By Katie Vasquez
This year Catholic school students returned to the classroom eager to share their summer adventures and ready to learn at St. Gregory the Great Catholic Academy in Bellerose, Queens.
Then it was off to their opening Mass, but with extra security precautions in place after a Mass shooting at a Minneapolis Catholic school.
The school requested NYPD officers outside while the children prayed.
“It’s very hard to stand and ensure safety when honestly, anything can happen,” the school’s principal, Joseph Paniccia, told Currents News. “Which [this] is why we set up police, which is why there’s constant phone calls, which is why we have emergency plans.”
7th grader, Olivia Pena, admits she was a little hesitant to return to school.
“I was a little bit nervous because I didn’t know what could happen, like anything could happen,” she said.
But her mother, Joann Duran-Pena, was relieved that the Queens school took precautions.
“That says a lot about how seriously these situations are taken and that it raises the awareness of our children that there are safety parameters being put in place,” she told Currents News.
Auxiliary Bishop Raymond Chappetto, who celebrated the Mass hoped to ease any fears that the children might have.
“There’s no better place to be than in God’s house to ask God’s blessing,” he explained. “And God will bless us and keep us safe, keep us on the path to holiness.”
Meanwhile, the students offered prayers for those in Minnesota that are still grieving.
“I thought that you should always pray for people that are in need,” 4th grader Lucas Caruana told Currents News.
“That was nice because we prayed for the people that got hurt and we thanked God. So I liked that,” added 4th grader Clover Trotman.