Pope says weapons manufacturers can't call themselves Christian

[graciew]

There are 120 times more deaths due to “medical procedures” than guns in the US alone. And of those gun deaths, over 60% were suicides. There are other threats to life more likely to occur than gun deaths. The overemphasis on gun deaths and the ignoring of the intentional slaughter of millions of the most innocent is appalling.

One unfair death by violence should be a scandal.
This is how statistics have made us numb. Let us not fall into counting corpses…please…

 

[KSU]

Well I would by stock in farm equipment manufacturers right now. I bet all that gun metal is going to be turned to plows and stuff.

I don’t know if you noticed, but ISIS uses American weapons and vehicles. I guess there is a military uses supply store in Northern Iraq or he US gave it to them.

Weapons can be used by anyone. There is a town in Afghanistan that makes one million guns a year.

That all being said, to all you gun lovers out there might I suggest you add the holy rosary to you gun safe and ask god to grant you spiritual weapons and the know how on their proper use.

Might I suggest a 54 day rosary novena for the Christians in America to wake up in Christ and be converted!

I don’t have a problem with guns.

Bk

Are you related to (or perhaps attend the same schools as) friardchips?

 

[graciew]

Are you related to (or perhaps attend the same schools as) friardchips?

Do you see schools or persons? How does this add?

 

[LongingSoul]

And us too ,he challenges all of us as a family ,Friardchips. It hurts in my heart to.know we worry of our bubbles ,mine included ,while other persons are suffering so much in Middle East. It hurts a lot to seebhow we argue about a Holy Spirit we cannot handcuff , and a lot to read that we are in the clouds when he is begging that we stop this butchery. If we are blind ,deaf and filled with anaesthesia ,our good Pope is not.
Thank you ,you brought me a smile and helped me think and pray yesterday,we need peace on this earth

I agree. We are so wrapped up in our first world problems, that what the Pope is saying to us time after time seems like an alien language. It’s actually life in the real world.

I remember during Pope Paul VI’s pontificate his job was to guide us through the Vatican II reforms and there was a similar angst from people who had aligned their faith with things that were naturally ‘perishable’ thinking they were the immutable truths of Christ. I’m sure if Paul VI had been able to interact with the global press on his different junkets, his informal interviews would have been similar to Pope Francis.

I have to say though that this tendency to diminish the authority of the Popes and the conclaves and cardinals and regard them with caution, is a very new phenomenon in my experience. Catholics never resorted to that in the past as a result of their confusion. I sometimes wonder if it is a remnant of Protestantism that has crept into the Church subversively.

 

[friardchips]

And us too ,he challenges all of us as a family ,Friardchips. It hurts in my heart to.know we worry of our bubbles ,mine included ,while other persons are suffering so much in Middle East. It hurts a lot to seebhow we argue about a Holy Spirit we cannot handcuff , and a lot to read that we are in the clouds when he is begging that we stop this butchery. If we are blind ,deaf and filled with anaesthesia ,our good Pope is not.

• this, your post, is deeply thoughtful.

Thank you ,you brought me a smile and helped me think and pray yesterday,we need peace on this earth

You’re really kind to thank me! Thank you too, for sharing this happy news! It takes three to have meaningful dialogue so I suspect strongly that the Holy Spirit was with both of us!



Just to note: a thread yesterday by another poster gave a link to an excellent devotion:

mt-of-olives.blogspot.co.uk

On meditation of The Agony (good to pray at 3pm).

Every good wish!

:angel1::harp::angel1:

 

[Suudy]

One unfair death by violence should be a scandal.
This is how statistics have made us numb. Let us not fall into counting corpses…please…

And there is no more unfair death than the murder of an innocent, helpless individual.

What bothers me is when people speak out one side of their mouth, quoting papa Francis as saying we should spend less time on abortion then out the other side of their mouth saying we should spend more time on gun violence. But when you compare the numbers, it is easy to see abortion takes more lives every week than a whole year by guns.

What appalls me is people’s priorities.

 

[bitterhope]

You all do realize that military families pray for peace deeper than most right? We know the cost of war on a level most Americans can’t fathom. We see the price more so than our soldiers do at times because we are the ones that deal with the emotions of children missing a parent that may never come home. Many soldiers don’t return emotionally but most don’t see the ways in which they’ve changed and how distant they’ve become.

That bring said, I don’t want to be in a country left unarmed. Safety unfortunately depends on weapons. It’s not anything new. The Israelites were constantly at war it seems from reading the Old Testament. We need to pray for peace and be instruments of peace, but we all have a duty to stand up for ourselves and for others.

 

[bitterhope]

And there is no more unfair death than the murder of an innocent, helpless individual.

What bothers me is when people speak out one side of their mouth, quoting papa Francis as saying we should spend less time on abortion then out the other side of their mouth saying we should spend more time on gun violence. But when you compare the numbers, it is easy to see abortion takes more lives every week than a whole year by guns.

What appalls me is people’s priorities.

Yes, abortion kills more than guns and it focuses solely on the most innocent among us.

Our hour of death was set before we were born. I think too often people do get caught up in numbers. And we forget that modern day death tolls of both civilians and military are minuscule when compared to former wars.

 

[LongingSoul]

And there is no more unfair death than the murder of an innocent, helpless individual.

What bothers me is when people speak out one side of their mouth, quoting papa Francis as saying we should spend less time on abortion then out the other side of their mouth saying we should spend more time on gun violence. But when you compare the numbers, it is easy to see abortion takes more lives every week than a whole year by guns.

What appalls me is people’s priorities.

But surely you don’t think Pope Francis has his priorities wrong? Abortion is an undeniable cancer within the body of society but the Church is ramping up its treatment in recognition of the fact that the ‘culture of death’ is creating the very environment that abortion thrives in. Addressing the culture of death by being unconditionally prolife is the solution to starve it of the toxic environment that feeds it.

If you subscribe to phenomenology, you can see how the new generations of cancer drugs are acting in the same way. Instead of directly attacking the cancer, they encourage the persons immune system to fight for itself against the cancer cells. Cancer is not just a foreign invader of the body… it depends on the weakness and defenselessness of the body, to thrive.

The Church doesn’t have its priorities wrong. It has them right!

 

[KSU]

You all do realize that military families pray for peace deeper than most right? We know the cost of war on a level most Americans can’t fathom. We see the price more so than our soldiers do at times because we are the ones that deal with the emotions of children missing a parent that may never come home. Many soldiers don’t return emotionally but most don’t see the ways in which they’ve changed and how distant they’ve become.

That bring said, I don’t want to be in a country left unarmed. Safety unfortunately depends on weapons. It’s not anything new. The Israelites were constantly at war it seems from reading the Old Testament. We need to pray for peace and be instruments of peace, but we all have a duty to stand up for ourselves and for others.

It’s sad, but the Pax Christi-types and the international Socialists (is that redundant?) will say regarding your first paragraph, “Too bad; that’s what you get.”

The point is, those anti-weapons folks don’t think or act normally, and they have to twist the Pope’s words to mean something neither he nor Christ meant.

 

[Suudy]

But surely you don’t think Pope Francis has his priorities wrong?

Did I say that? I questioned peoples doublespeak. They quote papa Francis to tell people to deemphasize abortion and then to overemphasize gun violence. It’s people’s priorities, not the Church’s.

Abortion is an undeniable cancer within the body of society but the Church is ramping up its treatment in recognition of the fact that the ‘culture of death’ is creating the very environment that abortion thrives in. Addressing the culture of death by being unconditionally prolife is the solution to starve it of the toxic environment that feeds it.

I understood the pope’s words to mean we are underemphasizing other pro-life issues and overemphasizing abortion to the exclusion of those other issues. And that I agree with. I’m pointing out here the turning this view upside down.

For my part, when solving problems you attack the biggest ones first. Abortion is the biggest killer of innocents and should get the most attention. But that doesn’t mean we should ignore other cases as well. Just as with cancer, they aren’t going to get rid of treatments that attack cancer directly. And with the cancer of abortion, there needs to be direct and indirect attacks. As usual, it is a both/and.

The Church doesn’t have its priorities wrong. It has them right!

Who said otherwise?

 

[EasterJoy]

And there is no more unfair death than the murder of an innocent, helpless individual.

What bothers me is when people speak out one side of their mouth, quoting papa Francis as saying we should spend less time on abortion then out the other side of their mouth saying we should spend more time on gun violence. But when you compare the numbers, it is easy to see abortion takes more lives every week than a whole year by guns.

What appalls me is people’s priorities.

There is nothing mutually exclusive between opposing gun violence and opposing abortion, though. There is no conflict between preaching against one and preaching against another, so if we are honest the “priorities” hardly come in to it.

 

[LongingSoul]

Did I say that? I questioned peoples doublespeak. They quote papa Francis to tell people to deemphasize abortion and then to overemphasize gun violence. It’s people’s priorities, not the Church’s.

I understood the pope’s words to mean we are underemphasizing other pro-life issues and overemphasizing abortion to the exclusion of those other issues. And that I agree with. I’m pointing out here the turning this view upside down.

For my part, when solving problems you attack the biggest ones first. Abortion is the biggest killer of innocents and should get the most attention. But that doesn’t mean we should ignore other cases as well. Just as with cancer, they aren’t going to get rid of treatments that attack cancer directly. And with the cancer of abortion, there needs to be direct and indirect attacks. As usual, it is a both/and.

Who said otherwise?

But who on the thread quoted Pope Francis saying we should spend less time on abortion. Who said that we should get rid of treatments that attack cancer directly?

The abuse, misuse and tyranny of the arms trade is a factual travesty and the Pope has addressed it as such. Why are you so offended as if it is a slight on the anti abortion effort?

 

[Suudy]

But who on the thread quoted Pope Francis saying we should spend less time on abortion. Who said that we should get rid of treatments that attack cancer directly?

Edit: I never said that papa Francis said we should spend less time on abortion. Nor did I say anyone said he did. I spoke only on how people interpreted his comments.

I’m not speaking about comments on this thread related to abortion. Rather, I’m contrasting the posts on other threads and the general media commentary on papa Francis’ statements related to abortion. It’s the same thing with Laudato Si. We have Pelosi praising the pope’s comments on climate change, interpreting his comments on abortion as a deemphasis on abortion, while at the same time completely ignoring his comments against abortion.

The abuse, misuse and tyranny of the arms trade is a factual travesty and the Pope has addressed it as such. Why are you so offended as if it is a slight on the anti abortion effort?

I’m not offended by the pope’s words. Where have I said I’m offended by anything the pope said? My comments are directed toward those who interpret his words as an excuse to deemphasize abortion coupled with these recent comments as an excuse to overemphasize gun violence.

 

[Suudy]

There is nothing mutually exclusive between opposing gun violence and opposing abortion, though. There is no conflict between preaching against one and preaching against another, so if we are honest the “priorities” hardly come in to it.

I never said they were mutually exclusive. In fact, I said it was a both/and.

However, if you have two problems, the emphasis should be on the bigger problem. Not to the exclusion of the other problem. For example, if you have a broken water line in your house and a broken window, which do you think should be fixed first? Which one should get the emphasis? Of course you work to fix both.

So, yes, priorities do come into it. And I took the pope’s comments to mean we need to quit ignoring the issues of gun violence just because they are less than the issue of abortion. And his comments on the arms trade and other gun violence are not licenses to deemphasize greater issues.

 

[LongingSoul]

However, if you have two problems, the emphasis should be on the bigger problem. Not to the exclusion of the other problem. For example, if you have a broken water line in your house and a broken window, which do you think should be fixed first? Which one should get the emphasis? Of course you work to fix both.

So, yes, priorities do come into it.

They aren’t two separate unrelated problems though. If your leg was nearly amputated and your tree has fallen down, there’s an obvious superficial priority. But if the tree has fallen on your leg causing the injury… you address the tree issue first. There’s an interrelationship here that changes priorities.

 

[KSU]

Originally Posted by KSU
Are you [BlueKnight] related to (or perhaps attend the same schools as) friardchips?

Do you see schools or persons? How does this add?

I was being sarcastic. Both BlueKnight and friardchips seem to have what is almost an aversion to a clear, consistent position regarding the interplay between the use of weapons and Catholicism. To debate them on that topic is akin to nailing quicksilver to a wall.

But I mean that in a good way

 

[Suudy]

They aren’t two separate unrelated problems though. If your leg was nearly amputated and your tree has fallen down, there’s an obvious superficial priority. But if the tree has fallen on your leg causing the injury… you address the tree issue first. There’s an interrelationship here that changes priorities.

In your latter example, you only address the tree issue insofar as it makes treatment of the leg possible. You don’t completely solve the problem (such as cleaning up the rest of the tree, planting a new one, etc). Note that once the tree problem is dealt with initially, it is put on the back burner until the more serious issue is resolved.

 

[LongingSoul]

In your latter example, you only address the tree issue insofar as it makes treatment of the leg possible. You don’t completely solve the problem (such as cleaning up the rest of the tree, planting a new one, etc). Note that once the tree problem is dealt with initially, it is put on the back burner until the more serious issue is resolved.

Well we could continue this convolution of the example ad infinitum. By the time the leg is healed the fallen tree has become a lovely garden feature with vines and flowers engulfing it… no longer needing to be treated.

You’re simply choosing not to understand the Churchs position and how it relates to the culture of death in which great evils flourish. The arms trade around the world has become a capitalist industry unable to discern ethical standards of use. It goes against profit and power to put limits and standards on weapons use.

 

[Suudy]

You’re simply choosing not to understand the Churchs position and how it relates to the culture of death in which great evils flourish.

Again, I don’t think you are understanding me. I’m not advocating against curbs on arms trade. I’m merely stating the degrees of emphasis. I’ve said nothing contrary to the Church leadership’s position on fighting the culture of death.

The arms trade around the world has become a capitalist industry unable to discern ethical standards of use. It goes against profit and power to put limits and standards on weapons use.

Did I say otherwise? Do you think I’m suggesting we ignore arms trade, especially to those nations and organizations that intend to commit great evil with acquired arms?