(CNS photo/Steve Marcus, Las Vegas Sun)A body is covered with a sheet in the intersection of Tropicana Avenue and Las Vegas Boulevard South after an Oct. 1 mass shooting at a music festival on the Las Vegas Strip. A gunman perched high on the 32nd floor of a casino hotel unleashed a shower of bullets on an outdoor country music festival below, killing at least 50 people and wounding hundreds, making it the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history.
On October 2, Cardinal Daniel N. DiNardo, Archbishop of Galveston-Houston, and President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), expressed “deep grief” after a deadly mass shooting in Las Vegas.

The full text of the statement follows:

“We woke this morning and learned of yet another night filled with unspeakable terror, this time in the city of Las Vegas, and by all accounts, the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.  My heart and my prayers, and those of my brother bishops and all the members of the Church, go out to the victims of this tragedy and to the city of Las Vegas.  At this time, we need to pray and to take care of those who are suffering.  In the end, the only response is to do good – for no matter what the darkness, it will never overcome the light.  May the Lord of all gentleness surround all those who are suffering from this evil, and for those who have been killed we pray, eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them.”

“I join with Cardinal DiNardo in offering my prayers for the victims, their families, and for the first-responders,” said Bishop Christopher J. Coyne of the Diocese of Burlington, “and I invite all those of the Catholic community in Vermont to do so as well.”