Comment HIGHLAND PARK, ILL. — Every pew was filled, and chairs drawn up to accommodate the overflowing crowd, when the priest went to the pulpit and cleared his throat. The Reverend Hernán Cuevas told the 1,500 people – Catholics and non-Catholics who gathered Tuesday for what the Church of the Immaculate Conception had billed as a Mass of Peace and Healing – a story he had repeated over and over in the previous 24 hours. He spoke of the excitement his entourage had at home, the frantic run from the parade ground as shots rang out, the anxious hours of saying the rosary while sheltered inside the church. Cuevas paused for a moment. He said two parishioners were killed in Monday’s mass shooting. Others were injured. Then he looked around. “Now, the good work of peace and healing begins for all of us, our community,” Cuevas said. “And I would say that I am blessed to be here for you as the new vicar of your parish. And thank you. Thank you very much for your support.” The church was filled with thunderous applause. How the Highland Park parade shooting unfolded: A marching band, then gunfire It had been just four days since Cuevas, a 40-year-old raised in a large family in small-town Mexico, had arrived in Highland Park. In one of the two churches he now led, banners hung in the hallways reading “Bienvenidos Padre Hernan Cuevas.” He still hadn’t unpacked, processed his feelings, or even talked to his mom about the horror that unfolded at the parade. However, the priest had been pushed to lead his community through the worst act of violence they had ever seen. Cuevas, who is well-groomed with dark hair and a beard, had tried to calm his colleagues and others seeking solace inside the church while the gunman was still at large. He had received prayer requests for injured church members he had yet to meet. And now, tonight, they were at the first of a week’s worth of events meant to help them deal with everyone’s trauma. Watching from the crowd, Carmelo “Mel” Delos Santos, who volunteers at the church and studied to be a priest before falling in love and getting married, thought he heard a tremor in Cuevas’ voice. “I told him, ‘I think you felt the pain,’” Delos Santos, 74, recalled. “I told him, ‘I think you felt the pain of the world.’ “ Cuevas was the eighth of nine children born to a devoted Catholic couple in Jalisco and the second to pursue the priesthood. It was in high school when he first felt a calling fueled by the idea of ”bringing that spiritual power to people,” he said. He thought he could help them, he said, by talking about God. A seminary program brought Cuevas to Chicago, where he spent a year learning English before his ordination in 2011. After 11 years as pastor of a church in nearby Evanston, Ill., he was assigned this year to lead the United Parish of Immaculate Conception and of Agios Iakovos, which was created when two long-standing churches united. His first day was July 1st. “I just came in with this excitement to be with my new community, ready to get to know each other,” Cuevas said. With Little Outcry, Chicago’s Bloody Weekend Overshadowed Highland Park’s Tolls One of the first activities he participated in was creating a DIY float for the annual parade. Parishioners made their offering after Monday’s Mass, draped red, white and blue tablecloths over the railings of a trailer and set up a wooden cross in the back. There were bunches of flowers in patriotic colors stuck in place and banners on each side: “Wishing everyone a Happy 4th of July!!! Please welcome our new pastor!” Cuevas had a basket of granola bars to hand out along the way. The church was No. 38 in the procession. As they waited their turn, Cuevas inspected the float with pride. He took out his iPhone and started filming, narrating in Spanish. Then there was a strange sound, hard to make out above the high school band. Cuevas abruptly stopped the recording. “This couldn’t be,” thought Angie Nutter, 71. Nine years earlier, her 20-year-old son, Colin, had been shot to death in one of very few reported murders in quiet Mayberry-like Highland Park. She had turned to faith to make sense of her loss, sometimes going to church twice a day. This, he thought as he heard the shots, ‘this is what happened to him.’ A wave of people fell towards the priest and his people, between them two children with bloody shirts. The catechists gathered them and they all started running until they reached the church. About two dozen people poured into Immaculate Conception as sirens went off and a frantic manhunt began for the shooter. Looking out at the group in front of him, most of whom were scanning their phones for updates, Cuevas saw fear, anxiety and panic. He focused his thoughts on God. “I took the microphone, turned on the light and said, ‘Let’s pray,’” he recalled. Comforted, Nutter texted her worried husband and daughter, who were unable to reach her: “I’m safe at church.” Cuevas and church staff handed out water, along with the granola bars he had planned to give out to spectators. Later, when it was safe, the priest walked some of the parishioners home. In a message to his family in Mexico, he said he was fine and would speak to them soon. He watched his cell phone video of the parade twice and considered deleting it. He said he had “vivid memories, still in my mind, of everything I saw”. Delos Santos had planned to be in the parade with his church, but stayed home because of sciatic nerve pain that makes walking difficult. She cried when she heard what happened, knowing that “I wouldn’t do it [have been] able to run.” He stopped concentrating while talking about it: “It’s just that if I remember it, I get emotional.” He kept thinking about the 21-year-old who killed seven people and injured dozens more. He couldn’t understand it. Was the devil working on the “kid”, who was a classmate of his nephews and someone he had seen around town? Is he conscious? A heart? Talk to the priest about it. “I asked him, ‘What do you think is on this man’s mind?’ This kid;”. And he just smiled at me. He’s like, ‘I can’t judge him,’” Delos Santos said. “And that’s it. And then he changed the subject.” That, he said, showed a strength of belief that would see Cuevas through a first week unlike any other. They still had so much to do. He led the daily Mass, joined a rabbi in a candlelight vigil and held special services for the victims. He prayed for a parishioner who was seriously injured in the shooting and later died in hospital. He was at work planning a Saturday morning procession from the church to the memorial that had sprung up near the scene of the shooting. Through it, she said she relied on faith to get through a week of pain, confusion and fear. It was at the heart of the readings he chose, and at the center of his message. “You cannot rely on our own peace, because we can easily break that peace,” he said. “You need something stronger.”
