Father Arul Carasala, a longtime Catholic priest in Kansas, was fatally shot Thursday in Seneca, Kansas. Carasala, a priest in the Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas and leader at Saints Peter and Paul Parish, was killed in what Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann called a “senseless act of violence.”

Police responded to a call at the Saints Peter and Paul Catholic Church in Seneca, Kansas, Thursday to find Father Arul Carasala outside with gunshot wounds, according to the Kansas Bureau of Investigation. Paramedics transported him to a hospital, where he later died.