Nasty looking thing.
Murders the innocent.
Please Support Pro-Life, Pro-Gun Free Republic Today
Posted on 01/19/2013 1:12:18 PM PST by Tailgunner Joe
Edited on 01/19/2013 3:00:24 PM PST by Admin Moderator. [history]
VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Vatican praised President Barack Obama's proposals for curbing gun violence, saying they are a "step in a right direction."
The Vatican's chief spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said Saturday that 47 religious leaders have appealed to members of the U.S. Congress "to limit firearms that are making society pay an unacceptable price in terms of massacres and senseless deaths."
"I am with them," Lombardi said, in an editorial carried on Vatican Radio, lining up the Vatican's moral support in favor of firearm limits.
"The initiatives announced by the American administration for limiting and controlling the spread and use of weapons are certainly a step in the right direction," Lombardi said.
Obama is trying to rally support for reinstating a ban on assault weapons...
Excerpt, read more at cnsnews/ap
Often English translations of the bible struggle or fail to render the fullest sense of the Hebrew (or Greek). The Hebrew “shalom” carries a connotation of more than simply peace; it may mean acquiescence too. (It also serves to mean good bye and hello much as the Hawaiian aloha.) Hebrew has a small vocabulary and its words in consequence frequently carry broader senses than those in languages having large vocabularies.
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.
Thanks Tailgunner Joe.
Knowing how lukewarm the world is about God now, it seems odd to us that a power would come along and manage to revive reverence, only to prove to be a kind of devil. But the bible spells it out.
Is this the same JPII who is routinely depicted by traditionalists on FR as being responsible for so many aspects of the modern church that are apparently regarded objectionable?
Well, from what I have been told, there are two levels of the pope’s teaching, one being ordinary teaching and another one being infallible pronouncements. However the popes are not normally in the habit of shouting “LISTEN HERE! THE FOLLOWING IS INFALLIBLE!” before one of the latter pronouncements, which would settle the question for good; instead the magisterium does something akin to voting on its status.
If this was one of the Infallible Utterances then the pope could have been in the middle of carousing for all the stewards of doctrine care. (Not at all saying he was! he seemed to be a pretty decent man in his dealings.)
I have to chuckle, herd of cats sometimes does seem to describe it. And we have to wait for them to come to unity on the hairball in question.
Paedophilia and gun control. Real leadership. :-(
Lombardi editorial: Against arms
In his weekly editorial, Fr. Federico Lombardi, sj, director of the Press Office of the Holy See, reflects on the need to reduce and control arms. Below is Vatican Radio's English translation.
The initiatives announced by the United States government in view of limiting and controlling the diffusion and use of arms are certainly a step in the right direction. It is estimated that Americans today possess about 300 million firearms. No one can be under the illusion that limiting their number and use would be enough to impede horrendous massacres in the future, such as the one in Newtown, which shook the conscience of Americans and of the world, of children and adults alike. But it would be much worse if we were to satisfy ourselves with only words. And if the massacres are carried out by people with mental illness or distorted by hate, there is no doubt that they are carried out with arms. Forty-seven religious leaders of various confessions and religions have issued a call to American politicians to limit firearms, which “are making society pay an unacceptable price in terms of massacres and senseless deaths”. I’m with them.
But while American society is engaged in this debate of dutiful civil and moral growth, we cannot but widen our gaze to recall that arms, throughout the world, are also instruments for legitimate defense, but surely they are everywhere the main instruments used to bring threats, violence and death. Therefore, it is necessary to repeat tirelessly our calls for disarmament, to oppose the production, trade, and smuggling of arms of all types, fuelled by dishonourable interests for power or financial gain. If results are achieved, such as international conventions, the ban of landmines and other deadly arms, the reduction of the immense and disproportionate number of nuclear warheads…all the better! But weapons are and will always be too many. As the Pope said while travelling to Lebanon, we are all distraught by the massacres in Syria, but the weapons continue to arrive. Peace is born from the heart, but it will be easier to achieve if we have fewer weapons in hand.
Talking about the Swiss Guard — at home these guys have the most free gun laws in the world.
Will the Vatican make a public comment on THAT?
Buy or sell what, might be asked. To we capitalists this would first imply literal commercial merchandise. But I wonder if it refers to ideas, as we may even talk today about selling an idea or buying that idea. If you’re not in the Beast-approved set, you’re an outcast and you’re not wanted either offering your opinions or putting on an appearance like you’re living according to the official system of the age.
If the “good father” can conceive a ban which actually WILL disarm the thugs at least as well as the honest people, then he might have a point. Otherwise this is vain mis-moralistic woofing.
So much for subsidiarity.
Aside from abortion and maybe contraception (if that still counts as an issue), the Catholic church is mostly a leftist organization. It’s liberal on the death penalty, immigration, gun control, etc. It believes in big government welfare states as a form of social justice, and seems to line up behind Democrats most of the time. It is amazing that this Church can not figure that the secular socialist agenda is their real enemy.
Ivory toweritis.
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