Non sequitur I couldn’t resist March 8, 2013
Posted by tantamergo in Dallas Diocese, disaster, error, foolishness, General Catholic, non squitur, sickness, silliness, Society.trackback
With all the insanity in schools over play or even imaginary guns, I had to share this:
Back in the day (maybe 20 years ago), it used to be nothing for kids in the country to have gun racks in their pickups, often with firearms in them. Parked at school and everything. And nobody had a conniption back then. But 20 years of media propaganda and well nigh infinintely hyped shootings have led to mass hysteria. Someday, should sanity every prevail again, someone should do a study on all these ridiculous hysterias. Like the phantom sexual abuse of kids at California day care centers back in the 80s – virtually all of it was completely, totally made up. Or various scares over certain technologies – Y2K, Large Hadron Collider, that VHF array in Alaska – every year or two, we get a new technological doomsday scenario hyped to death.
It’s like Chesterton said, when people reject God (and thus, reason), it’s not that they believe in nothing, they’ll believe in anything.
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Larry what is the Church teaching on firearms? Did you notice Cardinal Dolan’s comments?
I replied a while back to your previous comment. There is no doctrine/dogma on firearms. The Church has always believed in a right to self-defense. The Church has never specified which kinds of weapons are acceptable for self-defense (or other purposes, hunting, sporting, the like), only that they be proportionate to the use. So, using a bazooka to hunt pheasant would be a bit immoral. It’s similar to Cathoolic theory on warfare, but there really haven’t been Magisterial statements on what kinds of weapons – or not – laity are “allowed” to use.
Which comments?
Here is what he said:
“For me, regulating and controlling guns is part of building a Culture of Life, of doing what we can to protect and defend human life,” Dolan wrote. “The easy access to guns, including assault weapons, that exists in our nation has contributed towards a Culture of Death, where human life and dignity are cheapened by the threat of violence.”
Well, that’s his opinion, and if you are in his Diocese, a faithful Catholic has to respectfully take that into account, but if you’re worried that you have to assent to this view, no, you don’t. There are a number of other prelates in the Church who would counsel otherwise. I would also argue, on a moral and practical level, that Cardinal Dolan is wrong, that gun control has never been shown to reduce violent crime (the opposite is often true), and that having many armed and trained citizens can be a deterrent to crime, thus actually reinforcing the culture of life. This is a prudential issue, which is rightly the purview of the laity. What the Church leadership needs to do is provide, very clearly and forcefully, the moral blueprint to guide the laity’s actions and judgments, but not make pronouncements either way on issues like this. I’m sorry to say, I see in this a great deal of trying to play buddy to the media.
For one, I know my confessor/spiritual director would be rather stridently opposed to the Cardinal’s claims.
The old testament is full of statements about protection – that’s why all cities had walls built around them.
I guess Dolan didn’t like the movie For Greater Glory, would he rather the church lay down and give up? I don’t want to be hard on him, but he seems rather influenced by politics in the US.