More impressive–and far more courageous–than any of the predictable, crass attempts at politicizing the Colorado shooting (a project now being joined, unfortunately, by some religious voices), is this rather remarkable act:
Colorado Community Church will host [church member Gordon] Cowden’s funeral later this week.
“When it appears that there’s no hope and no peace … we come to you,” prayed song leader Chris Lang.
Pastor Robert Gelinas started Sunday’s service by asking how many in attendance were personally impacted by the tragedy. More than a dozen hands went up. In the aisles and pews, fellow worshipers huddled around those suffering the most.
“As we put our hands on their shoulders, let the spirit draw near and be closer to them than they ever imagined,” he said above loud sobs.
Rev. Gelinas had another request which he admitted was, “not going to be easy.” He asked his flock to pray for the alleged gunman, James Holmes, and his family.
“Only God is the righteous judge,” he said. “Only God knows how to blend justice and mercy and grace in perfect balance.”
(article via Sarah Pulliam Bailey)
July 23rd, 2012 | 2:45 pm
On one of the roundtables yesterday, I heard someone saying we must do something about America’s mental health system so that we don’t have people like James Holmes walking around undetected. Is that a political response, or is it only a call for more controls on guns that is “political”?
July 23rd, 2012 | 4:54 pm
It would be nice to see a *really* courageous response from some Catholic pulpit (praying for people who have done evil things shouldn’t be seen as courageous for Catholics, just ordinary): i.e. pointing out that mainstream Catholic tradition (who’s more mainstream than Augustine and Aquinas?) cannot countenance the easy and wide availability of deadly weapons for civilians, no matter what any (secular and man-made) US Amendment may say or how it is misinterpreted (Summa, II-II 64, Articles 3 and 7).
This is not “predictable, crass politics”, it’s just pointing to plain classic doctrine concerning morals, no matter how bitter a pill that may be for most American ‘conservatives’. The Catholic Church has decided to largely shut up about this inconvenient historical teaching, like so many others, because many of its own most ‘orthodox’ parishioners and their ‘orthodox’ think-tanks and funders would revolt from such a teaching.
July 23rd, 2012 | 7:11 pm
HT is making quite a stretch from the Summa’s discussion of the proper limits of self defense to the conclusion that the Catholic Church “cannot countenance the easy and wide availability of deadly weapons”.
I myself am not in favor of widespread gun ownership, particularly of the more powerful weapons, but I don’t know of any “mainstream Catholic teaching” about gun control.
For those who don’t have a copy of the Summa handy, you can read the two short articles cited by HT here:
http://www.newadvent.org/summa/3064.htm
July 23rd, 2012 | 10:15 pm
I can’t help wonder at HT’s claim, “mainstream Catholic tradition (who’s more mainstream than Augustine and Aquinas?) cannot countenance the easy and wide availability of deadly weapons for civilians”. No where does Aquinas mention weapons. He does indirectly speak to their use, though people can also kill through some ordinary means.
That said, I would like to read more about the idea of self-defense and the conclusions the Church has reached about them. Point us to more documents, HT.
July 23rd, 2012 | 10:19 pm
For example the same site has this
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13691a.htm
July 23rd, 2012 | 10:22 pm
Then there’s the Cathecism, see sections 2263-5.
http://www.christusrex.org/www1/CDHN/fifth.html
I’m beginning to think HT has been cherry picking.
July 24th, 2012 | 9:46 am
Mike Melendez,
The USCCB has been expressing its concerns about gun violence in American life and advocating more stringent gun control for decades.
July 24th, 2012 | 10:21 am
There would have been a lot more dead travelers and pilgrims in the Middle Ages if Catholic tradition really could not “countenance the easy and wide availability of deadly weapons for civilians.”
I’m not bringing up the self-defense or deterrence argument here, I’m just questioning how this could be “mainstream Catholic tradition” when people who could afford them walking around with daggers and swords was normal practice, and not condemned, in the time when the church held its widest and strongest cultural influence.
July 24th, 2012 | 11:46 am
Pentamon
The carrying of a sword was almost everywhere restricted to tenants in chivalry (basically, those who held land by military service) and their sons and liveried retainers.
The connection between arms = weapons and arms = heraldic achievements is not accidental and the sword was everywhere the badge of the gentleman. Hence the distinction in France, under the Ancien Régime between Noblesse d’épée and Noblesse de robe (such as magistrates and councillors).
July 24th, 2012 | 1:28 pm
Mr. Melendez, it is Ratzinger’s generally incoherent catechism that cherry-picks. Both references in the part you cite are to one of the passages in the Summa that I refer to — that’s their only cited textual basis. However, the selective citation in the Catechism, with the surrounding text, is crafted so it may well give the impression of the *very opposite* of what Thomas ends up saying. The first sentence of item 2263 doesn’t even rhetorically or logically fit well with the second sentence, which is a quote from Thomas. It seems to want to say that even though intentional killing in general is wrong, that there are exceptions for legitimate defense, but bungles the grammar. I wish I could say this kind of carelessness was not typical of the Catechism, but it is rampant.
I don’t have the resources to look up the contexts of the Augustine or Decretals quotes, but they appear to show some authoritative precedent for what Thomas argues.
I don’t know who wrote the New Advent entry, but it’s less authoritative than a Doctor of the Church.
Mr. Nickol: Who ever pays any attention at all to the USCCB, unless they happen to be expressing an opinion that one happens to agree with?
Pentamom: The Church has frequently failed to condemn something it had much reason to. Should we assume that just because the average French bishop was just fine with his charges going off to WWI to kill German Catholics, while the average German bishop took the exactly opposite point of view, that WWI was therefore just or acceptable? I don’t think the Church has, explicitly and institutionally, ever condemned Hiroshima. Are we to conclude that it was licit to kill civilians there? (Unfortunately, many of the ‘faithful’ do draw that conclusion.)
July 24th, 2012 | 1:43 pm
Just one more thing: For a moment, pretend to accept Thomas’s clear statement that “it is not [morally] lawful for a man to intend killing a man in self-defense, except for such as have public authority.” Take that as a premise.
Now give me a cogent chain of practical reasoning that leads from there to the conclusion: “Even so, it’s (morally) lawful (and perhaps even generally good) for people who lack public authority to carry deadly weapons (i.e. weapons that are designed to make it easy to kill) for the purpose of defending themselves if necessary.”
Sophistical casuistry, anyone?
July 24th, 2012 | 9:11 pm
Michael — swords maybe, daggers not so much.
Daggers are deadly weapons, and were commonly used for self-defense by anyone who could manage to get hold of one. Someone made the extremely broad assertion that it is Catholic tradition to forbid the possession of deadly weapons.
July 24th, 2012 | 9:15 pm
HT, are you arguing that even though the Church didn’t forbid something when it had the opportunity we know it’s tradition that the Church forbids it?
WWI and Hiroshima were not a broad category like “owning a deadly weapon;” they are specific sets of circumstances. The church did make pronouncements on the broad principles involved, long before they happened. I am aware of no pronouncement *ever* made forbidding anyone from owning a deadly weapon, and yet you say it is “mainstream Catholic tradition.” It is not that the Church did not stop John of Amherst from packing his dagger to fend off highwaymen when he went to the fair, it’s that there was no sense that this practice was *ever* called into question by any known church teaching.
July 24th, 2012 | 9:17 pm
On David’s comment #1, I would say that any attempt to offer a grand solution involving reorganizing society in some fashion to deal with these situation is a “political” solution. That would be the case whether I approved of the means or not.
The response of this church to the event is not that.
July 25th, 2012 | 4:13 am
Pentamom: What I am talking about is precisely a specific set of circumstances — the social situation in which a large number of ordinary people carry around deadly weapons (and guns are potentially much more deadly than knives) for the explicit purpose of self-defense up to death of a presumed assailant. Can someone who accepts Thomas’s position really take the view that such a circumstance is a good one? And can he take the view that it is Just OK for him as a Christian to participate willingly in that situation? (Some Culture of Life.)
You write as if Thomas, the greatest and most influential and papally recommended (therefore ‘mainstream’) theologian in history, is just some Shmoe whose opinion doesn’t matter at all. Fine. I don’t expect to convince readers of this magazine–their minds and hearts are impregnable. I take the view that what Jesus taught was much more radical than what the Church generally ‘teaches’ or fails to. Thomas himself is often much more socially radical than the standard ecclesial equivocations, which are pretty thin milk on most non-sexual issues.
July 25th, 2012 | 6:52 am
Pentamon
The carrying of a knife of some kind was universal, primarily as cutlery. Consider St Benedict’s injunction, “Let them sleep clothed and girded with cinctures or cords; but let them not have knives at their sides while they sleep, lest perhaps they wound themselves in their sleep.”
Of course, a dagger could be used as a weapon; so can a hammer or a stout walking-stick. However, a sword falls into a different category entirely: it is designed for causing harm to someone. That is why wearing one was so restricted, both by law and the custom of Christian societies.
The etymology of “gendarme” is rather suggestive here.
Of course, no moral theologian ever said a person could not arm himself, when faced with an imminent threat. That is another question entirely; just as, in the UK, the Chief Constable can authorise a police officer to carry a firearm, when special circumstances render it necessary.
July 28th, 2012 | 3:08 pm
Michael, I get the thing about swords.
“Of course, no moral theologian ever said a person could not arm himself, when faced with an imminent threat. ”
Someone on this thread asserted that it is “Catholic tradition” that civilians should not possess lethal weapons. Both your statement and his cannot be true, and that is all I am saying.
And of course Benedict was speaking of monastics, who were a special case. It was understood that they would not bear weapons.
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