Frankly, I find this mindset puzzling as a Catholic. It's just boilerplate American Liberal Conservatism masquerading as traditional Catholic politics. I struggle to reconcile this bunker mentality with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
We're all products of our times and environments, even bishops. Which is why, when American Protestants and Deists were using liberalism to advance the cause individual human dignity and democratic rights, the Church was actively condemning freedom of conscience and preached "submission to princes" as necessary for salvation. https://www.papalencyclicals.net/greg16/g16mirar.htm
You are correct that, to a certain extent, we are all products of our times and environment. Your assumptions that Liberalism has advanced human dignity and that democracy is preferable are examples of that.
However, as Christians we must always be willing to be signs of contradiction to the ills in whatever culture we find ourselves in.
My preference for Liberalism and democracy are certainly assumptions in which I have been raised, but I also feel confirmed in these beliefs via serious reflection and critical examination. Also by the Church's own teaching, which has acknowledged we were behind the ball for several centuries.
I find the idea that the Church somehow had to "catch up to the times" problematic (its also one of the foundational myths of Liberalism). The Church has never repudiated its stance on a robust notion of the Common Good and its rejection of secularism. The Church has stated that there is no one political system that is inherently ideal (though there can certainly be better and worse). This is far from a blanket acceptance of Liberalism by the Church.
It's entirely true that the Church has never repudiating its stance on a robust notion of the Common Good, but the Church's modern understanding of what the Common Good entails has been greatly enriched by Liberalism. Consider CCC 1925, which reads in part: "The common good consists in three essential elements: respect for and promotion of the fundamental rights of the person...". This framing of individual rights as an essential element of the common good is Liberalism 101 and a clear, enriching addition to the Church's moral Magisterium.
To further illustrate the point, consider what Mirari Vos says about government: "These beautiful examples of the unchanging subjection to the princes necessarily proceeded from the most holy precepts of the Christian religion. They condemn the detestable insolence and improbity of those who, consumed with the unbridled lust for freedom, are entirely devoted to impairing and destroying all rights of dominion while bringing servitude to the people under the slogan of liberty,"
and compare it to CCC 1915: "As far as possible citizens should take an active part in public life. The manner of this participation may vary from one country or culture to another. 'One must pay tribute to those nations whose systems permit the largest possible number of citizens to take part in public life in a climate of genuine freedom.'"
So yes, the Church has never endorsed Liberalism in its totality, but in the past 150 years it has shifted to a marked, though not quite explicit, preference for participatory liberal democracy.
Well said! As a devout Catholic, I am called to evangelize. To do so as Christ taught as His Way, is to arm myself not with worldly weapons but with the Armor of God. I need to stay involved in the Political realm of this nation by voting with a well-formed conscience. Trust me voting is not an easy thing. It is with great prudence and agony and prayer. I do not vote as a Christian as that would be trying to influence a State religion. I vote with a mentality for the greater good of society. In short for the good and well being of every person as human in our nation.
Thoughtful comment, but we're looking at nineteen children killed with a gun and no children killed from masking and vaccinating against a disease that, well, has killed a million people in the US, so I'm not sure how that's child abuse, especially as a teacher who had to do all that masking, vaccinating, and testing myself. I'm also not so sure how the idea that we must defend ourselves with guns against angry mobs that we fear are going to attack us squares with the idea that Christ is in control, and perhaps to be more provocative, I'm also not sure it squares well with following the non-violent example of Christ and the martyrs who came after him.
I have some close friends deeply embedded in gun culture. In their conception of the world, owning a weapon is what differentiates citizen from subject. That line of thinking is very, very old in Western culture, and was foundational to many predominantly Catholic societies. While it may seem antiquated, they would argue, and not irrationally, that “the most free nation on the planet,” happened precisely because of that citizen versus subject relationship. You may disagree with their premises, but within that intellectual tradition, the conclusions are reasonable. The fact that it is the 21st century or not has little to do with it, particularly since we’re debating on a message string discussing the intersection of the world, a 2000 year-old church, and thousands of years of Jewish tradition before that.
Deborah Samuel was stoned to death by her classmates. The solution is not to ban guns or knives or stones. The solution is to fix what has gone wrong to make a person think they should kill. The school shootings have so little to do with guns. The people who decide to act out of such evil hatred will find tools of violence.
How would this story have been any different with a less powerful weapon? Do we really think that the possessed person in this shooting would not have made a bomb or used a car or fire or any number of other weapons? Or are we saying that next time when such a person barricades themself in a classroom and starts killing children it will matter if they have a pistol instead, or even a machete? What matters is why a person would want to do such a thing in the first place.
It does not matter whether the laws are pro-gun or anti-gun. Perhaps a person should be 21 to buy a gun but we know that a shooter can still get a gun in many ways. What is the solution for the nihilistic hate? The focus on guns misses the point.
I was watching the Netflix series 'Who killed Sara' where the misogynist patriarch was trying to teach the grandson to kill a deer. He implied that the boy was acting like a homosexual for being concerned that the deer had a fawn with it. When he was teaching the boy to hold the gun he said 'feel it in your balls'. That gave support to a sense I've always had about guns serving toxic masculinity.
Gun advocates like to sell guns as a defense for females but there is no natural heart in most females to carry a gun on their hip or slung around their shoulders for the purpose of defense. Especially females who've been drawn to childrens care and education. It's a dead letter arguement.
Exactly! And is that the plan? Keep the death toll down to 5 at a time?
In the actual circumstances we have heard so far, I don't even think that would have been achieved. Could the people in the classroom have stopped him if he had a machete? Probably not.
We have to address what makes a person want to do this, not just what weapon they choose once they decide to do it.
oh, is someone saying that we shouldn't address what makes people want to murder, the only focus should be on banning weapons? I'm not aware of anyone saying that. Bishop Flores certainly didn't say that.
a death toll of 5 is less bad than a death toll of 21, so I would absolutely support the USA taking steps to widely prohibit access to weapons of mass destruction, and measures to limit the production and sale of such weapons. in my country, the government already took such steps after a man killed fifty innocent people.
Why do you assume that? The shooter barricaded himself in the classroom, his victims were trapped. How would the death toll have been any less if he used a machete?
Maybe. But the killer would know that and probably not take his time hacking everybody to death.
Unless the cops happened to be driving by, the assailant would have been able to reap just as much carnage.
Using a machete is much easier, there is no maintenance and the only limiting factor is your own stamina. It doesn't jam or need to be reloaded, won't run out of ammo (which is heavy to carry) and its impact is as, or more, horrifying.
The tool isn't the issue, it's the person wielding it.
What is the solution for nihilistic hate? Honesty. All of this is born from hypocrisy influenced by deceitful spirits and bolstered by smooth rhetoric. The real intelligent types who can’t help but keep the game going. They enjoy it. Mix in some trauma and drugs, it’s real easy to come to the conclusion that the best way to help the world is to become the devil everyone else claims they don’t worship themselves.
Self-absorption is alive and well in our nation. The numbers of people who are unaware of, they themselves being whom they idolize is our nation's demise; for it is prevalent in both State and Church.
I don't disagree with anything that Bishop Flores says, but once again I still find myself frustrated with the tendency of Catholic Social Teaching to presume a certain state of societal affairs and then articulate principles of action.
For instance, the bishop talks about politics as rightly being an exercise in coming together and crafting laws and policy through consensus. This presumes both a broad mutual trust in society and a common understanding of the Good. However, in the present day United States, we possess neither. It's fine to say that we ought to have these things, but the Church is silent on the question of "And if these things are lacking, where can Catholic citizens and politicians at least start?" Sadly, we don't receive that kind of pertinent guidance from our shepherds, just exhortations that we ought to have a different sort of civil society than the one in which we live.
We're not able to address this issue, or many other pressing ones, because 35% of the country hates and fears another 35%, and vice versa. Probably 70% of the citizenry is convicted, deep down, that half of their fellow citizens are not just wrong or misguided, but dangerous and duplicitous, and need to be kept from power at all costs. You can't build off of consensus or even articulate a shared vision of a common good in such a situation. It's a fool's errand.
Bishop Flores: “Can’t we talk about how we make this community, this state, this country safer, especially for our children?”
Also Bishop Flores: "Don’t tell me that guns aren’t the problem, people are. I’m sick of hearing it."
How are we supposed to have a synodal way when it has become the norm to tell people who disagree with you to stop talking, to shout over people trying to articulate their point, to begin a conversation by shutting down the possibility of disagreement?
The people who oppose gun ownership are not just accusing the people who support it of being wrong and dangerous and duplicitous, but also of not caring that children died.
I do sympathize with bishops, who surely feel that they cannot remain silent, but must also know that they have no more of a solution to offer than any of the rest of us.
True, as regards the political answers, but I hope the Gospel does have a solution. In Jesus Christ, in his suffering, death, and Resurrection, in his command to love, we have the solution to the problems of the world. The days are past when the world cared about the political opinions of priests, bishops, and popes. But that does not mean that we should remain silent. It is not right that we should abandon the preaching of the Gospel to serve as armchair politicians.
Good points. There is no consensus. The big 5 gun stocks spiked this week. This always happens after a tragedy like this, and especially after all the talking heads start railing on about new forms of gun control. Those with guns or considering ownership (I’m not a gun owner myself, and prolly will never have one) stock up when they fear new forms of gun control are on the horizon.
Per the brief history of the shooter that’s available. He came from a broken home, got bullied in school because of a lisp, started acting strange and violent which prolly further isolated him (apparently he got into a fight with his ma over WiFi, then shot his grandma over a phone bill), then prolly hit that point where he just said “f’ it.” From moving around from South Dakota to Texas, to never developing any coping skills or trades to pursue…seems like another lost kid trying to do anything to be seen or heard.
Shooting up a school is something worse than despair tho, that’s pure animalistic (perhaps demonic) rage. Maybe a better background check system could have slowed down the purchase, maybe image algorithms could have immediately removed those posts from his insta to check any delusions of grandeur he was cooking up, but if he didn’t have any recorded prior convictions or psych hospitalizations, I’m not sure what could be done. Perhaps, Changing the age for buying a firearm from 18 to 21 might help, and could be done quickly and doesn’t seem totally unreasonable. But that’s still the numbers game.
After the Our Lady of Angels fire in Chicago, my grandpa (a supervising engineer in CPS), said the Church wanted to get out of the school business. It wasn’t worth the liability. However, that same fire changed building codes and regulations across the country. When’s the last time you heard of a tragic school fire? On another note, what happened to all those religious brothers and sisters that used to run those parochial schools?
Point is, there is a solution. However, I don’t think these ambiguous musings (which can easily be misinterpreted as “we’re gonna take your guns”) from politicians, Bishops, or Hollywood actors do much for the general population, other than stoke the flames.
From the standpoint of the Church, I’d like to see another call for prayer, fasting, and maybe even special masses for the victims and the health of the kids and parents. Can a bishop make an obligatory Mass for something like that? If not, some sort of strong invite for a nation-wide night time Mass during the week? Any faithful Catholic can get behind that, those that can’t make it can join live stream or make excuses for themselves and continue posting crap on the internet. Don’t tell me how to think, even if it’s just to “ponder,” I don’t trust the hierarchy for that anymore. But a call to prayer, fasting, and the Sacraments? That’s the Bishop’s job, isn’t it?
You talk of trading two things that, I suspect, you don’t like. That has no cost to you. It does to others, whether you understand that cost or not.
First, gun ownership is not equivalent to abortion. Guns are tools, abortion is an act. Guns have uses beyond taking human life. Abortion is, definitionally, the taking of a human life in the womb. Very, very different things.
Second, you’re advocating others sacrifice something they value for something you want to get rid of. This is really a solid chunk of why folks on the gun rights side don’t want to compromise—because people who have no stake in their culture are more than willing to put on the pyre things that they care about with indifference. Please consider that this blithely offered trade does not meaningfully forward this discussion and can cause more distrust and lead to an even greater improbability of compromise.
I’m fine with 2A. I think codifying the right to bear arms as foundational to a free society was a good thing to do. I’m glad I have the firearms I have and that I took the training and did the checks my state says I had to do to get a CCW.
I’m willing to give that up if it meant that abortion for any reason whatever were illegal.
Because, as you say, owning a tool and taking a human life are very different classes of act. And I think it does impact this discussion meaningfully if I can highlight where some “no go” zones are and are not. So I shifted gears a bit to bring in another currently hot topic and went up the hypothetical calculus hill of “what are you willing to give up to make abortion go away”.
Anyway, the true fix to this is either 1) truly evangelizing the nation and more people having the mind of Christ or 2) Jesus returns. I’m fine with either. Bring on the eschaton.
The nub of the issue is where the bishop says, “there is a legitimate right of the state to exercise a vigilant and reasonable stewardship and control over the access to weapons or things which could potentially cause great damage to the good of the whole.”
What if the state *is* (or becomes in the future) the threat to the good of the whole? What if the exercise of second amendment rights is not about the idolatry of individualism but taken in the context of militias mentioned in the Constitution? Violent defense against gov’t state tyranny is either legitimate or not in the Catholic view — if it is not he should say so plainly. Ambiguity doesn’t work in this case because you can’t have it both ways.
if the state becomes a threat to you, then the weapons you can get won't save you, considering the extent of the US military. but how likely is it that you are going to need weapons to defend yourself from the state anyway? the people who think that typically seem to be conspiracy theorists and schizos.
You're not going to "defeat" the state any more than Jews armed in the 1930s Germany would've been able to "defeat" the Germans. But do you think it would've been better had they not been disarmed? No one thinks there will be tyranny in their own state (see Germany in 1930s). It's always considered a conspiracy because people don't read history.
The US military lost to the Taliban, so don't discount the power of an outgunned insurgency. I'm not advocating or hoping for such a thing, but "You could never beat the US military on the field of battle!" is demonstrably falsifiable.
"What if the state *is* (or becomes in the future)" The future is now. I would add that most of the comments contained herein yield a 'bullseye' planned by the perpetrators of these heinous acts. (Hint: the armed persons are tools themselves.)The veil will be lifted in coming days/weeks. Pray for wisdom, fortitude and grace. The world will need a triple portion (minimum). Our Lady of Sorrows, pray for us.
We cannot claim to be Pro-life and refuse to recognize the fascination with death this country has in all its forms. No regular citizen needs an AR-15 with .556 ammo. That gun and that ammo are meant for one thing.... killing people. Anyone retort with hunting arguments.... I say this... if you need it for hunting, you need to learn to hunt better.
Kat, the AR-15 is not some extra-powerful weapon; in fact, the .556 caliber is pretty small. The AR-15 is useful in part because it's great for a lot of things, including home defense and hunting. When used for home defense, it's most often just brandished, and that makes the criminals go away; most defensive gun uses don't involve firing a shot, much less a person dying.
If you think certain guns are deadly and others aren't, or that you can own a hand grenade, or that guns are easier to get than aspirin, you don't understand the law, or how guns work.
Sir, with all due respect, and not being generally in favor of confiscatory gun policy, I don’t think that your interlocutors think that, “certain guns are deadly and others aren’t.” I think they, very rationally, think some are more deadly than others. Please, don’t straw man. That doesn’t help firearm owners. An honest assessment of firearms absolutely indicates that some are far more deadly than others, in absolute terms.
That said, I will agree wholeheartedly with you that, when Bishop Flores say that it’s easier to buy a firearm than aspirin it’s tiresome and untrue. I give him the benefit of the doubt that it’s a lack of understanding or ignorance on the subject, as opposed to mendacity, and would encourage him to learn more about it so he can shepherd on the issue in the greater wholeness of truth.
"some are more deadly than others" - well that is true - most hunting rifles are more deadly than an AR-15. In this case let's not pretend the type of gun mattered. The shooter had 40 minutes to kill 21 people. A musket has a high enough rate of fire to do that.
Sir, I’m very familiar with the relative deadliness of firearms. A large caliber hunting rifle is certainly more powerful than an AR-15, often by an order of magnitude.
But, power isn’t directly proportional to deadliness, and there’s a reason the military uses these smaller caliber rifles for the bulk of their infantry, and not, say full sized battle rifles of old. They are, pound for pound, more efficient at putting bullets down range, and that’s what most people mean when they say, “deadly.” Not raw power. I’m sympathetic to the gun rights argument in principle, but I’ve never liked the, “hunting rifles are more deadly,” gambit, and to many people it comes off as disingenuous or obtuse.
While it’s true that this most recent murderer had enough time to kill 21 people that he could have practically used a musket, that’s not really the point your interlocutors are making. AR-15s and similar mid-caliber semiautomatic rifles make this sort of horrible thing easier to do. I don’t think that is honestly debatable.
The debate is about the civilian ownership of these powerful, potentially dangerous tools. Again, I’m not sympathetic to bans, but I do want a fair discussion with good arguments.
"mid-caliber semiautomatic rifles make this sort of horrible thing easier to do" - actually, it would have been far easier for him to use a knife.
I've read he was carrying 58 (!) magazines, at one pound each, plus the rifle (maybe 2 - have heard different reports). To think that a youth in his prime can't kill 21 people in 40 minutes without an AR-15 is wishful thinking.
And of course it begs the question - how do you "eliminate" intermediate caliber semiautomatic weapons without eliminating the ability for victims to defend themselves? As Cesare Beccaria (as quoted by Thomas Jefferson) wrote:
"The laws of this nature are those which forbid to wear arms, disarming those only who are not disposed to commit the crime which the laws mean to prevent. ... It certainly makes the situation of the assaulted worse, and of the assailants better, and rather encourages than prevents murder, as it requires less courage to attack unarmed than armed persons."
Want to make it harder for this to happen? Arm teachers and staff at schools. Nobody's going to walk into a school knowing that they will be stopped before they can secure their place in history. Look at the recent shooting in Charleston. https://wchstv.com/news/local/victim-hospitalized-in-charleston-shooting
Mr. L, I do think a youth in his prime would have a lot of difficulty killing 21 people in the face of modest resistance. Possible? Sure. Likely? A lot less. Otherwise, wars would be fought with knives, police would carry only knives, and gangs would use only knives. Guns, particularly those in question here, are more deadly.
I’m sympathetic to your underlying points—that firearms can be used for defense and that bans would be double edged swords at best. But, again, I urge you to reconsider the “x is more or less dangerous than y” argument. It is not particularly valid and it is not compelling. I think this is where we part company, friend.
I didn't say knives were more dangerous than guns, the point I am making is that a prepared 18 year old is going to be able to have his way with 8-9 year olds, or even most adults, with any kind of imposing weapon, be it a gun, knife, or baseball bat. It's easy to say "resist" but if you've ever been in a life or death situation you know that fear takes over - you lose coordination, motor skills, initiative. The person who trained for and initiated the situation has a great advantage, physically and psychologically, regardless of the weapon used. These were not trained professionals, they were school children. Thinking they could have rushed him had he used any other weapon is a fantasy.
Good Bishop, guns are not easier to obtain than aspirin. People are part of the issue. These killers come from extremely broken homes. It appears in most of these murders, authorities are failing to do their duty. We should all be called to speak the truth, and not use hyperbole.
We have a problem with sin in this world, and Jesus is the only answer to it. Everything else doesn’t address the root cause, and ultimately becomes a bandaid to the larger problem.
I don’t disagree that we need to help the young, but this is problem with the entire culture, and not just young people.
I would like to ask everyone who is writing comments, anytime this entire month, about how the laws we have right now are just fine (and that people need to change) to ask themselves "are my personal opinions about easy-access-to-abortion laws consistent with my personal opinions about easy-access-to-firearms laws?" If they are not consistent, then take an hour for prayer sometime to ask God "what is going on in my heart and what would You like me to do." If they are consistent I would actually still advise the same course of action.
Ma’am, I think that’s a very worthwhile thing to pray about. But, the question is also a bit of a straw man and could be perceived as disingenuous. Every abortion takes a human life. Literally hundreds of millions of firearms are legally owned by the public in the US. If the two issues were directly comparable, there would be no people left alive in the us. Abortion is an act. A firearm is a tool. They are drastically different things with very different telos.
If, perhaps, God suggests a different answer to someone than the one you personally thing God would offer them, please, don’t hold it against them.
If you think God is going to say "hey you need to change your opinion" rather than either "let's explore your personal woundedness because I would like to heal some things that you have not noticed (or have been trying to hide), hold still because this might hurt a bit" or "let's do something terrifying together" then most likely there is going to be a surprise.
God has asked me to do some pretty strange and challenging things that I didn't think were on the table when I opened the conversation with Him. Sometimes there's quite a long time between me asking "yo, Lord, what up" and then being challenged to do something. Or there's the sneaky approach "hey kid, appreciate your asking, could you do this one little thing" and that's not so scary so one does it and then a year or five years later one is like "... I can see what happened in every individual step along the way but I am still wondering how did I end up here." Open the conversation, it'll be great. And also terrifying.
Ma’am, I don’t think I wrote I thought God was going to say. That’s what I mean by a straw man—an argument against an assertion not actually made by your interlocutor. I think you responded to thoughts on my end not in evidence. I’m sorry if I lead you to think that, however.
I will wholeheartedly agree that God has called me to do some really uncomfortable things, I agree with that. And, I still have wounds to examine and heal.
And those strange and challenging things may be stranger and more frightening than we think is common or polite in this day and age. According to our Tradition, there are saints who carried swords into battle and who believed they were called to arms. There are also saints who cast aside arms and died at the barrel of a gun or point of a sword and armed only with prayer. The commonality is they are saints, and that they listened faithfully to God’s call.
I’m not wise enough to square the circle of why some saints were armed and some were empty handed, except to say, again, they were all armed with faith. And unless one is willing to cast aside the sword-carrying saints of the past because it was a less civilized time, then I think we’re forced to contend with a mystery that makes debates like this decidedly uncomfortably and very much more than binary in outcome.
Can I just interject with this reality. It's not really a mystery outside the US. Catholics around the globe who are anti abortion are equally anti gun proliferation. There is no conundrum because civil rights don't have the weight of a divine right and they can and should be adjusted according to what serves the common good of the land. So what Bishop Flores notes about the sacralization of guns is quite accurate.
Tdeclara, you’re misconstruing my last comment—the mystery to which I refer is: how is it that our tradition has recognized armed saints. You did not respond to that point. You brought up, again, abortion; a comparison to which I, and Mr. Freivald, have raised a very clear and reasonable objection. You did not address the clear inconsistency between abortion (an inherently objectionable act which inherently takes lives) and firearm ownership (an which is in and of itself value neutral, and which can be used for good or for evil).
That a large number of Catholics around the globe have similar opinions on firearm ownership and abortion is an appeal to the crowd—a logical fallacy. I don’t think a large number of Catholics define magisterial authority or morality; if they did, unfortunately, I think things like abortion would actually be considered licit.
I also question whether you can legitimately speak on behalf of “Catholics around the globe.” I suspect there are a large number of faithful Catholics in countries like Canada and Australia who might disagree with your characterization. Those nations had (and have) rich gun-owning cultures, despite their government’s restrictions on firearm ownership. This is a suspicion, but a fair one.
All that aside, again, my point: throughout much of its history, the Church was comfortable with the idea of the faithful, or at least a portion of the faithful, being armed, to the point where there are saints who carried swords and guns. Unless we want to un-saint them (which I don’t think we can) or totally reject centuries of tradition (which sets us up for a whole mess of theological problems), I don’t think we can simplify this into a, “guns are bad,” argument.
As I’ve written before here: the sacralization of guns is bad. All false idols are. But blaming all of this on gun proliferation, and using that as a singular wedge issue is a form of scapegoating—both the object and the owner. And, again, as is multiply evident in scripture and tradition, outside of Christ’s sacrifice, scapegoating is bad.
It's a complex issue indeed, even when we consider only a single individual's relationship to arms. If folks have not read https://ignatius.com/the-shadow-of-his-wings-shwp/ The Shadow of His Wings (not a canonized saint but very interesting), I recommend it, in passing.
Easy access to abortion means you're able to kill a child in the womb without consequences; it protects the commission of an intrinsically evil act.
Easy access to firearms means you're able to access firearms without consequences; it protects the commission of a neutral act.
To make a comparison that is equivalent, we'd need to compare easy abortions with easy gun murders, or easy access to suction and saline with easy access to guns.
I think abortion should be as illegal as gun (or any other) murder. I think access to saline and suction should be fully legal, just as access to guns should be. I think this is consistent and prudent.
Given that, you're correct that it's worth asking, "What does God want us to do?"
Your proposal (ask some third party; ask about "us"; skip the part that might hurt):
> you're correct that it's worth asking, "What does God want us to do?"
My proposal (ask God directly; ask about "me"; lead with the part that might hurt):
> take an hour for prayer sometime to ask God "what is going on in my heart and what would You like me to do."
I do not say that my proposal is necessarily better than yours (the proof of the pudding will be in the eating) but I do assert that they are substantially different.
Okay. I was trying to agree with you that we should be thinking about what God wants from us, and I instinctively put this into a group context because we are ultimately going to be doing whatever it is as part of a community. But you're right that there's an individual component as well as a community component.
To know Christ is to know God. To know God is to know Love. If "they" know we are Christian by our love, we then need never ask what God wants us to do!! Christ was not complicated. Man complicates what God creates.
I think I see where you are going, deacon, but you don't end up there. Discernment is an important part of the Christian life. How, for instance would your advice apply to a young person discerning whom they should marry? Yes, love and do whatever you want, but also listen to the Holy Spirit for more specific instructions. Counsel is one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Please don't tell people to not ask God what he wants them to do. Even if you think the answer is obvious, you should still encourage people to pray and hear that answer from God.
I am somewhat surprised not to hear Bishop Flores explicitly note the breakdown of the family as a major cause of these problems. It seems like the norm for many of these psychopaths is to come from a family where they are separated from one of their birth parents (most often the father). Look at how little concern and responsibility the boyfriend of the Uvalde shooter's mom apparently had for him.
I am not saying you can't have good outcomes from separated families, but that the normalization and permissiveness we have toward divorce is greatest single factor in childhood and youth trauma.
Point blank: the debate on gun control preventing mass murder is, in its current form, perverse. It’s not perverse because the debate over gun control is unnecessary: it’s perverse because it has now become a cultural war built around a dichotomous response to a hideously complex problem. And that war is not one sided.
Bishop Flores is right that single-issue gun-rights supporters sacralizes the gun ownership. But, he misses the point that single-issue gun control supporters scapegoat it. Last I checked, our faith was not too keen on false idols or scapegoats (outside of Christ). No one likes it when people worship false idols, but no one (or no thing) should be a scapegoat. Idols misplace our love. Scapegoats misplace our fear.
With rare exceptions, we all want kids to be safer. We want the world to be safer. Start from there. From that perspective, there is no “divide” or “debate.” The debate is on the how and the why to achieve that. And, as is sadly typical for human beings, we use this as an excuse to find new and creative ways to resent each other. We start with “if you don’t agree with my solution you’re immoral.” We say, if you disagree with me, “I’m tired of hearing” from you. Both sides do it, so compromise is impossible, and people continue to die from needless violence.
I’d offer a suggestion: find someone you know who disagrees with you on this debate. Tell yourself, and them, that you love them, respect them, and care about them. Maybe, if you’re both in a praying mood, pray together about the subject. Do that a few times before you start taking policy. And when you do start talking policy, if you ask them for a sacrifice, offer an equally meaningful sacrifice yourself. Then, maybe, just maybe we might get somewhere. It isn’t a quick and easy solution. But, solving problems from a position of love and trust is a heck of a lot easier than than forcing compromise among people who resent one another.
It won’t fix things right away, but neither has this pitched battle. And, in addition to coming up with some good solutions, we might actually end up caring more about each other. Which is probably part of the solution.
"the Church[ expects to form] her own people to be active and participatory in the political process that comes to a kind of consensus as to how we order things in a way that protects our children, protects our elderly protects, protects people who are vulnerable, especially when it comes to the potential of violence."
Why, then, Bishop Flores, would you think that we should take away the very instruments by which we can protect our children, the elderly, and other vulnerable people against the potential of violence? We know that evil people will continue to inflict evil; must we make ourselves defenseless against them?
The problem with increasing gun control laws is that they won't be enforced, just as they aren't enforced now. It is illegal for a person with a mental illness to own a gun. Yet this provision of the law goes unenforced. Something like 35% of gun deaths are suicides, which wouldn't be the case if mentally ill people couldn't get guns.
People do need to have the right to own weapons to protect themselves from those who would still have weapons even if they were illegal. I have a relative doing time right now for being a felon in possession of 12 guns, so it's pretty obvious that the only people who would give up their guns if they were illegal are the law abiding. We do need to have the option of gun ownership.
MT 22:37-40. 37 Jesus declared, “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’e 38This is the first and greatest commandment. 39And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’f 40All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
I think everyone commenting here has a deep faith in God. I think the shortage of faith is in their fellow humans. That’s what saddens me. Sometimes loving your neighbor is a lot harder than loving God. Particularly when they’re different from you and don’t think like you.
No one wants kids to be murdered. No one wants mass killings. How we get there is the debate, and that’s where reasonable people, indeed holy people, can differ.
Frankly, I find this mindset puzzling as a Catholic. It's just boilerplate American Liberal Conservatism masquerading as traditional Catholic politics. I struggle to reconcile this bunker mentality with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
I was going to comment something much franker, but I remembered that The Pillar's comment policy is charity
We're all products of our times and environments, even bishops. Which is why, when American Protestants and Deists were using liberalism to advance the cause individual human dignity and democratic rights, the Church was actively condemning freedom of conscience and preached "submission to princes" as necessary for salvation. https://www.papalencyclicals.net/greg16/g16mirar.htm
You are correct that, to a certain extent, we are all products of our times and environment. Your assumptions that Liberalism has advanced human dignity and that democracy is preferable are examples of that.
However, as Christians we must always be willing to be signs of contradiction to the ills in whatever culture we find ourselves in.
My preference for Liberalism and democracy are certainly assumptions in which I have been raised, but I also feel confirmed in these beliefs via serious reflection and critical examination. Also by the Church's own teaching, which has acknowledged we were behind the ball for several centuries.
I find the idea that the Church somehow had to "catch up to the times" problematic (its also one of the foundational myths of Liberalism). The Church has never repudiated its stance on a robust notion of the Common Good and its rejection of secularism. The Church has stated that there is no one political system that is inherently ideal (though there can certainly be better and worse). This is far from a blanket acceptance of Liberalism by the Church.
It's entirely true that the Church has never repudiating its stance on a robust notion of the Common Good, but the Church's modern understanding of what the Common Good entails has been greatly enriched by Liberalism. Consider CCC 1925, which reads in part: "The common good consists in three essential elements: respect for and promotion of the fundamental rights of the person...". This framing of individual rights as an essential element of the common good is Liberalism 101 and a clear, enriching addition to the Church's moral Magisterium.
To further illustrate the point, consider what Mirari Vos says about government: "These beautiful examples of the unchanging subjection to the princes necessarily proceeded from the most holy precepts of the Christian religion. They condemn the detestable insolence and improbity of those who, consumed with the unbridled lust for freedom, are entirely devoted to impairing and destroying all rights of dominion while bringing servitude to the people under the slogan of liberty,"
and compare it to CCC 1915: "As far as possible citizens should take an active part in public life. The manner of this participation may vary from one country or culture to another. 'One must pay tribute to those nations whose systems permit the largest possible number of citizens to take part in public life in a climate of genuine freedom.'"
So yes, the Church has never endorsed Liberalism in its totality, but in the past 150 years it has shifted to a marked, though not quite explicit, preference for participatory liberal democracy.
Well said! As a devout Catholic, I am called to evangelize. To do so as Christ taught as His Way, is to arm myself not with worldly weapons but with the Armor of God. I need to stay involved in the Political realm of this nation by voting with a well-formed conscience. Trust me voting is not an easy thing. It is with great prudence and agony and prayer. I do not vote as a Christian as that would be trying to influence a State religion. I vote with a mentality for the greater good of society. In short for the good and well being of every person as human in our nation.
Thoughtful comment, but we're looking at nineteen children killed with a gun and no children killed from masking and vaccinating against a disease that, well, has killed a million people in the US, so I'm not sure how that's child abuse, especially as a teacher who had to do all that masking, vaccinating, and testing myself. I'm also not so sure how the idea that we must defend ourselves with guns against angry mobs that we fear are going to attack us squares with the idea that Christ is in control, and perhaps to be more provocative, I'm also not sure it squares well with following the non-violent example of Christ and the martyrs who came after him.
I have some close friends deeply embedded in gun culture. In their conception of the world, owning a weapon is what differentiates citizen from subject. That line of thinking is very, very old in Western culture, and was foundational to many predominantly Catholic societies. While it may seem antiquated, they would argue, and not irrationally, that “the most free nation on the planet,” happened precisely because of that citizen versus subject relationship. You may disagree with their premises, but within that intellectual tradition, the conclusions are reasonable. The fact that it is the 21st century or not has little to do with it, particularly since we’re debating on a message string discussing the intersection of the world, a 2000 year-old church, and thousands of years of Jewish tradition before that.
Deborah Samuel was stoned to death by her classmates. The solution is not to ban guns or knives or stones. The solution is to fix what has gone wrong to make a person think they should kill. The school shootings have so little to do with guns. The people who decide to act out of such evil hatred will find tools of violence.
How would this story have been any different with a less powerful weapon? Do we really think that the possessed person in this shooting would not have made a bomb or used a car or fire or any number of other weapons? Or are we saying that next time when such a person barricades themself in a classroom and starts killing children it will matter if they have a pistol instead, or even a machete? What matters is why a person would want to do such a thing in the first place.
It does not matter whether the laws are pro-gun or anti-gun. Perhaps a person should be 21 to buy a gun but we know that a shooter can still get a gun in many ways. What is the solution for the nihilistic hate? The focus on guns misses the point.
"how would this story have been any different with a less powerful weapon?"
less people would have died, Father.
I was watching the Netflix series 'Who killed Sara' where the misogynist patriarch was trying to teach the grandson to kill a deer. He implied that the boy was acting like a homosexual for being concerned that the deer had a fawn with it. When he was teaching the boy to hold the gun he said 'feel it in your balls'. That gave support to a sense I've always had about guns serving toxic masculinity.
Gun advocates like to sell guns as a defense for females but there is no natural heart in most females to carry a gun on their hip or slung around their shoulders for the purpose of defense. Especially females who've been drawn to childrens care and education. It's a dead letter arguement.
Exactly! And is that the plan? Keep the death toll down to 5 at a time?
In the actual circumstances we have heard so far, I don't even think that would have been achieved. Could the people in the classroom have stopped him if he had a machete? Probably not.
We have to address what makes a person want to do this, not just what weapon they choose once they decide to do it.
oh, is someone saying that we shouldn't address what makes people want to murder, the only focus should be on banning weapons? I'm not aware of anyone saying that. Bishop Flores certainly didn't say that.
a death toll of 5 is less bad than a death toll of 21, so I would absolutely support the USA taking steps to widely prohibit access to weapons of mass destruction, and measures to limit the production and sale of such weapons. in my country, the government already took such steps after a man killed fifty innocent people.
Most of the murders and suicides in this country are done by hand guns.
Why do you assume that? The shooter barricaded himself in the classroom, his victims were trapped. How would the death toll have been any less if he used a machete?
Maybe. But the killer would know that and probably not take his time hacking everybody to death.
Unless the cops happened to be driving by, the assailant would have been able to reap just as much carnage.
Using a machete is much easier, there is no maintenance and the only limiting factor is your own stamina. It doesn't jam or need to be reloaded, won't run out of ammo (which is heavy to carry) and its impact is as, or more, horrifying.
The tool isn't the issue, it's the person wielding it.
What is the solution for nihilistic hate? Honesty. All of this is born from hypocrisy influenced by deceitful spirits and bolstered by smooth rhetoric. The real intelligent types who can’t help but keep the game going. They enjoy it. Mix in some trauma and drugs, it’s real easy to come to the conclusion that the best way to help the world is to become the devil everyone else claims they don’t worship themselves.
Self-absorption is alive and well in our nation. The numbers of people who are unaware of, they themselves being whom they idolize is our nation's demise; for it is prevalent in both State and Church.
I don't disagree with anything that Bishop Flores says, but once again I still find myself frustrated with the tendency of Catholic Social Teaching to presume a certain state of societal affairs and then articulate principles of action.
For instance, the bishop talks about politics as rightly being an exercise in coming together and crafting laws and policy through consensus. This presumes both a broad mutual trust in society and a common understanding of the Good. However, in the present day United States, we possess neither. It's fine to say that we ought to have these things, but the Church is silent on the question of "And if these things are lacking, where can Catholic citizens and politicians at least start?" Sadly, we don't receive that kind of pertinent guidance from our shepherds, just exhortations that we ought to have a different sort of civil society than the one in which we live.
We're not able to address this issue, or many other pressing ones, because 35% of the country hates and fears another 35%, and vice versa. Probably 70% of the citizenry is convicted, deep down, that half of their fellow citizens are not just wrong or misguided, but dangerous and duplicitous, and need to be kept from power at all costs. You can't build off of consensus or even articulate a shared vision of a common good in such a situation. It's a fool's errand.
Bishop Flores: “Can’t we talk about how we make this community, this state, this country safer, especially for our children?”
Also Bishop Flores: "Don’t tell me that guns aren’t the problem, people are. I’m sick of hearing it."
How are we supposed to have a synodal way when it has become the norm to tell people who disagree with you to stop talking, to shout over people trying to articulate their point, to begin a conversation by shutting down the possibility of disagreement?
The people who oppose gun ownership are not just accusing the people who support it of being wrong and dangerous and duplicitous, but also of not caring that children died.
Agreed. It’s as if there are people who would rather not actually seek a solution.
I do sympathize with bishops, who surely feel that they cannot remain silent, but must also know that they have no more of a solution to offer than any of the rest of us.
True, as regards the political answers, but I hope the Gospel does have a solution. In Jesus Christ, in his suffering, death, and Resurrection, in his command to love, we have the solution to the problems of the world. The days are past when the world cared about the political opinions of priests, bishops, and popes. But that does not mean that we should remain silent. It is not right that we should abandon the preaching of the Gospel to serve as armchair politicians.
Good points. There is no consensus. The big 5 gun stocks spiked this week. This always happens after a tragedy like this, and especially after all the talking heads start railing on about new forms of gun control. Those with guns or considering ownership (I’m not a gun owner myself, and prolly will never have one) stock up when they fear new forms of gun control are on the horizon.
Per the brief history of the shooter that’s available. He came from a broken home, got bullied in school because of a lisp, started acting strange and violent which prolly further isolated him (apparently he got into a fight with his ma over WiFi, then shot his grandma over a phone bill), then prolly hit that point where he just said “f’ it.” From moving around from South Dakota to Texas, to never developing any coping skills or trades to pursue…seems like another lost kid trying to do anything to be seen or heard.
Shooting up a school is something worse than despair tho, that’s pure animalistic (perhaps demonic) rage. Maybe a better background check system could have slowed down the purchase, maybe image algorithms could have immediately removed those posts from his insta to check any delusions of grandeur he was cooking up, but if he didn’t have any recorded prior convictions or psych hospitalizations, I’m not sure what could be done. Perhaps, Changing the age for buying a firearm from 18 to 21 might help, and could be done quickly and doesn’t seem totally unreasonable. But that’s still the numbers game.
After the Our Lady of Angels fire in Chicago, my grandpa (a supervising engineer in CPS), said the Church wanted to get out of the school business. It wasn’t worth the liability. However, that same fire changed building codes and regulations across the country. When’s the last time you heard of a tragic school fire? On another note, what happened to all those religious brothers and sisters that used to run those parochial schools?
Point is, there is a solution. However, I don’t think these ambiguous musings (which can easily be misinterpreted as “we’re gonna take your guns”) from politicians, Bishops, or Hollywood actors do much for the general population, other than stoke the flames.
From the standpoint of the Church, I’d like to see another call for prayer, fasting, and maybe even special masses for the victims and the health of the kids and parents. Can a bishop make an obligatory Mass for something like that? If not, some sort of strong invite for a nation-wide night time Mass during the week? Any faithful Catholic can get behind that, those that can’t make it can join live stream or make excuses for themselves and continue posting crap on the internet. Don’t tell me how to think, even if it’s just to “ponder,” I don’t trust the hierarchy for that anymore. But a call to prayer, fasting, and the Sacraments? That’s the Bishop’s job, isn’t it?
How about this: trade the 2nd Amendment for any and all abortion.
You talk of trading two things that, I suspect, you don’t like. That has no cost to you. It does to others, whether you understand that cost or not.
First, gun ownership is not equivalent to abortion. Guns are tools, abortion is an act. Guns have uses beyond taking human life. Abortion is, definitionally, the taking of a human life in the womb. Very, very different things.
Second, you’re advocating others sacrifice something they value for something you want to get rid of. This is really a solid chunk of why folks on the gun rights side don’t want to compromise—because people who have no stake in their culture are more than willing to put on the pyre things that they care about with indifference. Please consider that this blithely offered trade does not meaningfully forward this discussion and can cause more distrust and lead to an even greater improbability of compromise.
I’m fine with 2A. I think codifying the right to bear arms as foundational to a free society was a good thing to do. I’m glad I have the firearms I have and that I took the training and did the checks my state says I had to do to get a CCW.
I’m willing to give that up if it meant that abortion for any reason whatever were illegal.
Because, as you say, owning a tool and taking a human life are very different classes of act. And I think it does impact this discussion meaningfully if I can highlight where some “no go” zones are and are not. So I shifted gears a bit to bring in another currently hot topic and went up the hypothetical calculus hill of “what are you willing to give up to make abortion go away”.
Anyway, the true fix to this is either 1) truly evangelizing the nation and more people having the mind of Christ or 2) Jesus returns. I’m fine with either. Bring on the eschaton.
The nub of the issue is where the bishop says, “there is a legitimate right of the state to exercise a vigilant and reasonable stewardship and control over the access to weapons or things which could potentially cause great damage to the good of the whole.”
What if the state *is* (or becomes in the future) the threat to the good of the whole? What if the exercise of second amendment rights is not about the idolatry of individualism but taken in the context of militias mentioned in the Constitution? Violent defense against gov’t state tyranny is either legitimate or not in the Catholic view — if it is not he should say so plainly. Ambiguity doesn’t work in this case because you can’t have it both ways.
if the state becomes a threat to you, then the weapons you can get won't save you, considering the extent of the US military. but how likely is it that you are going to need weapons to defend yourself from the state anyway? the people who think that typically seem to be conspiracy theorists and schizos.
You're not going to "defeat" the state any more than Jews armed in the 1930s Germany would've been able to "defeat" the Germans. But do you think it would've been better had they not been disarmed? No one thinks there will be tyranny in their own state (see Germany in 1930s). It's always considered a conspiracy because people don't read history.
The US military lost to the Taliban, so don't discount the power of an outgunned insurgency. I'm not advocating or hoping for such a thing, but "You could never beat the US military on the field of battle!" is demonstrably falsifiable.
"What if the state *is* (or becomes in the future)" The future is now. I would add that most of the comments contained herein yield a 'bullseye' planned by the perpetrators of these heinous acts. (Hint: the armed persons are tools themselves.)The veil will be lifted in coming days/weeks. Pray for wisdom, fortitude and grace. The world will need a triple portion (minimum). Our Lady of Sorrows, pray for us.
We cannot claim to be Pro-life and refuse to recognize the fascination with death this country has in all its forms. No regular citizen needs an AR-15 with .556 ammo. That gun and that ammo are meant for one thing.... killing people. Anyone retort with hunting arguments.... I say this... if you need it for hunting, you need to learn to hunt better.
it should also be considered that there is no inalienable right to hunt for sport.
Kat, the AR-15 is not some extra-powerful weapon; in fact, the .556 caliber is pretty small. The AR-15 is useful in part because it's great for a lot of things, including home defense and hunting. When used for home defense, it's most often just brandished, and that makes the criminals go away; most defensive gun uses don't involve firing a shot, much less a person dying.
If you think certain guns are deadly and others aren't, or that you can own a hand grenade, or that guns are easier to get than aspirin, you don't understand the law, or how guns work.
Sir, with all due respect, and not being generally in favor of confiscatory gun policy, I don’t think that your interlocutors think that, “certain guns are deadly and others aren’t.” I think they, very rationally, think some are more deadly than others. Please, don’t straw man. That doesn’t help firearm owners. An honest assessment of firearms absolutely indicates that some are far more deadly than others, in absolute terms.
That said, I will agree wholeheartedly with you that, when Bishop Flores say that it’s easier to buy a firearm than aspirin it’s tiresome and untrue. I give him the benefit of the doubt that it’s a lack of understanding or ignorance on the subject, as opposed to mendacity, and would encourage him to learn more about it so he can shepherd on the issue in the greater wholeness of truth.
"some are more deadly than others" - well that is true - most hunting rifles are more deadly than an AR-15. In this case let's not pretend the type of gun mattered. The shooter had 40 minutes to kill 21 people. A musket has a high enough rate of fire to do that.
Sir, I’m very familiar with the relative deadliness of firearms. A large caliber hunting rifle is certainly more powerful than an AR-15, often by an order of magnitude.
But, power isn’t directly proportional to deadliness, and there’s a reason the military uses these smaller caliber rifles for the bulk of their infantry, and not, say full sized battle rifles of old. They are, pound for pound, more efficient at putting bullets down range, and that’s what most people mean when they say, “deadly.” Not raw power. I’m sympathetic to the gun rights argument in principle, but I’ve never liked the, “hunting rifles are more deadly,” gambit, and to many people it comes off as disingenuous or obtuse.
While it’s true that this most recent murderer had enough time to kill 21 people that he could have practically used a musket, that’s not really the point your interlocutors are making. AR-15s and similar mid-caliber semiautomatic rifles make this sort of horrible thing easier to do. I don’t think that is honestly debatable.
The debate is about the civilian ownership of these powerful, potentially dangerous tools. Again, I’m not sympathetic to bans, but I do want a fair discussion with good arguments.
"mid-caliber semiautomatic rifles make this sort of horrible thing easier to do" - actually, it would have been far easier for him to use a knife.
I've read he was carrying 58 (!) magazines, at one pound each, plus the rifle (maybe 2 - have heard different reports). To think that a youth in his prime can't kill 21 people in 40 minutes without an AR-15 is wishful thinking.
And of course it begs the question - how do you "eliminate" intermediate caliber semiautomatic weapons without eliminating the ability for victims to defend themselves? As Cesare Beccaria (as quoted by Thomas Jefferson) wrote:
"The laws of this nature are those which forbid to wear arms, disarming those only who are not disposed to commit the crime which the laws mean to prevent. ... It certainly makes the situation of the assaulted worse, and of the assailants better, and rather encourages than prevents murder, as it requires less courage to attack unarmed than armed persons."
Want to make it harder for this to happen? Arm teachers and staff at schools. Nobody's going to walk into a school knowing that they will be stopped before they can secure their place in history. Look at the recent shooting in Charleston. https://wchstv.com/news/local/victim-hospitalized-in-charleston-shooting
Mr. L, I do think a youth in his prime would have a lot of difficulty killing 21 people in the face of modest resistance. Possible? Sure. Likely? A lot less. Otherwise, wars would be fought with knives, police would carry only knives, and gangs would use only knives. Guns, particularly those in question here, are more deadly.
I’m sympathetic to your underlying points—that firearms can be used for defense and that bans would be double edged swords at best. But, again, I urge you to reconsider the “x is more or less dangerous than y” argument. It is not particularly valid and it is not compelling. I think this is where we part company, friend.
I didn't say knives were more dangerous than guns, the point I am making is that a prepared 18 year old is going to be able to have his way with 8-9 year olds, or even most adults, with any kind of imposing weapon, be it a gun, knife, or baseball bat. It's easy to say "resist" but if you've ever been in a life or death situation you know that fear takes over - you lose coordination, motor skills, initiative. The person who trained for and initiated the situation has a great advantage, physically and psychologically, regardless of the weapon used. These were not trained professionals, they were school children. Thinking they could have rushed him had he used any other weapon is a fantasy.
Good Bishop, guns are not easier to obtain than aspirin. People are part of the issue. These killers come from extremely broken homes. It appears in most of these murders, authorities are failing to do their duty. We should all be called to speak the truth, and not use hyperbole.
We have a problem with sin in this world, and Jesus is the only answer to it. Everything else doesn’t address the root cause, and ultimately becomes a bandaid to the larger problem.
I don’t disagree that we need to help the young, but this is problem with the entire culture, and not just young people.
I would like to ask everyone who is writing comments, anytime this entire month, about how the laws we have right now are just fine (and that people need to change) to ask themselves "are my personal opinions about easy-access-to-abortion laws consistent with my personal opinions about easy-access-to-firearms laws?" If they are not consistent, then take an hour for prayer sometime to ask God "what is going on in my heart and what would You like me to do." If they are consistent I would actually still advise the same course of action.
Ma’am, I think that’s a very worthwhile thing to pray about. But, the question is also a bit of a straw man and could be perceived as disingenuous. Every abortion takes a human life. Literally hundreds of millions of firearms are legally owned by the public in the US. If the two issues were directly comparable, there would be no people left alive in the us. Abortion is an act. A firearm is a tool. They are drastically different things with very different telos.
If, perhaps, God suggests a different answer to someone than the one you personally thing God would offer them, please, don’t hold it against them.
If you think God is going to say "hey you need to change your opinion" rather than either "let's explore your personal woundedness because I would like to heal some things that you have not noticed (or have been trying to hide), hold still because this might hurt a bit" or "let's do something terrifying together" then most likely there is going to be a surprise.
God has asked me to do some pretty strange and challenging things that I didn't think were on the table when I opened the conversation with Him. Sometimes there's quite a long time between me asking "yo, Lord, what up" and then being challenged to do something. Or there's the sneaky approach "hey kid, appreciate your asking, could you do this one little thing" and that's not so scary so one does it and then a year or five years later one is like "... I can see what happened in every individual step along the way but I am still wondering how did I end up here." Open the conversation, it'll be great. And also terrifying.
Ma’am, I don’t think I wrote I thought God was going to say. That’s what I mean by a straw man—an argument against an assertion not actually made by your interlocutor. I think you responded to thoughts on my end not in evidence. I’m sorry if I lead you to think that, however.
I will wholeheartedly agree that God has called me to do some really uncomfortable things, I agree with that. And, I still have wounds to examine and heal.
And those strange and challenging things may be stranger and more frightening than we think is common or polite in this day and age. According to our Tradition, there are saints who carried swords into battle and who believed they were called to arms. There are also saints who cast aside arms and died at the barrel of a gun or point of a sword and armed only with prayer. The commonality is they are saints, and that they listened faithfully to God’s call.
I’m not wise enough to square the circle of why some saints were armed and some were empty handed, except to say, again, they were all armed with faith. And unless one is willing to cast aside the sword-carrying saints of the past because it was a less civilized time, then I think we’re forced to contend with a mystery that makes debates like this decidedly uncomfortably and very much more than binary in outcome.
Can I just interject with this reality. It's not really a mystery outside the US. Catholics around the globe who are anti abortion are equally anti gun proliferation. There is no conundrum because civil rights don't have the weight of a divine right and they can and should be adjusted according to what serves the common good of the land. So what Bishop Flores notes about the sacralization of guns is quite accurate.
Tdeclara, you’re misconstruing my last comment—the mystery to which I refer is: how is it that our tradition has recognized armed saints. You did not respond to that point. You brought up, again, abortion; a comparison to which I, and Mr. Freivald, have raised a very clear and reasonable objection. You did not address the clear inconsistency between abortion (an inherently objectionable act which inherently takes lives) and firearm ownership (an which is in and of itself value neutral, and which can be used for good or for evil).
That a large number of Catholics around the globe have similar opinions on firearm ownership and abortion is an appeal to the crowd—a logical fallacy. I don’t think a large number of Catholics define magisterial authority or morality; if they did, unfortunately, I think things like abortion would actually be considered licit.
I also question whether you can legitimately speak on behalf of “Catholics around the globe.” I suspect there are a large number of faithful Catholics in countries like Canada and Australia who might disagree with your characterization. Those nations had (and have) rich gun-owning cultures, despite their government’s restrictions on firearm ownership. This is a suspicion, but a fair one.
All that aside, again, my point: throughout much of its history, the Church was comfortable with the idea of the faithful, or at least a portion of the faithful, being armed, to the point where there are saints who carried swords and guns. Unless we want to un-saint them (which I don’t think we can) or totally reject centuries of tradition (which sets us up for a whole mess of theological problems), I don’t think we can simplify this into a, “guns are bad,” argument.
As I’ve written before here: the sacralization of guns is bad. All false idols are. But blaming all of this on gun proliferation, and using that as a singular wedge issue is a form of scapegoating—both the object and the owner. And, again, as is multiply evident in scripture and tradition, outside of Christ’s sacrifice, scapegoating is bad.
It's a complex issue indeed, even when we consider only a single individual's relationship to arms. If folks have not read https://ignatius.com/the-shadow-of-his-wings-shwp/ The Shadow of His Wings (not a canonized saint but very interesting), I recommend it, in passing.
This is a good topic.
Easy access to abortion means you're able to kill a child in the womb without consequences; it protects the commission of an intrinsically evil act.
Easy access to firearms means you're able to access firearms without consequences; it protects the commission of a neutral act.
To make a comparison that is equivalent, we'd need to compare easy abortions with easy gun murders, or easy access to suction and saline with easy access to guns.
I think abortion should be as illegal as gun (or any other) murder. I think access to saline and suction should be fully legal, just as access to guns should be. I think this is consistent and prudent.
Given that, you're correct that it's worth asking, "What does God want us to do?"
Your proposal (ask some third party; ask about "us"; skip the part that might hurt):
> you're correct that it's worth asking, "What does God want us to do?"
My proposal (ask God directly; ask about "me"; lead with the part that might hurt):
> take an hour for prayer sometime to ask God "what is going on in my heart and what would You like me to do."
I do not say that my proposal is necessarily better than yours (the proof of the pudding will be in the eating) but I do assert that they are substantially different.
Okay. I was trying to agree with you that we should be thinking about what God wants from us, and I instinctively put this into a group context because we are ultimately going to be doing whatever it is as part of a community. But you're right that there's an individual component as well as a community component.
To know Christ is to know God. To know God is to know Love. If "they" know we are Christian by our love, we then need never ask what God wants us to do!! Christ was not complicated. Man complicates what God creates.
I think I see where you are going, deacon, but you don't end up there. Discernment is an important part of the Christian life. How, for instance would your advice apply to a young person discerning whom they should marry? Yes, love and do whatever you want, but also listen to the Holy Spirit for more specific instructions. Counsel is one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Please don't tell people to not ask God what he wants them to do. Even if you think the answer is obvious, you should still encourage people to pray and hear that answer from God.
I am somewhat surprised not to hear Bishop Flores explicitly note the breakdown of the family as a major cause of these problems. It seems like the norm for many of these psychopaths is to come from a family where they are separated from one of their birth parents (most often the father). Look at how little concern and responsibility the boyfriend of the Uvalde shooter's mom apparently had for him.
https://www.insider.com/texas-school-gunman-was-kind-of-weird-one-mothers-boyfriend-2022-5
I am not saying you can't have good outcomes from separated families, but that the normalization and permissiveness we have toward divorce is greatest single factor in childhood and youth trauma.
Point blank: the debate on gun control preventing mass murder is, in its current form, perverse. It’s not perverse because the debate over gun control is unnecessary: it’s perverse because it has now become a cultural war built around a dichotomous response to a hideously complex problem. And that war is not one sided.
Bishop Flores is right that single-issue gun-rights supporters sacralizes the gun ownership. But, he misses the point that single-issue gun control supporters scapegoat it. Last I checked, our faith was not too keen on false idols or scapegoats (outside of Christ). No one likes it when people worship false idols, but no one (or no thing) should be a scapegoat. Idols misplace our love. Scapegoats misplace our fear.
With rare exceptions, we all want kids to be safer. We want the world to be safer. Start from there. From that perspective, there is no “divide” or “debate.” The debate is on the how and the why to achieve that. And, as is sadly typical for human beings, we use this as an excuse to find new and creative ways to resent each other. We start with “if you don’t agree with my solution you’re immoral.” We say, if you disagree with me, “I’m tired of hearing” from you. Both sides do it, so compromise is impossible, and people continue to die from needless violence.
I’d offer a suggestion: find someone you know who disagrees with you on this debate. Tell yourself, and them, that you love them, respect them, and care about them. Maybe, if you’re both in a praying mood, pray together about the subject. Do that a few times before you start taking policy. And when you do start talking policy, if you ask them for a sacrifice, offer an equally meaningful sacrifice yourself. Then, maybe, just maybe we might get somewhere. It isn’t a quick and easy solution. But, solving problems from a position of love and trust is a heck of a lot easier than than forcing compromise among people who resent one another.
It won’t fix things right away, but neither has this pitched battle. And, in addition to coming up with some good solutions, we might actually end up caring more about each other. Which is probably part of the solution.
"the Church[ expects to form] her own people to be active and participatory in the political process that comes to a kind of consensus as to how we order things in a way that protects our children, protects our elderly protects, protects people who are vulnerable, especially when it comes to the potential of violence."
Why, then, Bishop Flores, would you think that we should take away the very instruments by which we can protect our children, the elderly, and other vulnerable people against the potential of violence? We know that evil people will continue to inflict evil; must we make ourselves defenseless against them?
Maybe we should think about barring manufacturers of AR15s from communion if they are Catholic.
The problem with increasing gun control laws is that they won't be enforced, just as they aren't enforced now. It is illegal for a person with a mental illness to own a gun. Yet this provision of the law goes unenforced. Something like 35% of gun deaths are suicides, which wouldn't be the case if mentally ill people couldn't get guns.
People do need to have the right to own weapons to protect themselves from those who would still have weapons even if they were illegal. I have a relative doing time right now for being a felon in possession of 12 guns, so it's pretty obvious that the only people who would give up their guns if they were illegal are the law abiding. We do need to have the option of gun ownership.
I find many of the comments on this thread absolutely frightening. Where is your faith in God?
MT 22:37-40. 37 Jesus declared, “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’e 38This is the first and greatest commandment. 39And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’f 40All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
I think everyone commenting here has a deep faith in God. I think the shortage of faith is in their fellow humans. That’s what saddens me. Sometimes loving your neighbor is a lot harder than loving God. Particularly when they’re different from you and don’t think like you.
No one wants kids to be murdered. No one wants mass killings. How we get there is the debate, and that’s where reasonable people, indeed holy people, can differ.