon by gunfire at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
The national
movement, at 10 a.m. in all time zones in the U.S., was organized primarily by
youths working with EMPOWER, the youth branch of the Women’s March, which organized marches for women’s rights in Washington and many other cities after President Donald Trump took office.
Another nationwide school walkout
is scheduled for April 20, the 19th anniversary of the school shooting at Columbine
High School in Littleton, Colorado. A related event is the “March for Our Lives” a youth-led demonstration March 24 in Washington, where 500,000 are expected to attend. Other demonstrations will take place in several U.S. cities to protest current gun laws.
The school walkouts
are intended to make a statement and vary from simply walking out of school for
the allotted time or attending an organized rally.
Most Catholic
schools across the country did not sanction walkouts, but they planned to
mark the somber anniversary of the deadly school shooting in Florida and also support youth-led advocacy of anti-gun violence in a different way — through prayer.
Instead
of walkouts, some schools were hosting “pray-outs,” saying
“rosaries for our lives” or attending school Masses to pray for
recent shooting victims and their families and for an end to violence.
The
focus is in “keeping with who we are as people of faith and a community of
believers,” said Dominican Sister John Mary Fleming, executive director of
the Secretariat of Catholic Education of the U.S. Conference of Catholic
Bishops.
Sister John
Mary, a member of the Dominicans’ St. Cecilia Congregation in Nashville,
Tennessee, said Catholic schools that are providing alternative school walkout events are
teaching their students to pray for a situation that needs a response and encouraging
them to take action by writing to legislators about gun legislation.
She sent
Catholic school superintendents an email March 5 acknowledging that “many dioceses
have chosen to support student participation in this important dialogue and
discussion through a clear presentation of Catholic social teaching and
peaceful civic engagement.”
For many
diocesan and private Catholic school leaders, balancing student advocacy and
safety was a critical decision not made lightly.
The
principal at St. Francis High School in Sacramento, California, wrote to
parents in early March saying: “Like other schools and districts across
the nation, we have been wrestling with the type of action we should take as a
school community” to the walkout, recognizing that many students want to
show solidarity and express their views but also noting there are “serious
safety issues presented by students leaving campus in the middle of the school
day.”
The decision,
announced by Elias Mendoza, who is principal of the all-girls school, was to “provide
students with an alternative avenue to express their viewpoints in a
constructive and meaningful way, while remaining on campus.” The school planned
a prayer service for peace and healing at 10 a.m. and said parents who wanted to allow their students to participate in a political rally that day would have to contact
the school office.
The
letter echoed what other Catholic school leaders have expressed: “At the
end of the day, we know our focus is educating students and keeping them safe,
not taking sides in politics or creating policy. Additionally, our staff is
aware that we’re tasked with the responsibility of maintaining political
neutrality in our role as educators, regardless of our own political views.”
Diane
Starkovich, superintendent of Catholic schools for the Atlanta Archdiocese,
said students walking off campus “cannot occur” because of concern
that administrators wouldn’t be able to keep students safe if they left the school
property.
In an email
to The Georgia Bulletin, the archdiocesan newspaper, she said local high school
administrators were talking with students “to allow them opportunities for
solidarity with other students across the country who share the same concerns
regarding gun control and mental illness issues as well.”
On the
day of the national walkout, students at some Catholic high schools in the
Atlanta area will have the chance to exchange their uniforms for clothing with the school
colors of the Parkland high school — maroon and silver – and funds
donated for this will be set aside for the victims of the Florida shooting.
Archdiocesan
high schools also are amending some courses as students have expressed concern
for the Florida high school community and want to talk about gun laws. Theology
classes, for example, will examine these shootings from the Catholic perspective,
asking questions about injustice and violence in the world and how believers
are to respond.
In Michigan, students from throughout the Detroit Archdiocese planned to hold prayerful gatherings to remember the Parkland shooting victims and also a mother and father fatally shot allegedly by their son March 2 at Central Michigan University in the neighboring Saginaw Diocese.
“The Archdiocese of Detroit adamantly detests gun violence of any kind, and I have encouraged our schools to discuss as a community, ways to prayerfully respond to these tragic events,” said Kevin Kijewski, superintendent of schools. “The result is a range of Catholic, faith-based responses to gun violence and a united appeal to the Lord for assistance during these difficult times.”
In the Archdiocese
of New Orleans, all Catholic schools have been asked to have 17 minutes of
prayer during the National School Walkout — beginning with a rosary, followed
by an archdiocesan prayer against violence, murder and racism — a prayer that
is said aloud by Catholics at every Mass in the archdiocese.
“We
didn’t hear of any schools or students participating (in the walkout), but we
were hearing from our school communities,’What could we do, what could we offer
in support of lessening gun violence?'” said RaeNell Houston, the archdiocese’s
superintendent of Catholic schools.
Houston told
the Clarion Herald, New Orleans’ archdiocesan newspaper, that children
deserve to be safe in our school communities and school officials felt that
“intentional, dedicated prayer would yield more fruitful results than a
walkout.”
Chicago archdiocesan
schools also were encouraged to take part in “peacebuilding
activities” March 14.
“We
believe this is a time to come together and work as a community of Catholic
schools to help achieve a lasting peace,” said Jim Rigg, archdiocesan
school superintendent, in a March 6 letter to school principals.
The Diocese
of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, planned school prayer services March 14 as a “positive
way to respond to the concerns of students, for the safety of schools and to
recognize the mourning of a country for so many lost,” a diocesan statement
said.
Father
Edward Quinlan, diocesan secretary for education, said the time of prayer
should not just be focused on the effects of gun violence. “School
violence takes many forms,” he said, “from the tragic assaults we saw
in Florida to the day-to-day bullying and harassment of other students.”
For some
Catholic schools, the alternative walkout day event was simple. St. Saviour
High School in Brooklyn, New York, was having a prayer service in the school
gym that would include reading the names aloud of those killed in the Florida
school shooting. Chaminade College Preparatory High School in West Hills, California,
was inviting students to participate in a 17-minute walk at lunch around the
track as an opportunity to show unity “and honor the students and faculty
who lost their lives.”
A week
before the national school walkout, hundreds of students at St. Teresa’s Academy in
Kansas City, Missouri, walked out of school in one of the first area school protests of gun
laws joining the national discussion about gun legislation, the Kansas City
Star reported.
“We
wanted to make a statement,” said a student of the all-girls school who
was one of the organizers for the event where there were speeches against gun
violence and a letter to local political leaders urging them to take a stand against
gun violence was read aloud.
These
students will not be taking part in the March 14 walkout, nor did their school
plan an alternative event, because they are currently on spring break.
– – –
Contributing
to this report was Christine Bordelon in New Orleans and Andrew Nelson in
Atlanta.
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Follow
Zimmermann on Twitter: @carolmaczim.
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