A man allegedly rushed into St. Cecilia Church in the Oakley neighborhood of Cincinnati and interrupted Sunday Mass Oct. 5 by yelling about Charlie Kirk, according to Fox 19.
“Right after communion, and all of a sudden we heard this yelling coming from the back of church, very loud,” a parishioner named Lauren told Fox 19. “Being in a church, it was almost, like, demonic. Certainly unexpected.”
Father Jamie Weber, the church’s pastor, told the Archdiocese of Cincinnati that a man burst through the front doors of St. Cecilia’s Church during Sunday 8:15 p.m. Mass Oct. 5. The man allegedly screamed something and then left. However, the priest could not hear from the sanctuary precisely what the man said, according to Fox 19.
A group of male congregants ran after the man who had disturbed Mass in an attempt to catch him, though they were ultimately unable to.
A parishioner named Mary said that the man raised his fist in the air and yelled “Rest in peace, Charlie Kirk” before running out, which frightened her.
“I was so startled,” Mary said, according to Fox 19. “I just remember jumping really hard, and then my heart was beating really fast, and I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, am I about to get shot or something?’”
While this incident did not result in any violence, many churchgoers have been on edge in recent years. Since May 2020, there have been more than 500 attacks on U.S. Catholic churches, as CatholicVote has previously reported.
The incident at St. Cecilia’s came just over a month after a deadly shooting at Annunciation Catholic Church in Minneapolis. Kash Patel, Director of the FBI, has called that shooting “an act of domestic terrorism motivated by a hate-filled ideology.”
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