Posted on 01/16/2011 4:10:55 AM PST by marktwain
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The Catholic Church's position on gun control is not easy to find; there are dozens of speeches and talks and a few documents that call for much tighter regulation of the global arms trade, but what about private gun ownership?
The answer is resoundingly clear: Firearms in the hands of civilians should be strictly limited and eventually completely eliminated.
But you won't find that statement in a headline or a document subheading. It's almost hidden in a footnote in a document on crime by the U.S. bishops' conference and it's mentioned in passing in dozens of official Vatican texts on the global arms trade.
The most direct statement comes in the bishops' "Responsibility, Rehabilitation and Restoration: A Catholic Perspective on Crime and Criminal Justice" from November 2000.
"As bishops, we support measures that control the sale and use of firearms and make them safer -- especially efforts that prevent their unsupervised use by children or anyone other than the owner -- and we reiterate our call for sensible regulation of handguns."
That's followed by a footnote that states: "However, we believe that in the long run and with few exceptions -- i.e. police officers, military use -- handguns should be eliminated from our society."
That in turn reiterates a line in the bishops' 1990 pastoral statement on substance abuse, which called "for effective and courageous action to control handguns, leading to their eventual elimination from our society."
On the world stage, the Vatican has been pushing for decades for limitations not just on conventional weapons of warfare, such as tanks and missiles, but also for stricter limitations on the illegal and legal sale, trade and use of small firearms and weapons, said Tommaso Di Ruzza, the expert on disarmament and arms control at the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace.
Di Ruzza told Catholic News Service that the Vatican is one of just a handful of states that would like to see small arms and weapons included in the U.N. Arms Trade Treaty, which would better regulate the flow of conventional arms.
He said while many countries are open to limits on larger weapons systems, most nations aren't interested in regulating small arms even though they "cause more deaths than all other arms (conventional and non-conventional) together."
The Vatican's justice and peace council is working to update its 1994 document, "The International Arms Trade," to further emphasize the importance of enacting concrete controls on handguns and light weapons, he said.
The current document calls on every nation and state "to impose a strict control on the sale of handguns and small arms. Limiting the purchase of such arms would certainly not infringe on the rights of anyone."
The more weapons there are in circulation, the more likely terrorists and criminals will get their hands on them, the document said.
The Catholic Church recognizes that "states will need to be armed for reason of legitimate defense," as Pope Benedict XVI said in a message to a Vatican-sponsored disarmament conference in April 2008.
However, armed defense is something appropriate for nations, not for all individual citizens in a state where rule of law is effective, said Di Ruzza.
According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, individuals have a right and a duty to protect their own lives when in danger, and someone who "defends his life is not guilty of murder even if he is forced to deal his aggressor a lethal blow."
How that "lethal blow" could be licitly wielded is unclear, but the catechism clarifies that repelling the aggressor must be done "with moderation" in order to be "lawful" in the eyes of the church; using "more than necessary violence" would be unlawful, it says.
According to the catechism, the right to use firearms to "repel aggressors" or render them harmless is specifically sanctioned for "those who legitimately hold authority" and have been given the duty of protecting the community.
Di Ruzza said that in "a democracy, where there is respect for institutions (of law), the citizen relinquishes his right to revenge onto the state," which, through its law enforcement and courts system, aims to mete out a fair and just punishment.
"There is a sort of natural right to defend the common interest and the common good, and in 1791 (when the United States passed the Second Amendment), my right to have a weapon served the common good because there wasn't an army; the democratic institutions were young and a little fragile, and I could have been useful in a time of war as a soldier," said Di Ruzza.
But once a nation has a functioning army, police force and court system, "do I still serve the common good with my gun or do I put it at even greater danger?" and promote a lawless kind of "street justice where if you steal my car, I shoot you," he asked.
The Vatican's justice and peace council's 1994 document said, "In a world marked by evil and sin, the right of legitimate defense by armed means exists," but, Di Ruzza said, it wasn't lauding the potential of weaponry as much as it was lamenting the existence of arms in an imperfect world.
Nations have a duty, the document said, to reduce if not eliminate the causes of violence.
And as Pope Benedict wrote in his message to the disarmament conference, no reduction or elimination of arms can happen without eliminating violence at its root.
Every person "is called to disarm his own heart and be a peacemaker everywhere," the pope said.
No real surprise. Many left wing agenda items are quietly supported or artfully ignored like abortion.
well I'm sure that will happen, just as soon as Jesus returns.
Recycled USCCB spew ping, if you wish to wade in...
None of the documents mentioned, especially the USSCB docs, have any real authority. The Church has no offical, binding doctrine or dogma discouraging or prohibiting gun ownership. (Except within the Vatican itself, a very special case.)
A further point, any statements that are a judgment of circumstances (e.g. the degree of threat from terrorism, the amount of crime created by guns, etc.) and not a matter of faith and morals falls completely outside of the Church’s authority to make binding judgments. The Church can err in such judgments just as anyone else can.
The Church also honors St. Gabriel Possenti, whose expert marksmanship saved the village from outlaws.
This is rather silly. There is NO Church Teaching on the subject of gun control. There is clear teaching on the inherent freedom that each human has and the right to defend oneself and others.
Luke 22:36 He said to them, “But now if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you don’t have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one.”
So, the Pope and the Catholics now defy Jesus’ teachings?
It is one of many reasons I have left the Church.
Guncontrol is one of many social gospel heresies that some parts of the Catholic Church is enamored by.
That was a real fight!
Jesus said sell your Mp4 player and get an assault rifle.
EVERY church is run by men that are flawed.
The is typical "leftist-think" from the European semi-socialist and full socialists who inhabit the middle bureaucracy of the Vatican.
The error in their logic is that they assume that "the state" (i.e. has a functioning army, police force and court system) systems actually work effectively.
This is the same as the erroneous thinking in the Catechism justifying current Church efforts to eliminate the death penalty...which assumes that society actually has mechanisms THAT WORK to protect society from a murderer. I have seen NO evidence that that is true.
The ONLY way, other than the death penalty, to fully protect members of society is a sentence of life imprisonment WITHOUT PAROLE IN SOLITARY CONFINEMENT (prison guards are in danger, too).
It does on the use/elimination of the death penalty, which has the same logical disconnect as displayed above.
Render unto Ceasar those things which are Ceasars’, and render unto God those things which are Gods’. In other words, civilian carry is none is the Churchs’ G.D. business.
Laz, He also said:
Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloke also. And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain. Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away. (Matthew 5:39-42)
I always have trouble with this one. I guess I’ll just be a sinner, because I think I’d be fighting back if some one smacked my right cheek, unless she was good looking!
You mean 'repudiate' right?
Likewise, this is a point where American Catholics can and MUST remind the Pontifical Council for Peace and Justice that the difference in the structure and operation of our Government per the Constitution demands that we continue to have the ability to exercise the 2nd Amendment.
The European mindset on firearms is poisoned (no, that isn't too strong a word) because of two World Wars and two generations of threat from the Soviets... they fail to see how a well-armed public can be a positive thing - in spite of the fact that those totalitarian regimes (particularly Hitler) feared the possibility of an armed public so much that they seized all firearms.
From some conversations that I've had with some Europeans (I've been in Rome a year and a half) they see Americans as "cowboys" whose gun use is out of control -- because that's what their media feeds them.
Now... as far as the USCCB goes - they really ought know better. However, the documents both cited are getting a little old. It might be worth putting some pressure on the bishops if this becomes a more frequent talking point - pressure on individual bishops has affected other things to our advantage such as the beginning of the reform of the CCHD.
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