(RNS) — An Oklahoma man charged Friday (April 4) with first-degree murder in the fatal shooting of a Catholic priest in northeast Kansas wrote letters to a newspaper railing against the Catholic Church reforms of Vatican II and referring to a “strange new version of ‘Catholicism,'” according to KSTN, a local Fox News affiliate.
On Thursday, deputies from the Nemaha Count Sheriff’s Office called to the Saints Peter and Paul Catholic Church in Seneca found the Rev. Arul Carasala with gunshot wounds outside the rectory, the Kansas Bureau of Investigation said in a news release. The 57-year-old priest was taken by ambulance to a hospital, where he died.
Sheriff’s deputies and officers with the Seneca Police Department later arrested Gary Hermesch of Tulsa, Oklahoma. Hermesch, 66, was charged Friday and held in the Nemaha County Jail in lieu of $1 million bond, County Attorney Brad Lippert said Friday in a written statement.
According to the KSTN report, Hermesch wrote at least six letters to the Seneca Courier-Tribune about his views on politics and the church between January 2021 and March 2024. The letters don’t mention Carasala or the Seneca church, but one written in December 2021 said that “infiltration/subversion at the Vatican was already fomenting in the 1930’s and ’40’s. Vatican II was called just to ‘seal the deal.'”
In an earlier letter, published the day President Joe Biden was inaugurated in January 2021, Hermesch contrasts the political approaches of Presidents John F. Kennedy and Donald Trump before writing, “So, now in this world of this strange new version of ‘Catholicism’, we get a capitulating weak puppy like Joe Biden.”
In April 2023, musing on the causes of the U.S. drug epidemic, Hermesch suggested that the post-Vatican II Catholic liturgy is to blame: “What we’re seeing is just the fruits of the ‘new’ Novo Ordo Mass and the vision of ‘love’ Pope Paul IV claimed to be envisioning,” referring to the pope who saw through the changes of Vatican II. At another point, he expressed disappointment in Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI.
Carasala’s death left people in shock in Seneca, a city of about 2,100 where he had been the pastor at Saints Peter and Paul since 2011, according to his profile on the parish website. Ordained a priest in 1994 in the Diocese of Cuddapah, in southeast India, he had served in Kansas since 2004 after being invited to visit by then-Archbishop of Kansas City James P. Keleher.
Carasala became a U.S. citizen in 2011, while retaining his status as an overseas citizen of India.
The current archbishop of Kansas City in Kansas, Joseph Naumann, in an April 3 Facebook post, called Carasala “a devoted and zealous pastor who faithfully served our Archdiocese for over twenty years, including as dean of the Nemaha-Marshall region. His love for Christ and His Church was evident in how he ministered to his people with great generosity and care. His parishioners, friends, and brother priests will deeply miss him.”
A person listed as a Facebook friend of Carasala wrote, “Fr. Arul was more than just a priest—he was a gentle soul, a humble servant, and a shining example of what it means to live a life rooted in faith and love. As an Indian friend priest, I cannot begin to express the pride I felt in knowing someone so deeply spiritual, down to earth, and selflessly committed to his people.”
This story includes reporting by The Associated Press.