Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap. has asked all 256 parishes in the five-county Archdiocese of Philadelphia to honor the day of mourning called for by the governor of Connecticut.

Catholic churches throughout the Philadelphia region will ring their bells 26 times tomorrow morning at 9:30 a.m., representing one toll in honor of each life taken in last week's tragic shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

Writing in his column on CatholicPhill.com earlier this week, Archbishop Chaput said, "The pain of loss is excruciating. Words of comfort all sound empty. The victims in the Sandy Hook massacre were even younger and more numerous than those at Columbine, and if such intense sorrow could be measured, the suffering of the Connecticut family members left behind might easily be worse. With such young lives cut so short, every parental memory of an absent child will be precious -- compounded by a hunger for more time and more memories that will never happen. This is why we need to keep the grieving families so urgently in our hearts and prayers."

###

Editor's Note: The full text of Archbishop Chaput's column from December 17th can be found at www.CatholicPhilly.com or https://www.archdiocese-phl.org/archbishop-chaput/statements/statements.php.

Contact
Kenneth A. Gavin
Associate Director of Communications
215-587-3747