ASK FATHER: A Blessing For Guns

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Has anyone seen the pictures of the armory Vatican City? The Swiss Guard has all sorts of weapons including machine guns.
 
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I see no difference.

A priest is not going to know that a material object will be only be used morally. A priest has no way of knowing how anything (even a rosary or medal) will be used, but he, just as anyone, can judge by an object’s design what it intended to do, and determine if that design makes it worthy of a sacred blessing.

A chair, by design, is used to seat a human. Sitting is morally neutral. I suppose you could clobber someone to death with a chair, or tie them to a chair and otherwise kill them, but for a priest to bless a chair there should be no problem.

A gun, by design, is used to kill an animal. Killing non-human animals can be done morally and immorally. Killing humans is almost always morally problematic, even when in self-defense or at war. Even if your gun is used by another to murder, you have now materially participated in that crime, as an access-ory. I see no reason that a priest needs to bless a civilian gun.

Curettes, clamps, and vacuum aspirators by themselves are not designed to kill. They are designed to scrape, grasp, and suck at biological tissues and fluids in surgery. We know them to be tools of surgical abortions, but they can also be used post-miscarriage and for non-abortive OB/GYN health care. It would truly be easier to ask a priest to bless those individual objects, because by themselves, like a chair, they are not designed with the express goal of killing living things.
 
St Thomas Aquinas states that those who refuse to defend themselves are accomplices in their own demise. Commentator Sean Hannity has said that he knows priests who pack pistols for self-defense.
 
The History Channel ran a series on the history of firearms development. It was suggested that at one time the Church forbade the ownership of rifles. It was believed that the sound of the bullet leaving the muzzle was the scream of a demon.
 
ChemicalBean said:
A gun, by design, is used to kill an animal. Killing non-human animals can be done morally and immorally. Killing humans is almost always morally problematic, even when in self-defense or at war. Even if your gun is used by another to murder, you have now materially participated in that crime, as an access-ory. I see no reason that a priest needs to bless a civilian gun.
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No, a gun, by design, is used to puncture holes in solid surfaces, or to break solid objects. It is also used to sharpen agility in hitting a target accurately. It can be used to kill animals, humanely one hopes, for purposes of food, depredation, pest control, population control, elimination of threat (as from a raging or rabid animal), acquiring something that an animal has and can be used by humans (such as fur), or to euthanize a sick or dying animal (something I did just the other day to a mortally wounded bird). And, yes, it can be used to kill or disable a person, one would hope, only in self-defense where no other option exists in a rapidly deteriorating situation where that person is threatening innocent people. (Warfare is another situation, and I heartily echo the plea of Paul VI, “no more war, never again war”.) Other uses could be to shatter ice, to shoot a hanging limb off a tree, to detonate an explosive from a safe distance (such as tannerite), to destroy a lock, to celebrate a joyous occasion (down to the ground, not up in the air!) or just for sheer recreation (such as shooting junked TV sets, microwave ovens, refrigerators, or anything else bored youngsters out in the country might want to shoot “just for fun”). Shooting shook-up very cold, or very warm, cans of cheap soda is a lot of fun — my son and I do that some afternoons when the weather’s good 😃 👨‍👦 So, as you can see, there is a lot more you can do with a gun than to kill.
 
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repentant2 said:
I’ll just stick with too many people and a state government ruled by the big cities.
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Surely the dominant role of large cities in the state government is simply determined by demographics:

The most urban state is California - one that dominates the popular imagination as a land of empty deserts, open beaches and thick redwood forests - the Census numbers showed.

Almost all Californians, 95 percent, live in urban areas, and the state has the largest urban population, 35.4 million. Out of the 10 most densely populated areas in the entire country, seven are in the Golden State, the Census found.

The area made up of Los Angeles, Long Beach and Anaheim is the second-most populated in the country, with more than 12.1 million residents. It is also the most densely populated.
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They used to bless warships. I suspect that they still do. They ships would also carry a statue of the blessed virgin at a central part of the ship. This is what led to the double salute sailors render while boarding a ship. One to the flag and one to Mary.
 
repentant2 said:
I think it depends entirely on the country as to whether it’s appropriate.
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The metric keeps changing. I confess that I used to be borderline offended by the Holy Hand Grenade in Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

I actually watched that scene with my tween tonight. She said, “That’s weird!”

My reply: “That’s nothing! You should see the photo on CAF of a priest throwing holy water on firearms!”
 
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do_justly_love_mercy said:
So much negativity toward California (and San Francisco in particular) on this forum it seems!
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California is like any other state, city, or country – it has some good, and it has some bad. But there are prominent Californians who have earned much negativity toward the state as a whole. If that negativity could be turned into rain, the state would never have to worry about another wildfire.
 
Right. I don’t think the wildfires are really something to joke about or use for rhetorical purposes. In 2018 wildfires killed 103 people, injured another 80, destroyed almost 23,000 buildings, caused more than $3.5 billion in damage, and resulted in air pollution that lasted for months.

I’m not sure who you are referring to when you talk about “prominent Californians who have earned much negativity toward the state as a whole”. I feel pretty lukewarm about Dianne Feinstein, but Kamala Harris and Gavin Newsom are two great Californians at the moment. I would say that Earl Warren was probably the greatest Californian in our history.
repentant2 said:
Yes. That was my point.
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I see. So, basically, you are against urbanization and would prefer that people lived in villages and small towns. I guess this would tie in with some of your other posts where you support monarchism, hope for the downfall of democracy, denounce the Enlightenment, and seek the restoration of the Papal States and the Holy Roman Empire. You are sort of in the same tradition as some of those 19th-century British political thinkers who favored a return to a medieval way of life with a largely rural population of farmers and craftsmen and a romantic idea of benevolent government by kings and noblemen.
 
“Some Californians” want a lot of things, from dividing the state into two or more states to seceding from the United States. There have been literally hundreds of proposed schemes for partitioning the state. It seems unlikely that any of these proposals will ever succeed. The proposed state of Jefferson would be strongly Republican, as that region of California has a very different political culture compared with much of the rest of the state.
 
Why a tool for work is what a firearm is for a police officer? Why not bless it for the time when the officer has to pull it, that no innocent people are hurt.
 
Not all firearms are used for killing animals. People can shoot them at a range at paper targets, some firearms are designed for competitive sport shooting.
Even if a firearm is used for killing, like hunting. Why shouldn’t a person who hunts to feed his family bless the gun, asking God that it doesn’t mis-fire, or a police officer have it bless that if they need to pull it that it doesn’t hurt any innocent people, or why can’t a domestic abuse victim be allowed to bless it for self defence (use the last one because a woman was killed because her state held up her from getting a gun to protect herself from an exe).
A gun is just a tool, one that doesn’t need to be feared, to respect the right to use it.
 
Did St Thomas Aquinas carry a sword? I know the prohibition did apply to priests in at least some times and places.
Are you suggesting that everyone is morally obliged to be armed?
Regarding Sean Hannity…he’s recently said that he’s very glad he left the Catholic Church, so his opinion on priests means squat to me.
 
I turn off my radio when Hannity comes on for that reason. But it doesn’t discount the fact that some priests arm themselves. I knew a Byzantine priest who packed a pistol. Not everyone respects clergy as they once did.
 
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