“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.

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.

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.

The response of this church to the event is not that.

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.

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.

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?

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.)

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).

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.