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Catholic School Students Pray for Victims of Connecticut Shooting

By Heather Cherone | December 17, 2012 12:32pm
 The sign outside St. Pascal School, a Catholic institution at 6143 W. Irving Park Road, urges passerby to pray for those involved in Friday's shooting at a Connecticut elementary school.
The sign outside St. Pascal School, a Catholic institution at 6143 W. Irving Park Road, urges passerby to pray for those involved in Friday's shooting at a Connecticut elementary school.
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DNAInfo/Heather Cherone

Students in Catholic schools throughout Chicago on Monday morning prayed for the victims of Friday's shooting at a Connecticut elementary school. 

Children prayed for the victims between 9:15 and 9:30 a.m., said Sister Mary Paul McCaughey, the superintendent of schools for the Archdiocese of Chicago.

"The only thing we can do at a time like this is to flood people with love and prayer," McCaughey said.

The prayer remembered the children, the teachers, the staff and the families of Sandy Hook School, and was designed to be sensitive to younger children who may not be aware of exactly what happened in Newtown, Connecticut, McCaughey said.

Not all Chicago area parents appreciated the effort.

On the Catholic schools Facebook page, one parent wrote, "I totally disagree with this."

"Yes prayer is a nice gesture at this moment but children in their own school setting about something they should have no natural ability to even comprehend is poor planning," the parent wrote.

Ryan Blackburn, a spokesman for the Catholic school system, responded on Facebook that officials weighed the prayer idea "very carefully" but that "we believe that this incident will reach into the lives of most of our children, no matter how much we try to shelter them from it."

The Archdiocese also directed principals to review school safety plans and make any necessary changes in light of Friday's tragedy.

"Most of them have good plans already," McCaughey said. "We just have to look again whenever something like this happens."

The Archdiocese also sent schools information to help parents talk to their children about the massacre, McCaughey said.

On a sign at St. Pascal School, 6143 W. Irving Park Rd., passersby were urged to pray for "the families in Newton, Connecticut."