" Father Lombardi does not set policy for the Vatican, or make authoritative statements for the Catholic Church. "
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2980739/posts
Vatican welcomes Obama gun control proposal
AP/cnsnews ^ | January 19, 2013 | Staff
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2979898/posts
Apologia for Church in Vatican Radio gun rights attack rings hollow - (rebuttal to Lawler)
Eaminer.com ^ | January 22, 2013 | David Codrea
Catholic Culture has weighed in on Vatican Radio's editorial endorsing President Obama's "gun control" agenda. Inevitably [the] editorial will be portrayed by careless reporters as an official statement of the Vatican’s position," Catholic World News editor Phil Lawler writes. "It is not; Father Lombardi does not set policy for the Vatican, or make authoritative statements for the Catholic Church."
Oh [papal] bull, and "careless" my eye -- how insulting. The buck stops at the top. The captain is responsible for what the crew does under his command. Especially if it involves his senior officers acting in his and its name.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2981061/posts
Cardinal Dolan finds common ground with Obama on guns
Catholic News Agency ^ | Feb 20, 2013 / 02:00 am | CNS
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2990320/posts
DC Cardinal McCarrick: Church Will Push for Immigration, Gun Safety
Newsmax ^ | Thursday, 28 Mar 2013 07:56 AM
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3001669/posts
Gun control: Church firmly, quietly opposes firearms for civilians
VATICAN CITY – The Catholic Church’s position on gun control is not easy to find; there are dozens of speeches and talks and a few documents that call for much tighter regulation of the global arms trade, but what about private gun ownership?
The answer is resoundingly clear: Firearms in the hands of civilians should be strictly limited and eventually completely eliminated.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2979898/posts?page=118#118
Tagline applies, not just to the USCCB, but to the analogous Vatican clerical bureaucracies.
The Chruch’s teachings on self defense are crystal clear, and recent bishops’ opinions do not trump the magisterial teachings of Popes and the Catechism.
In his Encyclical Letter from 1995, EVANGELIUM VITAE, Pope John Paul II writes:
“......Christian reflection has sought a fuller and deeper understanding of what God’s commandment prohibits and prescribes. There are in fact situations in which values proposed by God’s Law seem to involve a genuine paradox. This happens for example in the case of legitimate defense, in which the right to protect one’s own life and the duty not to harm someone else’s life are difficult to reconcile in practice. Certainly, the intrinsic value of life and the duty to love oneself no less than others are the basis of a true right to self-defense.”
He goes on to say:
“...legitimate defense can be not only a right but a grave duty for someone responsible for another’s life, the common good of the family or of the State. Unfortunately, it happens that the need to render the aggressor incapable of causing harm sometimes involves taking his life. In this case, the fatal outcome is attributable to the aggressor whose actions brought it about, even though he may not be morally responsible because of a lack of the use of reason.”
Pope John Paul II knew exactly what happens when innocents are disarmed, having lived under both Nazism and communism. He did not believe in disarming citizens and neither does the Catholic Church, this spokesperson’s personal opinion notwithstanding.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church is crystal clear on self defense:
Legitimate defense
2263 The legitimate defense of persons and societies is not an exception to the prohibition against the murder of the innocent that constitutes intentional killing. “The act of self-defense can have a double effect: the preservation of one’s own life; and the killing of the aggressor. . . . The one is intended, the other is not.”65
2264 Love toward oneself remains a fundamental principle of morality. Therefore it is legitimate to insist on respect for one’s own right to life. Someone who defends his life is not guilty of murder even if he is forced to deal his aggressor a lethal blow:
If a man in self-defense uses more than necessary violence, it will be unlawful: whereas if he repels force with moderation, his defense will be lawful. . . . Nor is it necessary for salvation that a man omit the act of moderate self-defense to avoid killing the other man, since one is bound to take more care of one’s own life than of another’s.66
2265 Legitimate defense can be not only a right but a grave duty for one who is responsible for the lives of others. The defense of the common good requires that an unjust aggressor be rendered unable to cause harm. For this reason, those who legitimately hold authority also have the right to use arms to repel aggressors against the civil community entrusted to their responsibility.
2266 The efforts of the state to curb the spread of behavior harmful to people’s rights and to the basic rules of civil society correspond to the requirement of safeguarding the common good. Legitimate public authority has the right and duty to inflict punishment proportionate to the gravity of the offense. Punishment has the primary aim of redressing the disorder introduced by the offense. When it is willingly accepted by the guilty party, it assumes the value of expiation. Punishment then, in addition to defending public order and protecting people’s safety, has a medicinal purpose: as far as possible, it must contribute to the correction of the guilty party.67
2267 Assuming that the guilty party’s identity and responsibility have been fully determined, the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.
When you look at these statements from both Pope John Paul II and the Catechism, it is crystal clear that the Church teaches that the family has the right to defend itself, including the use of small arms/deadly force.