What's Happening

September 29, 2025, Adrian, Michigan – On behalf of Adrian Dominican Sisters and Associates, the General Council issued the following statement in response to the mass shooting at the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints in Grand Blanc, Michigan.
 
The horrific shooting at the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints in Grand Blanc brings close to home for Michiganders the terrifying nightmare of gun violence in our nation – and the urgent need for members of Congress to enact laws that ban military-style assault weapons and provide for safe and responsible gun use.
 
As a church full of Mormon families were at prayer on Sunday, a man rammed his vehicle into their sanctuary and sprayed the assembly with an assault weapon, killing two worshippers, wounding eight, and then causing the deaths of at least two others after lighting the church on fire. Our hearts ache for the victims and their families. We pray for their healing and that of all the Mormon children, women, and men who suffered the trauma of this violent attack while in prayer with God.
 
This assault comes on the heels of a similar one last month that brought gun violence close to home for us as Dominican Sisters when a gunman rammed into Annunciation Catholic Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and began shooting at a church full of children and adults, also in prayer with God at the opening Mass of their parish school. Our sister Dominicans of Sinsinawa (Wisconsin) were longtime teachers at Annunciation. Two children were killed and 21 people wounded.
 
During the past 15 years, people of faith have been victims of gun violence not only in various Christian churches but also in two Jewish synagogues, a Sikh temple, and outside of an Islamic mosque. The better known of these mass shootings are the 2012 shooting at the Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, killing six people and wounding four others; the 2015 shooting during bible study at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, killing nine people, including the senior pastor, and wounding one more; the 2017 shooting at the First Baptist Church in Southerland Springs, Texas, killing 26 people and wounding 22 – the deadliest at an American place of worship; and the 2018 Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, during Shabbat morning services, killing 11 and wounding six – the deadliest attack on the Jewish community in American history.
 
As longtime educators, we have seen how the horror of gun violence in schools added security barriers to entrances and made lockdown drills a heartbreaking part of every American child’s school life. It is deeply disturbing to think that the rise of gun violence in our nation’s sacred places of worship might lead to barricaded sanctuaries.
 
We call on our elected leaders to enact sane gun laws that ensure our First Amendment right to the free exercise of religion is protected, along with Second Amendment rights. We invite all people of faith to join us in this call – and in prayer for all victims of gun violence, whether in schools, places of prayer, campaigning for public office, serving as elected leaders, engaging in public discourse and free speech, or in other forms of public life.

 
#   #   #

 
Members of the Adrian Dominican Sisters General Council are Sisters Elise D. García, OP, Prioress; Frances Nadolny, OP, General Councilor; Lorraine Réaume, OP, Vicaress and General Councilor; and Corinne Sanders, OP, General Councilor.

July 12, 2024, Adrian, Michigan – An 18-year-old student who was just starting to turn his life around. A teenager who died by suicide. A woman killed in her driveway in front of her young children. A 3-year-old girl killed in her bedroom during a drive-by shooting. A teenage boy who died while playing Russian roulette with his friends.

These are some of the 17 people whose funerals Sister Joan Baustian, OP, attended during her 27 years of ministry in Detroit, beginning in 1989. All of them died through violence – mostly by gun violence, Sister Joan said. They came to Sister Joan’s mind last month as the United States marked June as Gun Violence Awareness Month.

Sister Joan first ministered in Detroit in the 1950s as a teacher, but the violence occurred during her second time of ministry in Detroit. During this time, she ministered primarily in the neighborhood of Rosary Parish. She ministered for a time at Covenant House, which has a home in 34 U.S. cities for youth at risk of homelessness or human trafficking. Her ministries also included teaching in an adult education program. 

Sister Joan retired from formal ministry in the mid-2000s but stayed in Detroit until 2016, serving as a community organizer, continuing to work with the people in the Rosary Church neighborhood – including people from the neighboring Baptist church. The centerpiece was the community garden, in which about eight families regularly received food, she said. “I was there to help the children, the families, the moms, and the grandmoms – to get people connected with what they needed,” she said.

Sister Joan noted that the work of building community in the Rosary neighborhood had a positive effect. “When I first went there, some of the murders happened, but then after all the years of building up community there, we had no more murders,” she said. “It tells you how important building community is.”

In the earlier days, violence was rampant in that part of Detroit. Sister Joan’s first experience of gun violence – and attending the victim’s funeral – was for a 30-year-old man who served with Sister Joan on the board of Genesis, a community organization. He was shot and killed. “That was the first one,” Sister Joan recalled. “He was buried from the Baptist church. That was a hard one and there was a lot of talk. If they ever arrested anybody, I never heard.”

Several other incidents stand out in Sister Joan’s mind. One family – a Black Catholic family who attended Rosary Parish and adopted nine children – had to deal with the shooting death of their oldest son, Edward. Quite a few years later, Sister Joan said, the couple’s granddaughter was shot and killed while washing a car in her driveway, while her children, ages 1 and 2, were nearby. 

When a 3-year-old girl, Destiny, was shot while playing in her bedroom, Destiny’s aunt – who worked with Sister Joan at Covenant House – asked her to attend the funeral. “The church was absolutely packed,” Sister Joan recalled. “The chief of police was there and stood next to the mom, next to the coffin, and promised they would do justice for Destiny. The mother was in absolute hysterics.”

Sister Joan attended all of the funerals, often visiting the families to offer the support that she could. “I couldn’t say much – just listened to them,” she said. “When each one happened, I felt sad. Some you knew personally or knew the family very well. You just get the strength to do it.” 

The experiences “affected me in my activism against gun violence, war, and violence,” she said. In her ministry in Detroit, she has seen much of the root cause of violence: poverty and racism.

Sister Joan noted that she also had many positive experiences in Detroit. The community garden brought many of the neighborhood people together – including a group of prisoners who lived in a former convent, were tracked by GPS, and could go no farther than the garden. They volunteered in the garden when children were not around, she said. 

Sister Joan also offered nutrition classes to the mothers. People in the neighborhood enjoyed summer picnics together, featuring food donated by the church and grilled by the neighborhood men.

Strong communities such as the Rosary neighborhood bring a sense of hope to Sister Joan amid difficult situations. “Violence is such a big part of this country’s history,” she said. “I’m not sure we can change that, but we have to keep trying. I’m very fond of adding at the end, ‘Hopelessness is a terminal disease.’ Even if there’s not much to hope for, you keep hoping.”