At the beginning of his homily for the Saturday evening vigil Mass on Jan. 24, R.J. Fichtinger, S.J., the pastor at Saint Thomas More Catholic parish in St. Paul, Minn., dragged a chair over from the side of the sanctuary and sat down with a sigh. He looked at his parishioners somberly. You could hear a pin drop in the pews.

“I’m tired,” he began. “I don’t know about you, church, but I am tired.”

“Just when I think I have the best homily available, then the world goes and changes. Just when I think I’ve found the answer to this frustrating time that we seem to be living in, there’s another hand that’s dealt. Just when I think it’s hit a point when it can’t get worse, I’m proven wrong.”

That morning, Border Patrol officers had shot and killed Alex Jeffrey Pretti on the streets of Minneapolis. He was 37.

Father Fichtinger told his parishioners about life in Belize, the Caribbean nation he recently visited. He talked about the difficult and dangerous conditions in the community where he was staying—triple locks on doors, security checkpoints.

“You know what each of them said to me, almost to a person?” Father Fichtinger asked, referring to the people he met on his trip.

“I’m praying for you in Minnesota.”

In response to Mr. Pretti’s killing, the second death of a U.S. citizen at the hands of federal officers since the beginning of “Operation Metro Surge,” Trump administration officials rushed to justify the deadly use of force. White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller called Mr. Pretti a “domestic terrorist” and “would-be assassin.” Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino said Mr. Pretti was attempting to “massacre law enforcement.”

But in his sermon at a Sunday evening Mass at the Basilica of St. Mary, the Rev. Harry Tasto remembered a far different man than the person Trump administration officials were describing. As a chaplain at the Veterans Affairs hospital in Minneapolis, Father Tasto had worked with Mr. Pretti for 10 years. Mr. Pretti “was known for his kindness and gentleness to the patients,” Father Tasto said. “So don’t pay any attention to the vilification from our national leaders.”

In an interview with America, Father Fichtinger spoke about the difficulties of preaching in the wake of a crisis. 

“Everyone seems to have this fatigue that is permeating their hearts,” he said. “I’ve seen an uptick of a number of people who want to come and have a conversation with a priest and try to talk out what’s going on in our world.” 

“This weekend’s readings felt like they were really wonderfully matched. If we can pull them into our context, we suddenly realize that what Jesus is doing still matters in this modern world,” he said.

Sunday’s Gospel (Mt 4:12-23) takes place at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry and opens with him hearing about the arrest of John the Baptist. Jesus leaves Nazareth to travel to Capernaum, by the Sea of Galilee, where he recruits his first disciples, the fishermen brothers Peter and Andrew.

“Our Gospel is abundantly clear that God will call us even in times when things seem like they are at their worst. And the truth is, it might even get worse than that,” Father Fichtinger had told his parishioners.

He described the state of first-century Palestine at the time of Jesus, following John’s arrest, a time when “people are being taken away and removed from sight.” But Jesus did not begin calling his disciples until after that time of turmoil began, Father Fichtinger pointed out. 

Father Fichtinger also spoke about the second reading, from the first letter of St. Paul to the Corinthians, in which Paul chastised early Christians for their “rivalries,” pointing out that the division Americans are experiencing in political life is not new.

“Actions that are against the moral law of God we can rightly criticize. The killings in the last several weeks can be criticized,” he said. “But we have to hold on to a core tenet that is incredibly difficult to sit with sometimes. That each and every person is created in the image and likeness of God. Unless we hold that fundamental principle as our anchor, we risk becoming as divorced from reality as anyone else.”

Father Fichtinger expressed gratitude for the support and care of the Catholic community in the Twin Cities. He also said that he thinks “people are coming to the realization that they really want strong language from their religious leaders.” 

Between the death of George Floyd and the ensuing riots in 2020; the assassination earlier in 2025 of Melissa Hortman, the former speaker of the house in Minnesota, and her husband; and the school shooting at Annunciation Catholic Church, Minnesotans have gone through significant trauma.

Amid the national media firestorm that has attended Mr. Pretti’s killing, pastors in the Twin Cities met their congregations Sunday morning with messages of consolation, encouragement and righteous anger in a moment of extreme desolation.

Joseph Gillespie, O.P., said Mass at the Basilica of St. Mary early on Sunday. “I know many people here, perhaps, are involved in some of the demonstrations that have occurred in the last few weeks,” he said. 

Father Gillespie said that “we cannot dismiss” “the murdering” of Alex Pretti and the shooting of Renee Good “as mere accidents.”  

“We can’t run from it. We have to open our eyes to it despite the cognitive dissonance that might come out of Washington or some other observers,” he said.

But, he cautioned, “Darkness does not drive out darkness. It is only through the light of Christ that we can push away the darkness that obscures the reality of what we are seeking to be as a people of faith and of hope and of love.”

Ascension Catholic Church in North Minneapolis includes a large immigrant community, and its website offers a link to an emergency relief fund the parish has established “to support our immigrant parishioners.”

At the 9:30 a.m. bilingual Mass at Ascension, the Rev. Dale Korogi offered a homily in English and Spanish that received extended applause at its conclusion.

“Jesus begins his public ministry with a deliberate, provocative choice. He doesn’t stay in the safety of his home in Nazareth nor align with the establishment in Jerusalem, but heads to Galilee of the Gentiles,” Father Korogi said, “the place reserved for the marginalized and despised.”

“Jesus did not shrink from danger but moved toward it. A light for those walking in darkness.”

Jesus “attached himself to those whom evil systems, cowardly kings and mad men perpetually tried to break and destroy: the vulnerable, the marginalized and powerless, the foreigner—the best of the best,” Father Korogi said.

“We are walking in darkness and living in fear. Today’s word does not make it go away, but it proclaims as it forever has that Jesus does not distance himself from darkness, but moves into it. Light rises in lands and people overshadowed by death. Light rises here,” he said.

“Jesus rises here.”

Edward Desciak is an O'Hare Fellow at America Media.