La. bishops: No guns in Catholic churches

[Rich_Olszewski]

I don’t know how the conservatives on this forum can back a pastor setting a dress code for Mass but seem to think that a bishop has no place in stating that no one should come ‘strapped’ to Mass.

Guns at religious ceremonies are just out of place.

Gracious! 453 posts – this issue must have stricken a nerve.

Gun issues always do with many of our conservative posters. I think that if there were a link to an article about some town where curbside abortions were being performed, there’d be fewer posts commenting on it.

It’s really quite simple - obey the bishop even if one thinks him to be wrong. It surprises me that some posters, supposedly faithful Catholics, have given varied reasons why and how they would weasel out of obeying the bishop so that they could carry a gun at Mass.

 

[Rich_Olszewski]

So is the logic behind this that you just don’t even provide protection because it is not 100%. We truly have no way to say how few or how many attacks on others are prevented by the “fear” of there being someone in the home, church or store being armed. We do know that (and yes it is observation no stats) common sense and obsrevation of the places generally picked to rob or kill that they were not places known for having a policy that allows self-defense.

Why are you looking for justification for people not to obey their bishop? Maybe he’s wrong; if so, the people in his diocese are still bound to obey his lawful orders.

I lived in a very rough neighborhood of Baltimore when I was stationed at Ft. Holabird, Md. Shootings almost daily. I knew enough not to wander around at night, but never thought to be armed at Mass. And, even if I thought that it would be worthwhile going armed, if the Diocese said that firearms were not allowed in church, I would have obeyed.

BTW, for the record, I did not own a handgun then and still don’t, though I had a .22 target pistol several decades ago strictly for target shooting.

 

[KathleenElsie]

It’s not the responsibility of the Bishops to ensure the safety of anyone’s weapon. If anyone is concerned about the theft of their weapon then leave it at home and then lawfully and morally attend Mass.

Not a problem where I live and worship. What I truly find a problem with is the issues that some find. The fact is that in our parishes today almost everyone picks and chooses what they will follow on the moral teachings. Abortion, gay rights, immigration, birth control, healthcare and the list goes on and on. If someone is CCing in a parish that says “no” he/she is no more going against the moral teaching of their local Bishop then the person sitting beside them that practices birth-control. Wrong is wrong sin is sin. If one can be asked to leave then so can the other.
If, on the other hand, you think about the gun law as being civil law then are you saying that the civil authorities have the right to regulate what is going on inside Holy Mother Church?

 

[Stylites]

Not a problem where I live and worship. What I truly find a problem with is the issues that some find. The fact is that in our parishes today almost everyone picks and chooses what they will follow on the moral teachings. Abortion, gay rights, immigration, birth control, healthcare and the list goes on and on. If someone is CCing in a parish that says “no” he/she is no more going against the moral teaching of their local Bishop then the person sitting beside them that practices birth-control. Wrong is wrong sin is sin. If one can be asked to leave then so can the other.
If, on the other hand, you think about the gun law as being civil law then are you saying that the civil authorities have the right to regulate what is going on inside Holy Mother Church?

Feel free to read the well-written posts of JReducation. He addresses each of your arguments very well.

To claim that other people sin and therefore it’s okay for you to sin is a rather specious argument, and undercuts the whole reason for Church, unless one loves to carry around an idol or a magical talisman all the time.

The Bishops IS the authority, as far as what is moral and right. If you want to try to claim that civil law has no place in Church, then even civil law states that property owners have a 1st Amendment right of association, which is infringed upon whenever anyone trespasses against the wishes of the property owner. Are you claiming that laws against trespass are wrong, or that the Church has no recourse to laws against trespass?

 

[Stylites]

We truly have no way to say how few or how many attacks on others are prevented by the “fear” of there being someone in the home, church or store being armed.

A very good point and probably true, but immateral to the spiritual need of Catholics to obey their Bishop.

 

[1holycatholic]

Not a problem where I live and worship. What I truly find a problem with is the issues that some find. The fact is that in our parishes today almost everyone picks and chooses what they will follow on the moral teachings. Abortion, gay rights, immigration, birth control, healthcare and the list goes on and on. If someone is CCing in a parish that says “no” he/she is no more going against the moral teaching of their local Bishop then the person sitting beside them that practices birth-control. Wrong is wrong sin is sin. If one can be asked to leave then so can the other.
If, on the other hand, you think about the gun law as being civil law then are you saying that the civil authorities have the right to regulate what is going on inside Holy Mother Church?

usccb.org/catechism/text/glossary.shtml#o
OBEDIENCE: (1) The submission to the authority of God which requires everyone to obey the divine law. Obedience to the Church is required in those things which pertain to our salvation; and obedience is due to legitimate civil authority, which has its origin in God for the sake of the common good and the order of society (1897). The fourth commandment obliges children to obey their parents (2216). (2) Obedience of faith: The first obedience is that of faith: to listen and freely submit to the word of God (144). (3) Obedience of Christ: Jesus Christ substituted his obedience to the will of his Father, even unto death, for the disobedience of sin, in order to bring us the grace of justification and to satisfy for our sins (615). (4) Vow of obedience: In imitation of this obedience of Jesus, as an evangelical counsel, the faithful may profess a vow of obedience; a public vow of obedience, accepted by Church authority, is one element that characterizes the consecrated life (915).
Gun laws seem to have been conflated into divine law among some posters in this thread.

 

[Rich_Olszewski]

Gun laws seem to have been conflated into divine law among some posters in this thread.

Not sure about that; I haven’t read any posts on this thread saying that gun laws have been handed down by God, but a good number of posts giving reasons why our bishops don’t have to be obeyed.

 

[1holycatholic]

Not sure about that; I haven’t read any posts on this thread saying that gun laws have been handed down by God, but a good number of posts giving reasons why our bishops don’t have to be obeyed.

“Obedience to the Church is required in those things which pertain to our salvation”

 

[Rich_Olszewski]

“Obedience to the Church is required in those things which pertain to our salvation”

This thread is about obedience to the lawful orders of the bishop. Reread JReducation regarding our obligation to obey the bishop - Where the bishop is, there is the Church.

 

[bona_fides_1]

Actually, this is not a moral right. There is a moral right, but it has nothing to do with the Constitution. The Catholic Church would slam us for that one.

A government looses its right to govern when it no longer provides for the welfare of its citizens, when it violates the rights of its citizens, when it violates moral law upon which all civil power is built, when it is too week to protect its citizens or when it no longer serves its intended purpose. That’s what moral philosophy teaches.

As Catholics we cannot say that a government has to be overthrown when it does not protect the Constitution for two reasons:

1. There are times when the constitution is morally wrong and it should be not upheld. This happens in many countries, not just our own.
2. The constitution of a nation is not a good in itself. To build a government to protect the constitution turns the means to a good into a desired good. A constitution must always be a means to a good, not the good itself. There are times when you have to protect the means in order to achieve the good. For example, you have to protect religious freedom, in order to practice your faith. But you do not protect religious freedom so that you can legally slack off on your faith. See the difference?

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF

I agree - I just expressed it wrongly by wrapping my statements with the constitutional provisions. In the most general case its is the Creator who bestows the natural rights and laws not a nation’s constitution.

That said, a country that demonstrates its moral corruption by aiding and abetting and fostering through law the slaughter of its most innocent citizens (e.g. 55 million aborted babies and hundreds of millions more through abortifacients in “birth control” drugs) and spurns the moral cry to ‘cease and desist’ has already crossed the line. God himself will step in and by means of His Divine Providence give the actions and power necessary to unseat such a nation and give it over to others.

Democracy is only an effective form of government when “we the people” have a holistically formed moral conscience that embraces God’s natural laws and who’s populace is reasonably well educated and a conscionable people. But lacking a moral compass such will never self-elect to self-sacrifice until it learns to suffer the consequences of its own moral depravity. When the political process stacks the deck with unelected “supreme” court justices and laws that are hostile to common moral sense then the conditions are ripe for just what we are talking about here.

BF

 

[stanmaxkolbe]

It’s all highly hypothetical and highly unlikely anyway.

I really don’t imagine anyone would sit idly by in a church watching someone shoot people after the first 2-3 people started dropping. Natural mitigation is built into the human flee-or-fight survival instinct. There would be an initial panic run to the doors which would make it impossible for the gunman to control the situation by threat of fear (he would then panic himself). That would entrap those nearest the gunmen and leave them only one option - fight/swarm the attacker or do nothing and likely die. I suspect most men and even the more agile/athletic women nearest the gunman would immediately swarm charge right into the gunman and tackle.

BF

Well if you talk to the victims families at the Luby’s Massacre they will disagree with you.

The Luby’s massacre was a mass murder that took place on October 16, 1991, in Killeen, Texas, United States when George Jo Hennard drove his pickup truck into a Luby’s Cafeteria and shot 23 people to death while wounding another 20, subsequently committing suicide by shooting himself. It was the deadliest shooting rampage in American history until the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luby’s_massacre

Just think how many lives could have been saved it one person was armed at Luby’s and Virginia Tech?

I would want someone with a CHL and armed in my Parish.

 

[Rich_Olszewski]

stanmaxkolbe:

I would want someone with a CHL and armed in my Parish.

Better to have a trained law enforcement officer with powers of arrest. Your parish could have an armed Rent-a-Cop Sundays during Mass times. When our neighboring parish has a Carnival, where beer is sold, they always have a uniformed “rented” Sheriff’s deputy present.

 

[bona_fides_1]

Aquinas62:

Again, as other posters have mentioned, why are so many people more afraid of a citizen with permit to carry a concealed weapon then they are of criminals who do anyway?
+1

Maybe because common sense should suggest to the reasonably rational minded that a proliferation of weapons in peaceful assemblies increase the odds of someone dieing by accident and by increasing the odds of somone using poor judgement as to when to take out a weapon and escalating a minor incident into a grave one.

Paranoia about a problem that does not exist in church is not sufficient grounds to give people a deadly pacifier (e.g. a gun) as a placebo to treat an irrational fear and is a marker for just such a person who should NOT be given a gun permit.

I am more concerned about the paranoids running around trying to protect me with loose screws in their heads than I am about the very few nut-jobs comming into church to shoot people. Basic firearms statistics on accidental shootings would probably bear out that ther is a greater risk to accidental shooting/discharge of weapons by “well intended” but incompetent CCWs holders than there is of any single person getting shot by an armed assailant in church.

Again - if anyone has a firearm in Church DON’T SIT NEAR ME in Church since it will become an issue if I find out; just as it will also become an issue with a large number of other fellow Chrisitans and their families if they were to find out. Carrying a firearm in church is just plain RUDE.

BF

 

[1holycatholic]

This thread is about obedience to the lawful orders of the bishop. Reread JReducation regarding our obligation to obey the bishop - Where the bishop is, there is the Church.

I’m repeating what the Church claims about herself: “Obedience to the Church is required in those things which pertain to our salvation.”

The bishop’s opinion is just that on matters that don’t pertain to our salvation.

I don’t carry concealed weapons, nor do I encourage others to do so at mass contrary to a Bishop’s request.

If my bishop forbade the presence of guns at mass I would no longer attend mass at certain parishes because they need armed security. If the pope eliminated the armed security at the Vatican I wouldn’t attend mass there either.

 

[1holycatholic]

Maybe because common sense should suggest to the reasonably rational minded that a proliferation of weapons in peaceful assemblies increase the odds of someone dieing by accident and by increasing the odds of somone using poor judgement as to when to take out a weapon and escalating a minor incident into a grave one.

Paranoia about a problem that does not exist in church is not sufficient grounds to give people a deadly pacifier (e.g. a gun) as a placebo to treat an irrational fear and is a marker for just such a person who should NOT be given a gun permit.

I am more concerned about the paranoids running around trying to protect me with loose screws in their heads than I am about the very few nut-jobs comming into church to shoot people. Basic firearms statistics on accidental shootings would probably bear out that ther is a greater risk to accidental shooting/discharge of weapons by “well intended” but incompetent CCWs holders than there is of any single person getting shot by an armed assailant in church.

Again - if anyone has a firearm in Church DON’T SIT NEAR ME in Church since it will become an issue if I find out; just as it will also become an issue with a large number of other fellow Chrisitans and their families if they were to find out. Carrying a firearm in church is just plain RUDE.

BF

So everyone who doesn’t agree with you is “paranoid” with “loose screws in their heads” or a “nut-job” or not “reasonably rational minded?”

Are you shooting for a “2010 least charitable poster” award?

 

[KathleenElsie]

“Obedience to the Church is required in those things which pertain to our salvation”

AMEN

 

[GEddie]

I’m repeating what the Church claims about herself: “Obedience to the Church is required in those things which pertain to our salvation.”

The bishop’s opinion is just that on matters that don’t pertain to our salvation.

I don’t carry concealed weapons, nor do I encourage others to do so at mass contrary to a Bishop’s request.

If my bishop forbade the presence of guns at mass I would no longer attend mass at certain parishes because they need armed security. If the pope eliminated the armed security at the Vatican I wouldn’t attend mass there either.

“Armed security” is not the same as “average sinners in the pews packing heat.”

The Vatican guard does not consist of local citizens wearing guns; it is a professional trained force.

 

[1holycatholic]

“Armed security” is not the same as “average sinners in the pews packing heat.”

The Vatican guard does not consist of local citizens wearing guns; it is a professional trained force.

Neither “pertain to our salvation.”

 

[Rich_Olszewski]

If my bishop forbade the presence of guns at mass I would no longer attend mass at certain parishes because they need armed security.

As all the parishes in a diocese are subject to the bishop, if the bishop prohibited guns in his churches, you’d have to go to another diocese, not another parish, for Mass. And, that’s not easy to do. The Diocese of Little Rock, for example, is the entire state. To the best of my knowledge, there are few, if any, parishes in the U.S. that have armed guards present during services.

If the pope eliminated the armed security at the Vatican I wouldn’t attend mass there either.

The trained, ex-military armed guards at the Vatican are not the same as some ordinary parishioner coming to church strapped.

 

[rpp]

A few people may have expressed such a fear, but most of the responses on this thread against CCW during Mass have been either reasoned theological arguments, common sense or simple law.

I am coming in a bit late here.

You make an interesting point if it were not for one critical detail that invalidates your entire position. You even referenced it in the acronym you used. CCW (Concealed carrying of a weapon) more correctly described as CHL or CHP, Concealed Handgun License/Permit.

The operative word is concealed. That mean that people around the armed person are unaware that their neighbor is armed. In many states with a concealed carry law, it is actually not permitted to openly carry in many situation. Furthermore, if the armed person pulls back his coat or lifts his pants leg or her skit to reveal a gun, this is considered a threat or intimidation and can in many circumstances be a crime in and of itself.

To my knowledge, every state with a CHL law requires the permit holder to attend safety classes and learn about the law and the laws limits.

Therefore the very concept that other parishioners will be in fear of law-abiding and trained people carrying a hidden firearm is not valid as those parishoners will not know if or who may be armed. Thus your argument actually has no legs.

This, however, does not invalidate our grave requirement to obey our bishops. I believe the bishops in Louisiana have made a poorly informed decision, yet, until they reverse it, it is one that must be obeyed.