Wednesday, June 14, 2017

Rep. Steve Scalise gets many prayers from his home parish in the Archdiocese of New Orleans

More than 150 people attended a prayer service at St. Catherine of Siena Church in Metairie tonight to pray for the recovery of House Majority Whip Steve Scalis...e, R-La., and other victims of a shooting in Alexandria, Virginia, this morning.
Scalise, his wife Jennifer and their two children are members of St. Catherine of Siena Parish. The Congressman from the 1st District of Louisiana was gunned down by a lone gunman while practicing with other Republican Congressmen and staff members for a charity baseball game.
Scalise was listed in critical condition after sustaining a bullet to the hip that also caused serious internal bleeding. Doctors said he would require additional surgeries.
Father Ronald Calkins, pastor of St. Catherine of Siena, said the prayer service was for the shooting victims and also for those who mourn for them.
"We come here to pray to God, who is always with us and always supporting us and always helping us," Father Calkins said. "We pray especially for those who were injured. Of course, we also come just to support each other.
"Even if all we did was to come into this church and there was no prayer service, and all we did was spend time in prayer quietly, we're together, supporting each other. That's very important. We also need to recommit ourselves to being people of peace, people of justice. Violence is never really the answer. Our Lord Jesus was a person of peace, a person of non-violence, so we are his followers, his disciples. We call ourselves Christians because we follow Jesus Christ."
Maria Naccari, who taught Scalise's daughter Madison in pre-kindergarten at St. Catherine of Siena School, said she has always been impressed by the Scalise family's down-to-earth attitude. When Scalise would show up with his security detail to pick up his children from school in the afternoon, she said, he never pulled rank or asked to come to the front of the line.
"They wait in line – there is no cut in line," Naccari said. "They wait like everyone else, and he follows all the rules. It's adorable. I think that's what makes him so likable to everybody. They're just regular people with a different job."
"Sweet, sweet family – Mom and Dad totally involved with walking them to class. They are just normal, everyday parents. Unless you knew who he was, you would not know who he was, if that makes sense."
Madison is entering fifth grade, and Harrison Scalise, their son, just made his First Communion and is going into third grade.
"I was very, very upset, just because he's a genuine person," Naccari said. "He's a real person. You don't think of him as a politician, but as a real dad. You think of him as an involved, regular St. Catherine person. And you think of his wife in the same way. There's no fluff about him. He's a real dad, a common person, really a Daddy."

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