Jill Biden to attend vigil for Nashville shooting victims; Pope Francis sends condolences

First Lady Jill Biden is set to attend Wednesday night’s candlelight vigil in Nashville to “honor and mourn” the six victims killed in the Covenant School shooting, a spokeswoman said.

Biden, a longtime teacher, planned to travel to Nashville after visiting with military families in Ohio, according to press secretary Vanessa Valdivia.

“Honored that @FLOTUS will attend this evening’s vigil as Nashville mourns and remembers the lives tragically taken from us,” Nashville Mayor John Cooper tweeted.

The vigil at Public Square Park, scheduled to begin 5:30 p.m. local time, takes place two days after the massacre that left three adults and three 9-year-old children dead. The assailant, identified as former Covenant School student Audrey Hale, was fatally shot by police.

Biden tweeted Monday she was “truly without words” following another school shooting in the U.S.

“Our children deserve better,” she wrote. “We stand — all of us — with Nashville.”

Last year, the first lady and President Joe Biden visited Uvalde, Texas, shortly after the shooting at Robb Elementary School that killed 21 people, including 19 kids.

Also offering condolences to the Nashville victims Wednesday was Pope Francis, who sent a telegram to the Bishop of Nashville. The pope, who was hospitalized Wednesday with a viral infection, wrote that he joins “the entire community in mourning the children and adults who died and commends them to the loving embrace of the Lord Jesus.”

Investigators are working to determine a motive for the shooting.

“We have a manifesto, we have some writings that we’re going over that pertain to this date, the actual incident,” Nashville Police Chief John Drake said Monday. “We have a map drawn out of how this was all going to take place.”

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