Yawn.
Fr. James Martin SJ of America Magazine has penned a piece in which he uses religion to justify a knee-jerk leftist policy (read political) position, even though he assures us that he is not a political person (cough). Fr. Martin deems stricter gun-control a “religious issue.”
That is why I believe that gun control is a religious issue. It is as much of a “life issue” or a “pro-life issue,” as some religious people say, as is abortion, euthanasia or the death penalty (all of which I am against), and programs that provide the poor with the same access to basic human needs as the wealthy (which I am for). There is a “consistent ethic of life” that views all these issues as linked, because they are.
What is noticeably absent from Fr. Martin’s religiously informed opinion is any justification for the belief that such restrictions would limit the type of violence we just witnessed. I am fairly sure the Church has no dogmatic statisticians in its employ.
Why just a week previous to the horror in Aurora, an elderly chap in Florida prevented gun violence and possible mass-murder with the use of a weapon.
A priest such as Fr. Martin, who confesses to being non-political, should be doubly wary of entering the political arena so obviously unarmed.
Father’s argument using the seamless garment approach to promote gun-control is silly and dangerous. It completely ignores the potential benefits of gun ownership while diminishing the critical issues he professes to care so much about, abortion and euthanasia, as just a few other items on a laundry list of concerns.
But on his main premise, that gun-control is a “religious issue” I do not disagree. What I would like to see is lots of well-armed Christians.
The only thing a seamless garment is useful for is concealing a Beretta PX4.
