Central Florida cathedral observes Pulse nightclub shooting’s 10th anniversary with requiem service

[Episcopal News Service] The Cathedral Church of St. Luke in Orlando, Florida, memorialized the 49 people who were shot and killed nearly 10 years ago – June 12, 2016 – at Pulse, a nearby gay nightclub, today with a public livestreamed Votive Requiem Mass. The congregation prayed for healing, peace and hope as the victims’ names were read aloud.

The Rev. Dan Smith, the Diocese of Central Florida’s canon to the ordinary, preached. He called for the need to respect the dignity of every human being and to practically and prayerfully seek peace and justice.

“[The LGBTQ+ and Latino communities] 10 years ago, and unfortunately still today, experience discrimination, hatred, fear and violence,” Smith said in his sermon. “I think of those four words: discrimination, hatred, fear, violence. They are antithetical to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and the vows that each and every one of us take at our baptism.”

The Rev. Garrett Puccetti, resident priest of the cathedral and the service’s planner and celebrant, told Episcopal News Service ahead of the service that the cathedral wanted to honor the victims, survivors, loved ones, first responders and everyone else affected by the shooting because “the Christian response to violence and hatred is love.”

“Because Christ first loved us and because we believe in the resurrection of the dead, we, as the cathedral, decided that we needed to continue the same ministry we offered right after the Pulse shooting happened,” Puccetti said.

The service also included readings from Isaiah 25:6-9, Psalm 130, 1 Corinthians 15:50-58 and John 11:21-27.

On the morning of the shooting, the Rev. Nancy Oliver, then a deacon at the cathedral, woke up shortly after 5 a.m. to prepare for a full day of Sunday worship services. While getting ready, she turned on the TV. That’s when she learned about the shooting and that Orlando police had just fatally shot the killer.

At 7 a.m., Oliver arrived at the cathedral with no intent to stay for worship. Instead, she spent the next 15 hours distributing bottled water and food, leading impromptu prayer circles and listening to people vent outside Orlando Regional Medical Center and at a nearby hotel where hundreds of people waited to hear from their loved ones.

“It was a terrible time for everyone. It was very intense,” she told ENS. “While I was leading one of the prayer circles and everyone bowed heads together, I looked down, and I saw rivulets of blood all over this young girl’s boots from when she was inside Pulse. It was unreal. I’ll never get that image out of my mind.”

Smith was rector of Holy Cross Episcopal Church in Sanford, a north Orlando suburb, in 2016. Like Oliver, Smith learned about the shooting at Pulse that morning on television. He scrapped the sermon he had prepared and instead addressed the congregation with some handwritten notes.

“I got up in the pulpit and just preached what was on my mind. It’s horrifying to think that the second-largest mass shooting in the history of the United States happened right here in the city that we love so much,” Smith told ENS. “The congregation and I dove headlong into the grief and the shock and the horror of this hate crime against the gay and Latino communities – two communities who are already pushed to the edge and discriminated against as is.”

The Pulse nightclub shooting, which also left 58 people injured, was the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history until one year later, when a gunman opened fire on a crowd gathered on the Las Vegas Strip in 2017.

Most of the nightclub victims were Latino because Pulse was hosting “Latin Night” when the shooting occurred.

The funeral of one of the victims, Christopher Andrew Leinonen, was held at the cathedral. Members of Westboro Baptist Church, an anti-LGBTQ+ congregation, attempted to picket Leinonen’s funeral, but 200 counterprotesters formed a human chain to block their view of the cathedral.

“It was emotional seeing so many people go out of their way to shield funeral-goers from seeing that hate group,” said Oliver, who now serves at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in nearby Cocoa Beach.

Greater Orlando is one of Florida’s more socially progressive metropolitan areas, but Central Florida is historically one of the most theologically conservative dioceses in The Episcopal Church. But, according to Smith, news of the Pulse shooting “affected everyone in the diocese.”

“Central Florida is still one of the most conservative dioceses, but, to me, that makes it even more incumbent for us to pay attention to the anniversary of this act of violence,” he said.

The June 10 service concluded with the cathedral’s bells tolling 49 times – one ring for each victim.

During his sermon, Smith told the congregation to reflect on how they will respond to future hatred and violence.

“The real question that I want you to ponder this day is, where will you be?” Smith said. “Where will you be when hatred is spewed? Where will you be when someone is pushed to the edge of our society or pushed out completely? Where will you be when violence raises its ugly head, as it undoubtedly will? Will we live into and up to the promise we make at our baptism, to share the hope of the gospel, to respect the dignity of all people and to seek, always, justice and peace?”

-Shireen Korkzan is a reporter and assistant editor for Episcopal News Service. She can be reached at skorkzan@episcopalchurch.org.