Max Read —
We will all die eventually, yes, but now we know what will kill us: Aging pipelines! Well, not the pipelines specifically, so much as the explosions that will occur when natural gas leaks from those aging pipelines and then sparks and blows up, as happened in Allentown, Pa. on Thursday, killing six. There is, according to The Wall Street Journal, a "growing consensus that the U.S. has a problem with aging infrastructure," also, "federal investigators... are concerned about the accuracy of utility records on pipelines they operate"; a bill has been proposed to improve pipeline safety but it's unclear whether Republicans will support it. Of course. Look: Just don't light any matches for a while, okay? [WSJ via TDB]
‘Aging Pipelines’ Will Kill Us All
What does the church demand of Tea Party Catholics?
Noting that the majority of Catholics who serve in the 112th Congress are far more conservative than those in the previous two, former George W. Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson asks in the Washington Post, “What influence is this shift likely to have?”
The short answer, in Gerson’s opinion, is none. He cites statistics that show while a couple generations ago Catholics overwhelmingly voted Democratic, out of ethnic loyalties, that today they are basically mirror images of their suburban neighbors. He writes, “There is something vaguely disturbing about the precise symmetry of any religious group with other voters of their same class and background. One would hope that an ancient, demanding faith would leave some distinctive mark. A reflection may move and smile, but it lacks substance and will.”
Gerson then critiques Catholic politicians on both sides of the aisle, while offering a decent, if somewhat limited, lesson in Catholic social teaching. He concludes that both parties fail to live out the lofty demands of the tradition.
Speaking to Catholic Republicans who sympathize with the Tea Party movement, Gerson notes that the church has historically been reluctant to embrace “revolutionary populism,” and that disdain for government is not a Catholic sensibility either. And to his credit, Gerson writes that Tea Party radicals and Republicans in general who profess to be Catholic should be challenged by their faith on such weighty issues as immigration, poverty, health care, and global disease prevention. To that list I would add gun control, education, and the death penalty.
We hear on a regular basis from our bishops how some Catholic politicians fail to live up to the Catholic standard, especially on important life issues. But the chastising is seemingly always directed at Democrats. While not a bishop, and not even a Catholic (a Presbyterian, but who says Catholic social thought informs his views) kudos to Gerson for calling not only Democrats, but Catholic members of his own party, to task and suggesting a critical self-reflection of what their professed faith might offer on difficult subjects.
Read more at www.americamagazine.org
Exploiting natural disasters
Exploiting natural disasters
It would be too generous to excuse Hereafter as an old man's rumination on death (director Clint Eastwood will turn 81 this year). Eastwood achieves a sense of neither fear nor awe nor existential angst in his approach to this most human preoccupation.
The best that Hereafter seems able to muster is clichéd afterlife imagery (the dearly departed silhouetted by acid wash light) and half-baked characters pestered by half-formed thoughts of the 'hereafter'.
There are no great insights into the human condition or compelling questions about the mysteries of death to be found here. Instead Eastwood adopts an air of maudlin, shallow musing with an unearned aura of profundity.
A near-death experience during the 2004 Asian tsunami offers holidaying French journalist Marie Lelay (De France) a glimpse of heaven (cue acid-wash silhouettes) that becomes her obsession.
Taciturn London schoolboy Marcus mourns the death of his garrulous twin Jason (both portrayed by the brothers McLaren) and toys with the idea of enlisting a medium to help him make contact.
Reclusive American psychic George Lonegan (Damon) resists his brother Billy's (Jay Mohr) urgings that he make a career out of his gift of contacting people's dead loved ones. 'It's not a gift, it's a curse!' he insists (of course), and the film dallies in a doomed-romance subplot to illustrate his point.
These stories unspool in parallel, before converging in the final act. Other filmmakers have adopted this kind of mutli-faceted structure (notably Babel and Amores Perros director Alejandro González Iñárritu) to good effect.
But the stories lack momentum, and Eastwood fails to imbue them with any sense of inevitability or of external forces driving these kindred but geographically distant characters into each other's orbits. This, despite the fact that the film's ridiculously mawkish, swelling-strings-laden ending seems to insist that Fate played its part.
In short, where Eastwood shoots for mysticism, he attains only tedium.
Hereafter wins a laugh or two with its portrayal of the chain of charlatanic mediums who attempt (and fail) to contact Jason — John-Edwards-Crossing-Over style — on Marcus' behalf. But these exist primarily to illustrate that, by contrast, Damon's George is the real deal. Clearly, Eastwood really wants us to believe.
Frankly, the film is utterly vapid, and vacuous. And this has serious implications.
Its explicit references to the Tsunami, as well as the 2005 London bombings, are redundant — unless it is to fuse Eastwood's fiction to the historical record, thus passing as fact his theological fancies, like Kirk Cameron spruiking the End of Days.
This is worse than misguided. The Tsunami, in particular, is recreated in spectacular fashion, but devoid of any significance except as a catalyst to one uninteresting character's uninteresting journey.
The fact that this character is a well-to-do, white-skinned European tourist, who survives a disaster that killed hundreds of thousands of people, the vast majority of them brown-skinned Indonesian and Sri Lankan villagers, is exploitative in the extreme.
Tim Kroenert is Assistant Editor of Eureka Street. He is a contributor to Kidzone, Inside Film and The Big Issue magazines, and his articles and reviews have appeared in Melbourne's The Age and Brisbane's Courier-Mail.
Preparing to kill the internet
Preparing to kill the internet
Perhaps what is most remarkable about events in Egypt over the past few weeks is that authorities were able to switch off access to the internet for five days. That has not occurred in any other country in the course of the 20 year history of the internet. Internet access has continued during political turmoil in Iran, Burma, and many other countries.
It's also worth noting that US President Barack Obama's carefully crafted remarks last week on the situation in Egypt failed to specifically mention the denial of access to the internet. His address included the usual declaration — 'we stand for universal values, including the rights of the Egyptian people to freedom of assembly, freedom of speech, and the freedom to access information'.
But it did not make reference to what is surely the most striking violation of those freedoms on this occasion: denial of internet access. It would have been reassuring to hear him link freedom of access to the internet with the other freedoms he mentions.
In the minds of some, the reason he's treading warily is that the US Government itself is preparing the ground for switching off internet access in a national emergency. The Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act is being introduced by US Homeland Security committee chair Senator Joe Lieberman. It would grant the President powers to seize control of the internet, and shut it down if necessary.
Popularly known as the 'kill switch', it's intended for use in a situation of cyber warfare. But there are fears that it could be used just as easily to control the flow of information. What we've learned through WikiLeaks helps us to understand why the US Government may be interested in such a power.
Any form of control of the internet does not sit easily with remarks made by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in January last year, when she accused countries that build barriers to parts of the internet or filter search engines of contravening the UN's Universal Declaration on Human Rights. Australia was implicitly in her firing line, with the setting up of our internet filter well advanced.
Communications Minister Stephen Conroy — charged with setting up the filter — was therefore open to derision last week when he responded to questions about the internet shutdown in Egypt. He declared that 'Australia's a vibrant democracy, where the government doesn't control the internet'. He continued:
I don't think we have any of these powers — that we could pass a law to make ISP services turn off when we want them to? I don't think we have that power now, and I don't think anyone's seeking it.
If only the conviction suggested by these words could be enshrined in legislation or, better, a bill or rights.
Michael Mullins is editor of Eureka Street.
DROPPED QUAKE - YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, WYOMING M 4.6
DROPPED QUAKE - YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, WYOMING M 4.6
I made a screenshot before it was removed from the database
Newsweek’s Scripture twisting on sex
Newsweek’s Scripture twisting on sex
Once again, Newsweek, in its far-left quest to justify moral relativity and promote licentiousness among the masses, has set out to vilify Holy Scripture. This is because Newsweek recognizes that the last strongholds of traditional morality in America are built on strong biblical convictions regarding human sexuality and marriage. If Newsweek is to “help” us finally realize the countercultural, utopian dream of the hippie movement of the 1960′s, which sought to marginalize marriage and champion “free sex” without supposed consequences, it must encourage us to jettison our moral compass. This is why Newsweek must attack either biblical authority or the biblical message. In this case, Newsweek attacks both!
In the latest edition of Newsweek (Feb. 6, 2011), Lisa Miller, in her article entitled, “What the Bible Really Says About Sex,” would have us side with the understanding of the so-called “new scholarship” on the left, represented by information gleaned from the books and writings of Jennifer Knust and Michael Coogan.
Miller would have us accept this new understanding of Scripture by confessed liberals over and above the biblical understanding of millions of Christians and Jews who have lived out monogamous, heterosexual relationships for thousands of years. To anyone who is somewhat conversant with what God’s Word teaches on human sexuality, it quickly becomes evident that their “new” understanding of God’s revelation on marriage and sexuality is, to put it nicely, full of holes.
Miller admits, “The Bible is stern and judgmental on sex. It forbids prostitution, adultery, premarital sex for women and homosexuality,” but then she adds, “But exceptions exist in every case, Knust points out.” Jenny Knust, representing the “new scholarship” of the left, makes serious categorical blunders in her woefully faulty argumentation. Knust repeatedly elevates narrative describing the immoral behavior of fallen individuals to the level of biblical doctrine.
Read More: By Joe Schimmel, WND
(2010 MOVIE) Toronto G20 EXPOSED - Original Full-Length
(2010 MOVIE) Toronto G20 EXPOSED - Original Full-Length
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Updated: What Separates the Wheat from the Tares?
What Separates the Wheat from the Tares?
I then saw the third angel. Said my accompanying angel, "Fearful is his work. Awful is his mission. He is the angel that is to select the wheat from the tares, and seal, or bind, the wheat for the heavenly garner. These things should engross the whole mind, the whole attention." {EW 118.1}
The angel that is to seal, the one that says to the four angels, hold the winds of strife until we have sealed the servants of God is the angel that binds for the heavenly garner. The sealing is equated with the harvesting. Here are the messages of the three angels. There is the time of the end from 1844 onwards, the angels are the reapers and the wheat and the tares need to be differentiated.
Both the wheat and tares grow together until the harvest. They are so close together that if you pull one up you pull the other up with it. Don’t separate. Let them grow together. The harvest is since 1844, since the angels started their work. Both grow together. What does it mean for the children of the wicked one and the children of the kingdom to grow together so they both come to the harvest time and reveal fruits so separation can take place? Sr White could hardly sleep when she wrote this to elder Haskell. She was praying earnestly and said;
During the night season I devoted some time to prayer for it seemed to me that if there was ever a time when we needed to watch and pray continually, it is now. The Lord is soon to come, and the end of all things is at hand. The watchmen should be wide awake now and see eye to eye. Solemnity should be upon us all. There are to be but two classes in our world, the obedient and the disobedient. Our only hope is God. He loves us, and we must continue in the words spoken by Jesus. What pleases God? It is the loving obedience of every individual soul. The obedience of heavenly beings pleases God, and the sinner who unreservedly surrenders himself to do God’s way pleases God. We must listen as God says of Jesus, “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased: hear ye Him.” {1888 994.4}
The messages Revelation 14:6-13 and Revelation 18:1-4 are the third and fourth angels messages. Who is going to do the separating? The angels. These messages of Revelation 14 and 18 are testing messages that come from Jesus and whether people will listen that is the issue. He identifies the beast, his image and he identifies those that keep the commandments of God and have the faith of Jesus. That is the testing message that is bundling the wheat and the tares.
Since 1844 the third angel has come to do his work. Awful is his mission. He is selecting the wheat from the tares and he is binding the bundles. The harvest commenced in 1844. The stooks are being erected to dry right out so they can be taken to the garner. This is the time we are living in. In the old days it took a whole season for the harvest because they were working by hand. It is a symbolic picture and it takes a period of time which is why we have read some die in the message.
Revelation 14:13 And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Write, Blessed [are] the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them.
Because the work is prolonged and goes on for more than a century, an envoy of reinforcement is needed like in the days of the harvest when it took a bit longer and they needed more help so gleaners would come up. We read in Amos that not a single grain will fall on the ground. Is there scriptural evidence that the third angel will receive help?
Revelation 18:1 And after these things I saw another angel come down from heaven, having great power; and the earth was lightened with his glory.
18:2 And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird.
A very powerful angel came to vivify the work and to make it more intense. He cries with a strong mighty voice saying Babylon is fallen as he’s identifying again the tares and the evil of the tares very clearly. He cries with a loud voice and all the earth is lightened with his glory. He gives strength and power.
A compelling power moved the honest, while the manifestation of the power of God brought a fear and restraint upon their unbelieving relatives and friends so that they dared not, neither had they the power to, hinder those who felt the work of the Spirit of God upon them. The last call was carried even to the poor slaves, and the pious among them poured forth their songs of rapturous joy at the prospect of their happy deliverance. Their masters could not check them; fear and astonishment kept them silent. Mighty miracles were wrought, the sick were healed, and signs and wonders followed the believers. God was in the work, and every saint, fearless of consequences, followed the convictions of his own conscience and united with those who were keeping all the commandments of God; and with power they sounded abroad the third message. I saw that this message will close with power and strength far exceeding the midnight cry. {EW 278.1}
Servants of God, endowed with power from on high with their faces lighted up, and shining with holy consecration, went forth to proclaim the message from heaven. Souls that were scattered all through the religious bodies answered to the call, and the precious were hurried out of the doomed churches, as Lot was hurried out of Sodom before her destruction. God's people were strengthened by the excellent glory which rested upon them in rich abundance and prepared them to endure the hour of temptation. I heard everywhere a multitude of voices saying, "Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus." {EW 278.2}
Separate!
These are the bundles. Amos 9 is in process of taking shape more and more as time goes on. The call for separation is part of these messages, not a message of stay together everybody, let’s all be together, let’s all be happy in our families. Nothing like that. These messages have no room for that. These messages are the closing scenes – cry aloud, spare not, show my people their transgression. The people who want to hear smooth things are saying that the people who are doing this work are separating families, they are destroying relationships. But that is what the message is. We are in such a circumstance that there is no cushy situation of let’s get along nicely with our people who are not really doing what God is saying. No, it says in the last days perilous times shall come.
2 Timothy 3:1 This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.
3:2 For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy,
3:3 Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good,
3:4 Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God;
3:5 Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.
All the characteristics brought. In verse 4 they are lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God. What is the call? From such turn away. Notice that the third angels message together with Revelation 18 is dealing directly with 2 Timothy 3. These messages are brought into a climax where the following must take place.
2 Corinthians 6:14 Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?
6:15 And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel?
6:16 And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in [them]; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
6:17 Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean [thing]; and I will receive you,
6:18 And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.
There is no playing around and that those who will not submit to these three angels messages we are to separate from. The call is come away from them. Bundle together in truth that’s all. The study of 2 Timothy and 2 Corinthians is very explicit and specific in regards to what we should do in regards to yoking together and dealing with the horrifying things of 2 Timothy. The horrendous scenes of people being like they are and yet claiming to be somewhat religious, get out from among them, from such turn away. As God is behind the messages, the angels are being sent by him to separate. Those words are so important to sever the wicked from among the just. What is the word sever? Tear the relationship. As God is organising this, there comes a point in time where enough is enough, we have to move much faster. What will he do in this final work as it has been prolonged? The Revelation 18 angel comes along and the other voice from heaven.
What Hour Are We In?
In the harvest time gathering together the wheat. What is the hour in which we live right now? When did this angel begin his work? The first angel was being proclaimed from 1831 onwards. The second angel came in 1844 and the third angel came in 1848. In 1848 a world war was brooding and then suddenly it stopped. Ever since that time the world has been under war threats. The first and second world war were prevented by the angel from doing its final destruction. Why? The work of the angels was not completed. Identify the intense work that heaven is involved in from the time of 1848 onwards.
We are living in the last moments of this work of the third angel and even more should it engross us now. His mission is so awful, his mission is a work that separates human beings. Unless people want to occupy their mind with this they will not appreciate this is what is happening. As they don’t appreciate it they attack the people who are themselves embracing this message and being separated and shaken as a consequence of that. We have noticed the experience of God’s people in this period of time of the third angel of the harvest in which there are laws that will ultimately bring a final separation as the Sunday Laws gather impact. Society is being prepared to receive the mark of the beast. The causative activity of the beast and his image is such that society is already gearing up to receive it. The little time of trouble produces the remnant church or church triumphant before the time of Jacob’s trouble.
Those who come up to every point, and stand every test, and overcome, be the price what it may, have heeded the counsel of the True Witness, and they will receive the latter rain, and thus be fitted for translation. 1T 187
The latter rain is a completion in every person’s individual life in which he has overcome every test, every difficulty be the price what it may and are then fitted to receive the latter rain which then gives them the power to proclaim the loud cry of that third angel. Jesus cannot come to take His people home until such time as he has a church triumphant. It directly relates to the harvest period.
The Unfaithful Servant
During the lives of the apostles the church remained comparatively pure. “But toward the latter end of the second century most of the churches assumed a new form, the first simplicity disappeared; and insensibly, as the old disciples retired to their graves, their children, along with new converts . . . came forward and new-modeled the cause.” [ROBINSON, IN HISTORY OF BAPTISM.] To secure converts, the exalted standard of the Christian faith was lowered, and as the result “a pagan flood, flowing into the church, carried with it its customs, practices, and idols.” {GC88 384.5}
Think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham." {DA 105.3}
The Jews had misinterpreted God's promise of eternal favor to Israel. The Jews regarded their natural descent from Abraham as giving them a claim to this promise. But they overlooked the conditions which God had specified. {DA 106.1}
This principle bears with equal weight upon a question that has long agitated the Christian world,--the question of apostolic succession. Descent from Abraham was proved, not by name and lineage, but by likeness of character. So the apostolic succession rests not upon the transmission of ecclesiastical authority, but upon spiritual relationship. A life actuated by the apostles' spirit, the belief and teaching of the truth they taught, this is the true evidence of apostolic succession. This is what constitutes men the successors of the first teachers of the gospel. {DA 467.1}
It is by likeness of character can a church only claim to have apostolic succession. Sitting in Moses seat doesn't make one Moses. What is said to those who sit in Moses seat? Often when we talk about the topic of Korah, Dathan and Abiram it’s often used by leaders who say if you don’t listen to me I am Moses and you are Korah therefore if you don’t obey me, the bible says you should be destroyed as I am the leader Moses. You are under me therefore you must be Korah. This is very easily drawn.
Acts 7:51 Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye.
Who was speaking and who was Stephen speaking to? The Pharisees. What did Jesus say to the Pharisees? You sit in Moses seat. They sit in a position of leadership but there is a resistance from them. There is a clear distinction between Moses himself and the office of Moses. Did the Pharisees resist Jesus Christ? They did. We want to understand exactly what rebellion is so when we look at the story of Korah, Dathan and Abiram it becomes very easily understood. There was a resistance to the Holy Ghost.
The names of the seven churches are symbolic of the church in different periods of the Christian era. The number seven indicates completeness, and is symbolic of the fact that the messages extend to the end of time, while the symbols used reveal the condition of the church at different periods in the history of the world. {AA 585.3}
Faithful Souls Constitute the Church
From the beginning, faithful souls have constituted the church on earth. In every age the Lord has had His watchmen, who have borne a faithful testimony to the generation in which they lived. These sentinels gave the message of warning; and when they were called to lay off their armor, others took up the work. God brought these witnesses into covenant relation with Himself, uniting the church on earth with the church in heaven. He has sent forth His angels to minister to His church, and the gates of hell have not been able to prevail against His people. {AA 11.2}
Will There Be a Big Number of People Coming Into the Church Asking Questions?
They become the most bitter enemies of their former brethren. When Sabbathkeepers are brought before the courts to answer for their faith, these apostates are the most efficient agents of Satan to misrepresent and accuse them, and by false reports and insinuations to stir up the rulers against them. {GC 608.2}
People think its all going to be smooth sailing when the Sunday law comes along. That everyone is going to flock to the SDA church for answers, that's not the case, there will be few accepting and much opposition;
As the movement for Sunday enforcement becomes more bold and decided, the law will be invoked against commandment keepers. They will be threatened with fines and imprisonment, and some will be offered positions of influence, and other rewards and advantages, as inducements to renounce their faith. But their steadfast answer is: "Show us from the word of God our error"--the same plea that was made by Luther under similar circumstances. Those who are arraigned before the courts make a strong vindication of the truth. {GC 607.1}
People won't be running to the church for answers, there'll be more opposition than anything. Your former brethren will turn against you. Think about Jesus in his day, what happened? Will any different happen to his followers?
Kings, governors, and great men will hear of you through the reports of those who are at enmity with you, and your faith and character will be misrepresented before them. But those who are falsely accused will have an opportunity to appear in the presence of their accusers to answer for themselves. They will have the privilege of bringing the light before those who are called the great men of the earth, and if you have studied the Bible, if you are ready to give an answer to every man that asketh you of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear, your enemies will not be able to gainsay your wisdom. {Mar 253.3}
I saw the nominal church and nominal Adventists, like Judas, would betray us to the Catholics to obtain their influence to come against the truth. The saints then will be an obscure people, little known to the Catholics; but the churches and nominal Adventists who know of our faith and customs (for they hated us on account of the Sabbath, for they could not refute it) will betray the saints and report them to the Catholics as those who disregard the institutions of the people; that is, that they keep the Sabbath and disregard Sunday. {SpM 1.5}
When the test is brought, they are prepared to choose the easy, popular side. {GC 608.2}
The preparation has already been done.
Men of talent and pleasing address, who once rejoiced in the truth, employ their powers to deceive and mislead souls. They become the most bitter enemies of their former brethren. When Sabbathkeepers are brought before the courts to answer for their faith, these apostates are the most efficient agents of Satan to misrepresent and accuse them, and by false reports and insinuations to stir up the rulers against them. {GC 608.2}
Can you see why Jesus says when you see the abomination of desolation standing in the holy place, you better start moving out as there are going to be some problems. There needs to be a preparation. Notice that Gods people have to answer in the courts. If you have answer in the courts, guess what already exists? The Sunday law.
A few will be in court answering for their faith, not the big grand organisations, but you individually.
The people of God--some in prison cells, some hidden in solitary retreats in the forests and the mountains--still plead for divine protection, while in every quarter companies of armed men, urged on by hosts of evil angels, are preparing for the work of death. {GC 635.2}
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Sabbath Sermon Bible Study's NotesTucson shooting spree prompts renewed debate on gun-control issue in US
In terms of guns and violence, studies have shown there's not much evidence that states with tough gun control laws have fewer gun crimes, said Bob Homant, a professor of criminal justice at the University of Detroit Mercy in Detroit.
Tucson shooting spree prompts renewed debate on gun-control issue in US
DETROIT (CNS) -- Avid outdoorsman and hunter Father Joe Classen, associate pastor at Holy Spirit Parish in Maryland Heights, Mo., has a permit to carry a concealed weapon.
"I rarely ever conceal and carry, but sometimes if I'm in a very bad area, I do take protection," he said. "I tell people all life is sacred, including mine."
A few states away, Father Theodore Parker said he knows he has the constitutional right to own a gun, but can't see any reason why he would. The pastor of two inner-city Detroit parishes said, "The real purpose of a gun in our culture is violence." And there's just too much of that, he contends.
One point on which both priests agree is that personal responsibility is mandatory for those who possess firearms.
The shooting rampage at U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' Jan. 8 community meeting in Tucson, Ariz., which left Giffords and 12 others wounded and six dead, has renewed debate on gun control.
Activists cite New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's report that investigators bought semi-automatic weapons without undergoing criminal background checks at a Phoenix gun show two weeks after the Tucson shooting. They are using the gun show example as a way to try to pressure President Barack Obama to weigh in on whether he plans to seek stricter gun control. So far he hasn't had addressed the issue.
While bishops across the nation have decried the violence, few have recently addressed the issue of gun control.
In a phone interview with Catholic News Service, Tucson Bishop Gerald F. Kicanas said, "Whenever there's a tragedy, we look at what can be done, what we can learn from it and that's where we're at in this time of grieving and sadness." He said he and other Tucson community leaders are "taking the time to assess what we should do and the directions taken."
Bishop Kicanas said he first heard of the shooting on CNN while in Jerusalem. "You don't expect something like that to happen in Tucson -- and especially to hear names of people you know," he said. The bishop was a friend of U.S. District Judge John Roll, who was killed, and is an acquaintance of Giffords.
Father Parker and the 400 members of St. Cecilia's, one of his parishes, have targeted street violence by pitching in their own money, working with police and hosting three gun-buyback programs in recent years.
Most of the guns they bought back "for a very low price of $20," came from the area, which he described as "poor, mostly African-American, not many businesses." The buybacks, he told CNS, are "letting people be freed from their worry and freed from the consequences of what could happen to them."
John Snyder, founder of the Washington-based St. Gabriel Possenti Society based in Arlington, Va., also uses the freedom theme when he talks about guns. But his intent is very different. Gun ownership, he said, "is a way for people to maintain their freedom. It's a way for people to protect themselves from a criminal."
He said he has spent 44 years in support of the right of firearms owners and 22 years trying to get the Vatican to name St. Gabriel Possenti as the patron saint of handgun owners.
"With patron saints for so many activities, and even people with diseases, there should be a patron of handgunners," said the lifelong Catholic and former Jesuit seminarian.
This year the society plans to mark St. Gabriel Possenti's feast day, Feb. 27, by urging Catholic firearms owners to put one of their website coupons (www.gunsaint.com) in the collection basket. The coupon states: "Millions for charity but not one cent for gun-grabbing church bureaucrats."
Snyder said the church "criminalizes firearms ownership" and referenced the U.S. bishops' statement "Responsibility, Rehabilitation and Restoration: A Catholic Perspective on Crime and Criminal Justice."
In that November 2000 document, the bishops called for "sensible regulation" for guns: "As bishops, we support measures that control the sale and use of firearms and make them safer -- especially efforts that prevent their unsupervised use by children or anyone other than the owner -- and we reiterate our call for sensible regulation of handguns."
Louisiana's bishops agreed to ban concealed handguns in churches following a 2010 law that also gave those in authority over places of worship the power to decide whether to allow them.
"There was no reaction whatsoever" to the bishops' decision, said Danny Loar, executive director of the Louisiana Conference of Catholic Bishops. Louisiana is a stronghold for the National Rifle Association and one of the license plate offerings is "Sportsman's Paradise," a testament to the state's hunting and fishing culture.
Guns in worship places was also the focus of a federal court action in Georgia earlier this year. The court dismissed a lawsuit brought by GeorgiaCarry.org and a Baptist minister challenging the U.S. Supreme Court decision allowing states to legislate their own firearms possession laws. Francis J. (Frank) Mulcahy, executive director of the Georgia Catholic Conference, said bishops there "haven't taken a position on it one way or another."
In terms of guns and violence, studies have shown there's not much evidence that states with tough gun control laws have fewer gun crimes, said Bob Homant, a professor of criminal justice at the University of Detroit Mercy in Detroit.
"It probably helps a little bit in terms of individuals buying guns in the heat of the moment, if there's an immediate crisis or a problem they are facing. But if guns are tight, they might settle for a knife" or any other weapon.
"Criminals aren't going to get their guns through legal means," said Father Classen. "Evil lies in one's mind and in one's heart ... so it's not a matter of demonizing one particular inanimate object."
Homant said the real issue is why someone buys a gun. "We can do a better job as a culture of exploring our own reasons for wanting guns," he said.
Gun ownership is also a question of morality, said Father Parker. "One has to be very careful and you have to search your conscience as to why you need it."