Worshippers hurry from Newtown church, cite threat

Worshippers hurriedly left a church Sunday, saying they were told there was a bomb threat not far from the elementary school where 20 kids and six adults were massacred.

At least a dozen police in camouflage SWAT gear and carrying guns arrived at the St. Rose of Lima Church. An Associated Press photographer saw police leave carrying something in a red tarp.

Guns drawn, they surrounded the rectory across the parking lot from the main church building. A large crowd of parishioners gathered outside.

There was no official report from police about the threat or evacuation. CNN reported nothing suspicious had been found.

Shooter Adam Lanza, his mother and eight of the child victims attended St. Rose of Lima. It is a Roman Catholic Church with an adjacent school, which Lanza attended briefly.

It's not clear if there actually was a threat or if, like many tragedies, whether it was a hoax or the result of a community on edge.

The church hosted overflow crowds at all three morning masses Sunday.

Jennifer Waters, who at 6 is the same age as many of the victims and attends a different school, came to Mass with a lot of questions.

"The little children — are they with the angels?" she asked her mother while fiddling with a small plastic figurine on a pew near the back of the church. "Are they going to live with the angels?"

Her mother, Joan, 45, assured her they were, then put a finger to her daughter's lips, urging her to be quiet.

An overflow crowd of more than 800 people attended the 9 a.m. service at the church, where eight children will be buried later this week. The gunman, Adam Lanza, and his mother also attended church here. Spokesman Brian Wallace said the diocese has yet to be asked to provide funerals for either.

Boxes of tissues were placed strategically in each pew and on each window sill. The altar was adorned with bouquets, one shaped as a broken heart, with a zigzag of red carnations cutting through the white ones.

In his homily, the Rev. Jerald Doyle, the diocesan administrator, tried to answer the question of how parishioners could find joy in the holiday season with so much sorrow surrounding them.

"You won't remember what I say, and it will become unimportant," he said. "But you will really hear deep down that word that will finally and ultimately bring peace and joy. That is the word by which we live. That is the word by which we hope. That is the word by which we love."

After the Mass, Joan and Jennifer stopped by a makeshift memorial outside the church, which was filled with votive candles and had a pile of bouquets and stuffed animals underneath, to pray the Lord's Prayer.

Jennifer asked whether she could take one.

"No, those are for the little children," her mother replied.

"Who died?" her daughter asked.

"Yes," said her mother, wiping away a tear.