Churches in Uvalde Cry, Pray, and Comfort One Another in First Sunday Since Elementary School Shooting That Killed 21 People

Dozens attended Mass at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Uvalde on the first Sunday since a gunman took the lives of 21 people at an elementary school. (Credit: Evan L’Roy for The Texas Tribune)

On Sunday morning, Cleo and Zeke Hernandez, 75 and 80, celebrated Mass at Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Church for the first time in two and a half years. They had stopped attending after Zeke had surgery.

But this Sunday, Uvalde was different — and so were they. The couple came to church to begin to heal. Faith might offer peace or rebuilding, they thought.

“We just lean on God,” Cleo Hernandez said as she walked into the church with her husband. “He will take care of us.”

It was the first Sunday worship in Uvalde since a gunman took the lives of 21 people — two educators and 19 children — at Robb Elementary School on Tuesday in the deadliest school shooting in Texas history, and the second deadliest in the nation’s history.

Churches throughout this mostly Latino city of 15,000 opened their doors to a steady stream of worshippers, whether regulars, newcomers or lapsed congregants and parishioners. Some, like the Hernandezes, had not been to church in years. Others said they come every week but that this week especially they needed to pray for the families of the victims.

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SOURCE: The Texas Tribune, Brian Lopez and Erin Douglas