Posted on 07/11/2018 6:12:07 PM PDT by marshmallow
Fort Worth, Texas, Jul 7, 2018 CNA/EWTN News.- The Diocese of Fort Worth is removing signs notifying people that concealed and open carry of firearms are both banned on church property – but the policy against guns has not changed.
Removal of the signs was recommended by a security team whom the diocese hired as consultants after a mass shooting at a Baptist church in Sutherland Springs last November, NBC reported.
Tony Perez, a parishioner at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, has a license to carry firearms, but had been advocating for the removal of the signs.
He told Dallas-Fort Worth’s NBC affiliate that the signs were “effectively advertising a gun-free zone,” which notified individuals seeking to do harm that the location was vulnerable.
Instead of posting signs near the entrances of churches throughout the diocese, notification of the gun ban will be included in weekly Sunday bulletins, NBC said.
(Excerpt) Read more at thebostonpilot.com ...
Kind of like putting up a “Premises Alarmed” without having an alarm, only without the sticker.
Guess you really can improve on stupid ... but it takes management to make those quantum leaps!
Maybe you can get these liberal bishops to provide free funerals, when the unthinkable happens.
Probably some democrat priests getting the willies.
"One in three parishioners is packing heat."
"It is right and just."
the day that the church I go to put up a guns band sign is the day I stop going there.
So guns are still banned.
Have they forgotten “the church militant”?
By the way, a pastor at a Catholic parish in Fort Worth recently told me that his parish is forming a “protection team” of retired police officers (i.e. people who have right to carry weapons that goes beyond the usual CCW laws - at least that’s how he explained it to me) who can be expected to be on church property on Sundays, feast days, at night during choir practices, CCD classes and so on. They’re think very proactively.
At my church we have several of those retired officers, armed, and in plain clothes. They sit in the back pews, all with the full knowledge and consent of the pastor.
My church is in Texas also.
Isn’t the church’s ban, written or not, unconstitutional?
“Instead of posting signs near the entrances of churches throughout the diocese, notification of the gun ban will be included in weekly Sunday bulletins, NBC said.”
Because mass shooters can’t read.
...Isn’t the church’s ban, written or not, unconstitutional?...
No. It’s not part of the local, county, state, or Federal government. 2A only applies to government actors. The church can make their own rules about this.
Unconstitutional? Perhaps, but not because of the Church (a private organization). Any blame would rest on the Texas Legislature, because they passed state laws making such a ban enforceable. From the Diocese of Ft. Worth’s policy:
“Rationale:
In 1996, the Texas Legislature approved the carrying of concealed handguns, but the law prohibited them from being carried on Church and School premises. In 2016, the law was amended to allow the open carry of handguns and the statute left the prohibitions in place. However, for the law to take effect on Diocesan property effective notice must be given.”
That said, a gun ban as such does violate a natural law right to self-defense. As such, I would propose that any parishioner who carries a firearm legally has violated no moral law, because the diocesan policy is unjust... it doesn’t conform to divine law manifested in the natural law. The bishops who have enacted such policies were wrong to do so (Ft. worth is not the only one) and have capitulated to the spirit of the age.
The whole policy (without the changes mentioned in the article) is here: https://fwdioc.org/dioc-weapons-policy.pdf
They have.
Instead of posting signs near the entrances of churches throughout the diocese, notification of the gun ban will be included in weekly Sunday bulletinsSo guns are still banned.
My understanding is, Texas has required signage. You want to ban guns, you have to post the sign.
Any rule would be a church rule.
Not without a 30.06 compliant sign.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.