Sunday Essay: When Identity Becomes Idolatry - What the Minneapolis Catholic School Shooting Reveals About Our Age

The massacre at a Catholic school in Minneapolis wasn’t just another tragedy—it was a revelation of where our culture now stands. And the Church is increasingly in the crosshairs.

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by Virgil Walker
August 31, 2025

The news hit like a gut punch. A Catholic school in Minneapolis. Children gunned down during the morning hours at school. Two killed. Seventeen wounded. Parents dropping their kids off for what should have been the safest place — a school where religion is practiced — never imagined they would receive the call every parent dreads: Your child has been shot.

I tried to picture it. A mother straightening her child’s collar before drop-off, a father whispering, “Be good, I’ll see you after school,” — only to be met an hour later with news that their little one’s desk now sits empty. No parent is prepared for that sound. No heart can withstand it. And yet this is reality for families in Minneapolis today.

As a father of three children, I cannot imagine the outrage and emptiness left from such a tragedy. The thought of sending your child to school in the morning only to be robbed of them by…