There is nothing in the statement to support that contention, the statement is only concerned with indiscriminate and excessively maiming devices, which might include as well IEDs, car bombs, and little kids wearing bomb vests.
In The Law of Land Warfare, Dept. of the Army, FM27-10 (7/56), we also (in Ch.2 Section III) note there are treaty provisions which limit the means used against beligerants, including restrictions on the use of projectiles designed to produce severe wounding (such as hollow point bullets), fire, poison gas, etc. That any church might seek to limit the use by international convention of weapons which do not discriminate between civillians and beligerants is not out of bounds, nor is it necessarily opposed to the Second Amendment and the individual right to keep and bear arms.
The responsibility for attaining the common good, besides falling to individual persons, belongs also to the State, since the common good is the reason that the political authority exists
We have the phrase "Provide for the general welfare" in our Constitution, too, but that doesn't mean the forcible removal of wealth from those who have earned it and redistribution by any entity.
The Church urges parishoners to give, to tend to the needs of those less fortunate, but Jesus did the same. (For so as you have done for the least of these, you have done for me). It is the establishment of political authority which enables the stability which permits the free and unfettered giving of our prosperity to help those less well off. (...That to secure these Rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed...)
If the State is as it should be, subservient to the People, then we ultimately decide what level, if any, is appropriate. If we disagree with the actions of our servants, it is up to us to replace them.
Keep in mind that in Europe, until the last century for the most part, the Monarch was responsible for the well being of their subjects. We, on the other hand, are a unique case; freed from subservience to monarchy, we are left to choose our own level of obligation to the poor, infirm, and orphaned.
We do so by either individually giving to charity or individuals or by empowering our government to take from us and distribute that.
Any failing there is not the fault of the Church, but the American People.
1. You did not address the Church’s position on universal disarmament.
2. I am currently serving in the military (NG, but I spend 25% of my time called up on AD). Landmines are essential to us. Without them, more of us will die. Rome can stick their opinion of how we fight where the sun don’t shine.
3. Providing for the general welfare is not defined and, as you say, is left to the people. The RC document cited *defines* the common good as the provision of jobs, food, housing and, yes, health care, to every single individual and states that individuals and the state are *required* to provide these to all individuals because those things are “human rights.” There is a massive difference between us voting ourselves stupid and the hierarchs in the RC church telling us that we *must* do these things.
I’m Eastern Orthodox and our bishops have as many problems as yours. I’ve never understood why RCs are so stubborn in not acknowledging what their bishops incorrectly and flagrantly espouse.