It is certainly true that the Solemnization of Matrimony in the 1662 Prayer Book directs the minister to omit the prayer for godly offspring 'where the Woman is past child-bearing'.

"I didn't want to invite the people that I was first exploring a conversation of spirituality with to church anymore," says Rice, who was raised in a fundamentalist Baptist home, then pursued a life in full-time ministry, and still maintains his mostly conservative, evangelical faith. "I didn't want them to see walking with God as a relationship of jumping through hoops -- that it was about behavioral management or sin management."

"For all too long, your people have experienced troubles and violence, resulting in great suffering. This makes the proclamation of the gospel all the more necessary and urgent," Francis said to evangelical leaders gathered at the Bangui Evangelical School of Theology (known as FATEB in French). "God makes no distinctions between those who suffer. I have often called this the ecumenism of blood.

One pro-lifer, a Catholic priest who visits the clinic every week where he has celebrated Holy Mass -- rain or shine -- since 1994 told LifeSiteNews that he is personally praying for the shooter's conversion and that "God will have mercy on his soul."