So can he call himself Christian?
4 Responses to “So can he call himself Christian?”
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December 8th, 2015 at 7:12 pm
Yes.
I read the Pope’s actual comments (or at least one set, since he’s talked about it more than once) about “the arms trade”, and he was actually talking about the international version, in the context of “sells to anyone with a dollar, in bulk”.
His comments can’t and don’t apply – under Catholic doctrine, which supports defense of self and family and others! – to domestic arms sales to ordinary citizens, especially under the US system where some care is taken to prevent sales to people of ill intent.
(See Here.
“Being at the service of dialogue and peace also means being truly determined to minimize and, in the long term, to end the many armed conflicts throughout our world. Here we have to ask ourselves: Why are deadly weapons being sold to those who plan to inflict untold suffering on individuals and society? Sadly, the answer, as we all know, is simply for money: money that is drenched in blood, often innocent blood. In the face of this shameful and culpable silence, it is our duty to confront the problem and to stop the arms trade.”
There is no fair way to take what Pope Francis said and turn it into an attack on “the [domestic, civilian] gun industry”, as too many people – Left and Right – did.
His comments don’t even apply to military weaponry, in the context of sales to Western military forces who respect the laws of war and have humane rules of engagement.
What he is indicting is sales – especially Chinese and Russian, if only because the West is so good at banning them – to exactly the sort of people we want disarmed; horrible little “liberation” movements that are really fronts for mass murder and repression, groups like ISIS, and the like.
I’m not even sure there’s a conscious agenda here, beyond the usual “people can’t read for context”, “people don’t know about terms of art, even obvious ones”, and “people are terrible about reporting about anything the Pope says”, all of which seem true, generally.)
December 8th, 2015 at 9:47 pm
@ Sigvald:
The U.S. bishops support federal legislation to require background checks for all gun purchases, to limit civilian access to high-capacity weapons and ammunition magazines and to make gun trafficking a federal crime. The bishops also want a ban on assault weapons.
That appears to be the official position of the Church.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-faith/catholic-bishops-its-pro-life-to-ban-assault-weapons/2013/04/03/b8654200-9c15-11e2-9a79-eb5280c81c63_story.html
December 9th, 2015 at 1:19 am
How many Muslim immigrants is Vatican City taking in?
December 9th, 2015 at 8:58 pm
To put it charitably, the Pope is “touched”.
He should spend more time talking with God, and less time annoying the rest of us with his cockamamie, Marxist-indulging, political theories. More time rendering unto God, and less time annoying Caesar, please.