“It is no longer enough for those of us involved in civic leadership and pastoral care to comfort the bereaved and bewildered families of victims of gun violence. It is time to heed the words of Pope Francis and take meaningful and swift action to address violence in our society. We must band together to call for gun-control legislation. We must act in ways that promote the dignity and value of human life. And we must do it now.” – Roman Catholic archbishop of Chicago Blase J. Cupich in To gun violence, Archbishop Cupich says ‘Enough! [via chicagotribune.com]
Because if we pass more restrictions on the law-abiding, the law-breakers will begin to follow the law!!
It’s so much more dignified to be treated as a sheep too dumb to think for oneself or defend oneself.
I myself can think of no more innate natural right than the right of self-defense, and no more insult to dignity than to be prevented from defending oneself.
I think that pretty much sums up statists vs individualists — who controls me? Me, or you?
THIS Roman Catholic says “Shove it up your cassock Your Excellency!!!”
WWJD? Jesus wasn’t into self defense. PS. Sweet costume, Halloween is upon us.
He wasn’t? Then why’d he say this?
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.
Luke 22:36
What? First post makes no sense. Your Emminence, gun legislation already exists. And the problem is the breakdown of the family. These kids have no dads in their life and no structure and rules.. Their family is their gang. And with gangs come drugs and guns
This is simple. He’s ignorant enough to believe that gun control laws work. He has spent no time studying the history of gun control laws, and someone needs to educate him.
Holy Non-Sequitur, Batman!
Violence is caused by violent people. Violent people aren’t compelled by laws. Gun control legislation will do absolutely nothing to curb violence.
Because forcibly disarming law-abiding people, and rendering them defenseless when violent people would attempt to victimize them, is without a doubt the absolute best way to promote the dignity and value of human life.
According to the God whom you claim to serve, bishop, human life is sacred; and causing the innocent to be defenseless against those who would do them harm is immoral.
“We must act in ways that promote the dignity and value of human life. And we must do it now.”
Which is exactly why we continually sexually abuse children on every continent and in every country we are. We then further promote human dignity by effectively covering it up, and shuffling the offenders around the world to hinder law enforcement. We provide banking services for the dirty money of the Mafia, and preach homosexuality is a sin, while employing a whole lotta gay men.
The hypocrisy never ceases.
“We must act in ways that promote the dignity and value of human life. And we must do it now.” – Roman Catholic archbishop of Chicago Blase J. Cupich
At least the bishop got that part right.
And I cannot think of a more concrete way to promote the dignity and value of human life than to arm good people to actually defend human life … as opposed to just paying it lip service.
What was that Bible verse in the book of James, something about faith without deeds is a dead faith? Applying that verse in this case, conviction (to uphold the dignity and value of human life) is not really conviction without ACTION (arming good people to defend the dignity and value of human life).
It is high time that Christians actually read and carefully study their Bibles rather than listen to false religious leaders like these. The Bible is the real spiritual authority for the Christian, not the institutions or traditions of men. The Word of God produces the people of God, not the other way around. Scripture alone, Grace alone, Faith alone, Christ, and His
finished Work alone, and finally all Glory to God alone
+1 Very clearly said. Thank you Art
This and only this.
Word.
Literally.
Sorry, but the Church is the spiritual authority using the Bible as its basis and Tradition.
…because somehow, guns are the source of violence, and getting rid of the guns will get rid of the violence, or something…
Isaiah 2:4 says “And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more”. Doesn’t mention converting maces, battle-axen, daggers, other polearms, or artillery of any sort into farming implements.
Joel 3:10 King James Version (KJV)
Beat your plowshares into swords and your pruning hooks into spears: let the weak say, I am strong!
And then they get trounced by the guys who left their swords and spears unbeaten, because plow-steel does not make good sword-steel, right?
Ah. You’re one of those idiots.
I wasn’t violent until I started watching sports,ban sports and movies and free speech because boy when I hear politicians speak I gets angry, and we wouldn’t want human dignity to be scared
Get rid of the guns and they will go back to knives, machetes, baseball bats, fists or ISIS tactics, bombs (easy to make). It’s the violent people that need to change. And we have lots of gun legislation in the State of Illinois. The judicial system is not enforcing it
All the years screaming to get rid of guns hasn’t stopped the gangs from shooting each other. Meanwhile, other communities are almost completely safe with their guns – must be doing something wrong.
Dear Archbishop Cupich,
No.
Thank you and have a good day.
Doesn’t the call, from the pulpit, to take political action put the church 501c3 status in jeopardy?
No.
As a Catholic, I would say: go pound sand.
+1 as a catholic. Get your head out of your butt Bishop from the violence ridden city of Chicago. The 2nd Amendment is not about hunting its about defending oneself and family from all threats Foreign and Domesic.
Pope = armed security detail and armed vatican guards.
When the pope lives by a good example then maybe he can really be inspiring, till then it’s pass the bible and ammunition for me.
Why does anyone care what some old dude in a dress has to say?
Still think Pope Francis’s quote – published here a while back – was intended to refer only to government entities?
I find it odd that the Catholic church let pedophiles, the most disgusting, heinous type of criminal, move from church to church to avoid criminal prosecution but they have a problem with my legally owned firearms that never have and never will hurt an innocent child. You need to look up hypocrite in the dictionary father.
Religion has been known to cloud the brain…
From the catechism regarding self defense:
Legitimate defense
2263 The legitimate defense of persons and societies is not an exception to the prohibition against the murder of the innocent that constitutes intentional killing. “The act of self-defense can have a double effect: the preservation of one’s own life; and the killing of the aggressor. . . . The one is intended, the other is not.”
2264 Love toward oneself remains a fundamental principle of morality. Therefore it is legitimate to insist on respect for one’s own right to life. Someone who defends his life is not guilty of murder even if he is forced to deal his aggressor a lethal blow:
If a man in self-defense uses more than necessary violence, it will be unlawful: whereas if he repels force with moderation, his defense will be lawful. . . . Nor is it necessary for salvation that a man omit the act of moderate self-defense to avoid killing the other man, since one is bound to take more care of one’s own life than of another’s.
2265 Legitimate defense can be not only a right but a grave duty for one who is responsible for the lives of others. The defense of the common good requires that an unjust aggressor be rendered unable to cause harm. For this reason, those who legitimately hold authority also have the right to use arms to repel aggressors against the civil community entrusted to their responsibility.
2266 The efforts of the state to curb the spread of behavior harmful to people’s rights and to the basic rules of civil society correspond to the requirement of safeguarding the common good. Legitimate public authority has the right and duty to inflict punishment proportionate to the gravity of the offense. Punishment has the primary aim of redressing the disorder introduced by the offense. When it is willingly accepted by the guilty party, it assumes the value of expiation. Punishment then, in addition to defending public order and protecting people’s safety, has a medicinal purpose: as far as possible, it must contribute to the correction of the guilty party.
2267 Assuming that the guilty party’s identity and responsibility have been fully determined, the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.
If, however, non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people’s safety from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and more in conformity to the dignity of the human person.
Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an offense incapable of doing harm – without definitely taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself – the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity “are very rare, if not practically nonexistent.”
So… That is what the catechism says. Sounds pretty clear to me that Catholic church is going against their own teachings.
The arch bishop is entitled to his own opinion. He believes gun control is the way. What I find frustrating is that other Catholics will look at this and think it’s doctrine, when clearly, as you show, it is NOT.
A lot of Catholics do not understand their faith. And that is sad.
If Catholics don’t listen to the church authorities on birth control why do you think they will follow it on gun control?
Sounds pretty bigoted to me and I am a Papist hating Lutheran.
Somebody, years ago, wondered why I had left the Catholic Church. I didn’t, of course, the Church turned hard left and left me behind.
I had hoped the ArchBishop would rein in Father Flakey (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Pfleger) and finally shut him up. Instead, he’s joined Father Flakey and together, they are holding hands and skipping down the road to a Socialist paradise.
Never leave Peter because of Judas. The leadership in the Church needs to be reformed because they’re spiritually deformed.
Many years ago my mom told me how a priest becomes a bishop…..he simply hangs around long enough for the competition to thin out from die off and learns to fill his sermons with boring and pointless stuff that will change nothing. The final and toughest test (depending on the temperature of the building) he must put at least 25% of the parishioners attending on a Sunday morning solidly to sleep with extra points if he can get the percentage above 30 percent!
“We must act in ways that promote the dignity and value of human life.”
…and apparently we must do so by disarming the law-abiding so that rather than defending themselves against criminals, they will be forced to beg for mercy as helpless victims. Because that’s dignity. And that’s placing value on lives.
It’s placing value on someone’s life, all right. (But whose, and how much? There’s the rub.)
If the church (I don’t care which flavor) wants to start lobbying legislators, then perhaps we should reconsider the tax-exempt status of churches.
“If the church (I don’t care which flavor) wants to start lobbying legislators, then perhaps we should reconsider the tax-exempt status of churches.”
Any objection to ‘The Church Of Ballistic-Kinetic Solutions’?
🙂
As Low Priest of the Sect of Energetic Solutions, I am appalled at your lack of acceptance for our laser and plasma brethren…
So continue to drive away members?
My step father was pretty good about attending Roman Catholic services every Sunday. Until the Church started to get more liberal in the around 2004ish. Now he rarely goes outside of Christmas in Easter.
The more Catholic Church moves away from their core audience, the fewer members they will get. The new age liberals that they are courting are just as likely to be Agnostic, or Atheist.
Once again, small minds in a small state want to dictate. Revelation speaks about people rising up against the Church, and I used to think that was unthinkable.
I’ll do you one better, Archie – now is the time for sane people around the world to band together and push for an end to the organized insanity that is religion. Any adult who is crazy enough to actually believe in an invisible friend with magical powers should be getting serious psychological help, just like any other mentally ill person.
Some great men of the twentieth century held similar views. Their death toll numbered in the nine figures.
Don’t like me exercising my freedom of religion? Come and take.
I love how you don’t even try to come up with a rational defense for your irrational views, you just threaten violence against anyone who doesn’t agree. It’s because you know there’s no rational defense of your delusions that promote hatred for any who disagree.
I don’t owe you a defense of my views, rational or otherwise.
You’re the one threatening to infringe upon my freedom to exercise a right. I have not threatened violence upon “anyone who would disagree”; it is you who has done that, by stating that you would force people to stop practicing their faith. I merely asserted that I would defend myself against the violence you threatened.
You’re no better than the anti-gunners.
Why do you think it such a grand idea to antagonize people who are your natural allies?
Is your animus against religion so important to you that you would risk alienating those who are on your side?
I say this as an agnostic who accepts that the enemy of my enemy is my ally, if not my friend.
You need to ponder your need to make enemies out of allies. Or brothers-in-arms, to put it another way.
“We must act in ways that promote the dignity and value of human life.”
Riiiight. The way the Church did during the Inquisition, for example.
“Riiiight. The way the Church did during the Inquisition, for example.”
Pffffpt.
The Heathens didn’t know it was for their own good!
(Big-Ass Sarcasm)
So I guess the armed catholics movement is dead. BTW I like the fadder flakey tag Bud-I’ve been calling him Fadda’ pfegma. No I’m not catholic but at least they are against killing babies(unless you can’t defend the gangbanger shooting your child). I see this disgusting shite every freakin’ day…
Late to the party and still armed with the illogical old arguments, I see.
I remember as a kid knowing that Pope John Paul II stood steadfast with Regan and Thatcher to bring down communism and foster liberty. Now we have a Pope who stands with Obama and the other socialist and wants to bring about a workers paradise.
Except while “waging war” against communism, those same bastards were implementing similar laws at home. I don’t understand how soldiers could be drafted and sent to “fight communism” while their leaders implemented a great number of those policies at him, then those soldiers came home and were obedient dogs and followed orders instead of going 1776 on their ass. It’s mind boggling… Though I suppose it’s a great testament to the successful brainwashing during training, even when they were thoroughly lied to and used, they still weren’t going to disobey orders.
I just Cupich I not one of the group of Cardinals calling on the Pope to STFU on his wacko social issues.
Disarming the otherwise defenseless destroys their dignity and forfeits all claim as to the sanctity of life.
I would tell this bizarrely behatted huckster to go suck it, but I’m gravely afraid he just might.
Bizarrely behatted huckster… 🙂
I guess that the priests ran out of children to molest, so now it’s our turn.
All those opposed will be burned at the stake as the Catholic Church did in the past.
“All those opposed will be burned at the stake as the Catholic Church did in the past.”
The Inquisition did things far worse than that.
True implements of torture were used to extract the confession necessary for the salvation of their (very likely imaginary) immortal soul.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnF1OtP2Svk
I ponder applying their reasoning to war:
Only those soldiers we know for absolutely certain will be in the fighting get arms. They try not to shoot enemy soldiers, just to take away their guns.
Okay, that’s idiocy enough; I have better things to do.
I think it’s time somebody nailed another missive to the door of a Catholic Church. Looks like they still don’t understand that their corruption is neither wanted, nor needed in a civil society. If it doesn’t work, nail a copy of the Constitution to this cho-mo’s face.
With diocese leadership like this, is it any wonder that Father Snuffy has yet to be defrocked?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Pfleger
These guns today… they never listen to a word we say!
If you’re inclined to believe such things, why would a man of God want to hand more power to the Devil’s tools?
I’m reminded of the story about the guy whose boat sank in the ocean. He prayed that God would save him. A sailor in a regatta came by and offered to assist. “No thanks, I have prayed and God will save me.” A Coast Guard helicopter came by and again the help was refused. A submarine surfaced and offered to rescue the man. “No, God will save me.” After drowning the man came face to face with God and asked, “Why did you not save me after I prayed so hard?” God said, “I sent a sailboat, a helicopter, a submarine…..”
You want to stop violence? God gave you the right to keep and bear arms…..
Look to your own house first, asshole.
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