Virginia Tech mourns dead at candlelight vigil

Published: 2007-04-18

BLACKSBURG, Va. (CNS) -- Faint strains of "Amazing Grace" floated across the Virginia Tech campus as about 10,000 students, teachers and family members gathered on the Drillfield April 17 for an evening candlelight vigil, ending their second day of grief and mourning for 33 slain students and teachers. Two hours before the 8 p.m. vigil, several priests joined about 60 Catholic students for a Mass at the Newman Center, where students had drifted in and out all day, looking for a bite to eat or someone to talk to about the multiple murders that have shaken their community. At a nationally televised convocation earlier that day President George W. Bush and Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine were among speakers trying to make sense out of the shooting spree the previous morning in which 23-year-old Cho Seung-Hui, a senior, killed 32 students and faculty members before taking his own life. Kaine, a Catholic, called April 16 "the darkest day in the history of this campus" but praised students and faculty for the way they helped one another in the wake of the tragedy. "Before it was about who was to blame or what could have been done different, it was about how we take care of each other," he said.

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