The archbishop of Kraków called on the city to stand “together” in prayer after a gunman killed six people in its Main Market Square, a few steps from St. Maryʼs Basilica, on Saturday afternoon.
“We do not want to, we cannot, we are unable to be indifferent at such a moment. We want, we need and we must be together,” Cardinal Grzegorz Ryś wrote in a letter to the faithful on Nov. 7.
“I write ‘us’ because in truth any one of us could have been in the Square at that time, passing where the bullets struck random, unsuspecting people,” the Polish prelate wrote.
Ryś invited residents to a Mass for the dead, the wounded and their families at St. Maryʼs Basilica on Sunday, Nov. 8, at 4 p.m. local time, saying that “the last word does not and cannot belong to hatred.”
The cardinal asked the pastors of the victims' parishes to “be there” for them and give every possible help.
Police said the gunman drove onto the square shortly after 3 p.m. and fired at passersby from his car. Four women and two men were killed, among them three Polish women and a British national.
Sixteen people were wounded, including the suspect and two police officers, one of whom was shot three times.
Officers shot and detained the attacker, a man in his mid-20s from Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski, a town in southeastern Poland.
Interior Minister Marcin Kierwiński said the suspect held “very radical views” and that “everything indicates he was fascinated by far-right ideologies,” though this had yet to be verified.
Prime Minister Donald Tusk called the attack terrorism.
Police found three bodies in the suspectʼs flat. President Karol Nawrocki declared national mourning for Nov. 8 and 9.
Archbishop Tadeusz Wojda, president of the Polish bishops' conference, said he was “deeply shaken.”
“It is hard even to grasp that in the very heart of Kraków, right by St. Maryʼs Basilica … such dramatic scenes could unfold,” he said.
Archbishop Wojciech Polak, the primate of Poland, said he was praying for the dead and the wounded and expressed solidarity with Ryś. He spoke of “faith that good is stronger than hatred and love always wins.”
Warsawʼs Archbishop Adrian Galbas echoed the Kraków cardinal.
“As Cardinal Grzegorz asked: let us be together!” he wrote on Facebook, echoing the Kraków cardinal.