Rosaries for Officer Gannon

By Tanya Connor
The Catholic Free Press
A young woman’s concern about a slain police officer led to her parish sending 500 rosaries to his department.
Caitlin Butkus, 20, of Blessed Sacrament Parish in Worcester, attended her first meeting of the parish’s Operation Ranger Rosary on April 14, said the coordinator, Cecelia Mason.
She said Miss Butkus asked if she could make a rosary for Officer Sean Gannon and she responded, “You can make a rosary for whomever you wish.”
Yarmouth Police Officer Gannon had been fatally shot two days earlier when serving an arrest warrant.
Miss Butkus said she felt bad about his death because she has an uncle in the Natick Police Department.
“I just wanted to make a difference” for the people in Yarmouth and honor the memory of Officer Gannon, she said.
Miss Butkus’ mother, Lara Forde, said her daughter struggles with many challenges, including autism, and that Mrs. Mason had invited her to come to the rosary-making group. The two of them went April 14 and said they plan to return.
“I’m happy for her; this also makes her feel involved,” Mrs. Forde said.
She said she wasn’t surprised by her daughter’s concern about the officer and those grieving his death.
“She’s very spiritual, she’s very Catholic, she’s very holy,” Ms. Forde said.
It’s a blessing for people to receive rosaries when they are at a low point, “that’s remembering God and that’s remembering to pray,” she said.
Mrs. Mason said Miss Butkus started thinking not just about Officer Gannon, but about everyone suffering because of his death. So she offered to send 500 of the rosaries Operation Ranger Rosary has made to the Yarmouth Police Department, and Miss Butkus was elated.
“She’s only 20 years old and she’s thinking” of all the pain people in Yarmouth are in, Mrs. Mason said. “I’m still impressed. … More young people should really think like she does. And I told her if people thought of the cross instead of … guns you’d find more peace. … The gun is no answer; it just creates more violence.”
She said she informed the Yarmouth Police Department that she was sending the rosaries and thinks they will give them to officers who want them.
“The rosary’s all about that cross and who’s on that cross,” she said. “Even if they don’t pray the rosary, they know what the rosary stands for – the life and death of our Savior, the Resurrection.”
A letter to the police chief signed by Father Richard F. Trainor, Blessed Sacrament’s pastor, expressed the parish’s condolences to the department and the slain officer’s family.
“Today, we commemorate all law enforcement officers who paid the ultimate price for our safety,” especially Officer Gannon, it said. The letter credited Miss Butkus for her thoughtfulness, which led to the gift of the rosaries.
Mrs. Mason said the rosaries that Operation Ranger Rosary members make at their monthly meeting and at home were initially to send to people in the military, but now they are for whoever needs them.
“The Blessed Mother’s for everybody in harm’s way,” she said.
She said she has sent rosaries to local police departments –  including Worcester, Leicester and Oxford – in the past “because of all the bad publicity the police were receiving – and for their protection.”