Archbishop Chaput’s Weekly Column: Gilroy, El Paso, Dayton — and Columbine

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It seems that the good Archbishop and I are in agreement. I keep saying it’s a culture problem.
 
From the article:

Nothing makes us immune from that violence except a relentless commitment to respect the sanctity of each human life, from womb to natural death.

In other words, love our neighbors, that is, all of humanity, as ourselves. Our priest this weekend spoke of the frustration with how closed people in the south are to seeing the link between abortion and respect for humanity in all; and how in his home in Boston, the reverse is true, that they fail to see the link between the respect for humanity in social justice, and how it must start in the womb. I can not get over how even Catholics fall into this, even though the Church has been teaching this forever. It seems politics will trump faith more often than not.
 
If anyone intends on killing another person or many people, they will find a way to do it.

If one gun was in the hands of a murderer, it would do more harm than if all the guns in the U.S. were in the hands of St. Francis of Assisi.
 
A very sensible article from Archbishop Chaput. I pretty much find myself in agreement with him.
 
Yes but if guns are not so easily accessible damages are of smaller proportion. I think in US (particularly in States like Virginia) is way too easy to buy very powerful guns. A murderer with a stone is not the same as a murderer with an automatic machine gun.
 
aroosi said:
Yes but if guns are not so easily accessible damages are of smaller proportion.
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Guns will always be available, even if they are prohibited.

Remember prohibition–no one had any trouble finding alcohol, even with people like Izzy and Moe around!

And think about illegal drugs–even with bans on drugs, we still have a major problem in the U.S. with addiction to illegal drugs–people have no trouble finding drugs.

We make laws forbidding all kinds of things–think of all the traffic laws that people utterly ignore! I see people running a red light several times every day as I drive the five miles back and forth to my workplace! I’m not just talking about blasting through the red light–I’m talking about people who STOP, look around, and then charge through the red light!!! The forbidding of driving through red lights doesn’t stop people from driving through red lights. I swear, if I am killed by someone driving through a red light, I will come back and HAUNT THEM! With noise (BOOOO!) and throwing objects at them! And my angry ghost will make their car stop working whenever they approach a red light!

Seriously, the right to own guns is part of our Bill of Rights in the U.S. Constitution. I think that people who want to curtail gun rights should lobby their Congresspeople and Senators to start working on an Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that will change this. Good luck with that. But IMO, that’s the only way that any gun laws curtailing the possession of guns can be passed in the U.S.
 
Friends, you are off-topic. Must we always steer the thread to our favorite talking points?

Read the short article by Archbishop Chaput and see if you can comment on that.
 
If we are going to look at root causes…I believe this is one:


I grew up around guns, but never, ever, thought about using one to kill someone. I used to get in fights in my youth, but never, ever thought about killing someone I was in a fight with. Fights had rules: no weapons, don’t hit someone when they are down, etc. So what is different between then and now? Well, I have a father who taught me the rules, who taught me restraint, who taught me right and wrong.

As the good bishop said, “only a fool can believe that “gun control” will solve the problem of mass violence.” But in today’s society, its easier to point to guns as the problem as opposed to pointing to lack of good fathers as being a major cause.
 
From the article:

Certain kinds of killing we enshrine as rights and protect by law. When we live this kind of contradiction, why are we surprised at the results?

He is talking about addressing the whole culture of death, from conception to natural death, or what the Church has called a consistent life ethic.
 
A copy of Chaput’s column was inserted in this week’s Church Bulletin for everyone to read.

The last paragraph sums it up:

“So I’ll say it again, 20 years later. Treating the symptoms in a culture of violence doesn’t work. We need to look deeper. Until we’re willing to do that, nothing fundamental will change.”

We can hack at the branches all we want but the problem will live on unless we tear out the root.

Strong families, religious values, respect for life, uplifting entertainment culture can work to prevent and transform twisted minds, hearts, and souls.
 
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His books are great too. I’ve only read Render Unto Caesar: Serving the Nation by Living Our Catholic Beliefs in Political Life, which I got from a parish bookshelf. I want to read more of them eventually.
 
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The culture of death. The 20th century was the bloodiest in human history. Millions upon millions of dead. A good percentage of them non-combatants and many completely free of any involvement in war.

So, what have we learned?

Birth control
Sexual “freedom”
Abortion.
Euthanasia.
Human-monkey hybrids
Now even human composting!

And we remain shocked at the inevitable violence which this all produces? We are only eating of the fruit of the poisonous tree.
 
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From the article: The people using the guns in these loathsome incidents are moral agents with twisted hearts. And the twisting is done by the culture of sexual anarchy, personal excess, political hatreds, intellectual dishonesty, and perverted freedoms that we’ve systematically created over the past half-century.
 
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"When we answer murder with more violence in the death penalty, we put the state’s seal of approval on revenge. When the most dangerous place in the country is a mother’s womb and the unborn child can have his or her head crushed in an abortion, even in the process of being born, the body language of that message is that life isn’t sacred and may not be worth much at all. In fact, certain kinds of killing no longer even count officially as “killing.” Certain kinds of killing we enshrine as rights and protect by law. When we live this kind of contradiction, why are we surprised at the results? "
Excellent article and this quote of his too.
 
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