An Oklahoma man is accused of murder in the first degree in the fatal shooting on a Catholic priest in a ecclesiastical rectory in the northeast of Kansas.
Father Arul Carasala was discovered on Thursday with shot wounds outside the parsonage of Saints Peter and Paul Catholic Church in Seneca, said Nemaha County Sheriff's office in a Facebook message.
The 57-year-old priest was taken by ambulance to a hospital, where he died.
Sheriff's representatives and officers at the Seneca Police Department later arrested Gary Hermesch from Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Hermensch, 66, was charged on Friday and held in the prison of Nemaha County instead of $ 1 million bond, said provincial attorney Brad Lippert.
The charge complaint states that Hermensch has deliberately and with premeditation 'Carasala killed.
The Kansas Bureau of Investigation has not released or said a possible motive for the shooting whether the suspect and the priest knew each other.
“What we know, an older man walked towards him and shot him three times,” said Kris Anderson, director of the parish of religious education.
Arul Carasala, 57, was shot three times and died in his ecclesiastical parsonage in the northeast of Kansas
Officers were called to the saints Peter and Paul Catholic Church in Seneca on Thursday afternoon and found Carasala with Scot wounds outside the parsonage
Gary Hermensch, 66, Van Tulsa, Oklahoma was charged with murder in the first degree on Friday
The death of the priest has left the 2,100 strong community in mourning.
He was the leader of the church since 2011, about 90 miles northwest of Kansas City, according to his profile on the website of the parish.
Carasala was arranged as a priest in 1994 for the diocese of Cuddapah, located on the southeast coast of his native India.
He had served in Kansas since 2004, including as a pastor of five parishes in Kansas, after he was invited to visit by Archbishop James P. Keleher.
Carasala became an American citizen in 2011, while retaining his status as an overseas citizen of India.
Archbishop Joseph Naumann of the Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas said in a Facebook message that there was no continuous threat to the community, but that he recognized the 'pain and shock' the death of the priest who had brought the community.
“This meaningless act of violence has been grieving the loss of a beloved priest, leader and friend,” he wrote.
Carasala was arranged as a priest in 1994 for the diocese of Cuddapah, located on the southeast coast of his native India. He had served in Kansas since 2004
There was a huge turnout in a church service to remember Father Carasala
Hermensch, 66, was charged on Friday and held in the prison of Nemaha County instead of a bond of $ 1 million
Archbishop Joseph Naumann of the Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas said in a Facebook report that there was no continuous threat to the community, but that he recognized the 'pain and shock' the death of the priest had brought the community to the community
'Father Arul was a friend for me and a great priest. I shared in my homily that priest today requires heroic love.
“That quality was clear in Father Arul, who left India to come to the heart of America and to serve the people of the Catholic Church in northeastern Kansas,” said Naumann.
“While we continue to mourn for the loss of father Arul, I pray that we won't lose hope.”
