Cardinal O’Malley blames Boston terror on automatic weapons

Ummm…….they used homemade bombs, using materials anyone could obtain anywhere.  But Cardinal Sean O’Malley, one of the Pope’s Elite Eight of advisory super-cardinals, couldn’t pass up the opportunity to bash the dread evil of assault weapons.  But the congregation was perplexed. They demanded legislative action, but not that kind!  Why can’t we pass federal legislation to control the greatest menace of our times, the ball bearing!

No, seriously, this is asinine:

Pointing to sources of the “culture of death,” the cardinal mentioned individualism, alienation, abortion, violent films, and video games. He decried the death penalty. And then this:

The inability of the Congress to enact laws that control access to automatic weapons is emblematic of the pathology of our violent culture.

Phil Lawler, the reasonably sensible writer at Catholic Culture (as opposed to pearl clutching Lady Jeff Mirus) notes that automatic weapons have been very tightly controlled by federal legislation since 1934.  So, the comment is ignorant, at best, but I suspect it was more intentionally manipulative, than anything else. Secondly, must we even have prelates making use of a Requiem Mass for those killed in the bombings to advance their “see, we pick on Republicans AND Democrats” anti-gun agenda?

Finally, and the big one, Lawler notes that while O’Malley could blame everything under the sun, from video games to rap music to films to the dreaded and feared “assault weapons,” the one thing he could not bring himself to denouce was militant islamic terrorism, the EXACT thing that caused the attack. There may have been ancillary factors, but if these men hadn’t been influenced by islamic extremism, the attacks would not have happened. But, of course, it is absolutely, totally forbidden that a prelate of Chirst’s Holy Church EVER say such a terribly, unforgiveably intolerant thing such as “islamic extremism was to blame for this attack.”  No way, that wouldn’t be ecumenical!  And there is probably no greater sin for a high-ranking prelate in today’s American Church than to not be ecumenical!  It’s worse than Gosnell!

I note the USCCB has been bending over backwards to prove to the nation and, I suspect, the Obama administration in particular, that they are not, indeed, merely shills for the Republican party.  Which claim, if it is being made, is laughable to anyone who knows the history of the bishop’s conference in this country.  While having to oppose Obama in the area of abortion (which is so huge, in itself, that it makes Catholic support for democrat politicians impossible as a matter of religious assent, unless the only alternative were, say, Stalin) and the ongoing Obamacare-inspired persecution of the Church (NOT about religious liberty, it’s about crushing the rights of the Church the Church to build a society founded on Jesus Christ), the USCCB has been doing all it can to support him in other areas, like the panic-inspired (and now likely dead) efforts to pass gun control legislation.

Bishop Stephen Blaire of the USCCB’s Just Us and Peas committee has been issuing highly publicized press releases almost every week for months on this issue.  He was sorely disappointed that the most recent attempt to force small time gun dealers out of business, through background checks they can’t afford, failed.  But as Phil Lawler wisely noted in another article, the bishops have no special competence to determine gun control legislation, or any other legislation outside faith and morals. Such issues are the proper realm of the laity, who should act under the guidance of general moral parameters laid down by our bishops.

Unfortunately, in our up is down, black is white world, instead of providing moral guidance to the faithful from the great well of Church Doctrine, bishops would rather play at politics, pretending they have great influence and are real “players.”  And all the myriad pronouncements from the USCCB on every issue imaginable, from farm insurance policy to infrastructure to internet privacy to gun control, leads to their being ignored on issues of true import to the Church.  It’s like the boy who cried wolfe (heh), writ large. The USCCB is constantly screaming crisis, crisis, and action, action!  But when a real crisis emerges, like the persecution of the Church through the Obamacare HHS mandate (the mandate would not exist, without Obamacare), few pay any mind, because they are used to tuning the bishops out.

But counseling souls on morals is hard, thankless work. Many people will get angry, because they have been permitted to grow so cold in the Faith for decades. It will take men of heroic virtue to even begin to lay down a baseline of Catholic Faith and Morals again, given the hostility they will surely face. It’s much easier to just play at being a politician. So we must pray, a very great deal, for our bishops, that they will focus on the true needs of souls.  We should offer Rosaries and other prayers and mortifications for our own ordinary or for an adopted bishop every day. The state the Church is in today is the collective responsbility of every Catholic to address. Yes, the bishops bear a huge share of the blame for the state of the Church, because they have been given so much and done so little with it, but part of the reason for that is that we, the faithful, haven’t prayed and fought for our bishops nearly enough. If we truly love them, and we must, we should pray for them, frequently and fervently.

End lecture.