The words from the Archbishop of San Antonio, following the mass murder at the church in Sutherland Springs, TX ring hollow when heard taking into account the fact the very same Archbishop unilaterally demands that all parishioners in the diocese of San Antonio relinquish their rights to armed self-defense upon entering “any facility owned, leased, or operated by the Archdiocese or an Archdiocesan entity.” All parishes in the Archdiocese of San Antonio are required to comply with this official position of the Archbishop. Download and read the complete document from this diocesan website link. Archbishop Gustavo would like us all to sit quietly and/or cower in fear, defenseless, and be shot dead if a similar attack takes place in a Catholic Church within the San Antonio Archdiocese. Let that notion sink in and realize your obligation as a person, a father, a mother, a brother, or a sister, to protect those in your care.
The Archbishop’s demand has no theological basis and appears to be grounded only in willful ignorance. The Doctors of the Church and the Magisterium have made it clear that self-defense is not only a right, but in some cases, a duty. The Catechism of the Catholic Church #2263 states the legitimate defense of persons and societies is not an exception to the prohibition against the murder of the innocent that constitutes intentional killing. “The act of self-defense can have a double effect: the preservation of one’s own life; and the killing of the aggressor…. The one is intended; the other is not.” Catechism #2265 makes it even clearer that legitimate defense can be not only a right but a grave duty for one who is responsible for the lives of others. The defense of the common good requires that an unjust aggressor be rendered unable to cause harm. For this reason, those who legitimately hold authority also have the right to use arms to repel aggressors against the civil community entrusted to their responsibility.
I will continue to donate to charitable organizations, but will not give one cent to gun-grabbing church bureaucrats that demand we go against our God-given rights as well as the Catechism of the Catholic Church itself. I understand discouraging open-carry during Masses and Ceremonies, but to ban those that are licensed to carry concealed weapons by the State of Texas is being ignorant of Church teaching and the Catechism itself.
I’ll conclude with a quote from Pope Saint John Paul II.
“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. The demanding commandment of love of neighbor, set forth in the Old Testament and confirmed by Jesus, itself presupposes love of oneself as the basis of comparison: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself ” (Mk 12:31). Consequently, no one can renounce the right to self-defense out of lack of love for life or for self. This can only be done in virtue of a heroic love which deepens and transfigures the love of self into a radical self-offering, according to the spirit of the Gospel Beatitudes (cf. Mt 5:38-40). The sublime example of this self-offering is the Lord Jesus himself. Moreover, “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”. [The quotation is from # 2265 in the first edition of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.] 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 action brought it about, even though he may not be morally responsible because of a lack of the use of reason.”
Be safe out there. It gets crazier every day!