San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Archbishop is there for Uvalde
San Antonio’s Catholic leader regularly visits to offer comfort to all after the school shooting
San Antonio Archbishop Gustavo Garcia-Siller was driving back to Uvalde the morning after Texas’ deadliest school shooting — after having spent most of the previous night there accompanying grieving families— when he passed by an advertisement promoting guns.
“We want children and young people to think differently and the common element to all these situations having happened lately in Buffalo,
N.Y., El Paso and Houston … the common element is guns, lack of control,” Garcia-Siller told Religion News Service as he was en route to Uvalde.
He condemned gun culture, saying guns are treated as idols and a source of pride among people who may feel “I am powerful with a gun.”
“We don’t want to give up what that means money-wise, business-wise,” added GarciaSiller, who has been a fixture in Uvalde since the shooting.
Nineteen children and two teachers were killed May 24 after an 18-year-old gunman stormed into Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, a small, predominantly Latino city of more than 15,000.
Garcia-Siller added that people can’t be “pro-life” and continue to support laws that allow these kind of shootings to happen. He said a “corrupted political system for years has undermined human beings.
“If our ethics are not consistent with respecting human life, period, no matter color, language, religion, profession, way of life — life is life — then we are not pro-life,” he said.
Shortly after the shooting, Garcia-Siller visited Uvalde Memorial Hospital, where many of the shooting victims were taken.
That same evening, he led Mass at Sacred Heart Catholic Church, a parish in the Archdiocese of San Antonio where, according to the Catholic News Agency, 11 of the shooting victims were parishioners. The archbishop, who has been featured in state and national news media outlets comforting families of victims, spent much of the last two weeks in Uvalde, where he celebrated numerous Masses.
In between, he has traveled to other parts of the diocese. He returned to Sacred Heart again last Sunday when President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden sat in the front pew. GarcíaSiller also accompanied the president and first lady as they visited with victims’ families.
The day of the shooting, he was present at the SSGT Willie de Leon Civic Center, where victims’ family members awaited word about — or to be reunited with — their loved ones. It was there Garcia-Siller met Joe Garcia, the husband of veteran teacher Irma Garcia, who was shot and killed during the rampage.
On Wednesday morning, Garcia-Siller returned to Sacred Heart, this time to preside at the funeral Mass for the Garcias. In his homily, the archbishop said that Joe Garcia shared how much he loved his wife of 24 years during their encounter. Garcia died of a heart attack two days after leaving flowers for his wife at the memorial outside of Robb Elementary. The couple had four children.
On Wednesday, the archbishop was joined by Auxiliary Bishop Gary Janak, a concelebrant at the liturgy, along with the Rev. Eduardo Morales and seven priests of the archdiocese, mainly from neighboring parishes in the Uvalde Rural Deanery for the Garcias’ funeral.
Both “Father Eddy” and “Archbishop Gustavo” were mentioned by President Biden in his address to the nation on guns Thursday evening.
Garcia-Siller has vowed to continue to offer comfort to people in Uvalde.
“The archbishop will be traveling to and spending time in Uvalde consistently,” Jordan McMorrough, a spokesman for the archdiocese, said via email. “He has emphasized this is long-term accompaniment with people here.”
Garcia-Siller’s homily offered some insight into how he consoles the many mourners: “We are here to proclaim our faith in the Lord who is able to give our deceased loved ones a joy that far exceeds our pain. In fact, all the honors that we can offer them pale in comparison to the glory we trust they already enjoy. We pay our respects to them with the dignity they are due, we pray for their eternal repose, and we also hope that they may be able to intercede for us.”