Gun control laws alone will not stop mass shootings effectively, Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia, said in a column written in response to the recent shootings in Gilroy, Calif., El Paso, and Dayton, Ohio.
Chaput belives that there needs to be societal shift to transform the present “culture of violence.”
Writing in his August 5 column, Chaput said that while he fully supports the use of background checks and restrictions on who is able to purchase firearms, “only a fool can believe that ‘gun control’ will solve the problem of mass violence.”
“The people using the guns in these loathsome incidents are moral agents with twisted hearts. And the twisting is done by the culture of sexual anarchy, personal excess, political hatreds, intellectual dishonesty, and perverted freedoms that we’ve systematically created over the past half-century.”
Chaput drew from his experience as Archbishop of Denver consoling the community after the shooting at Columbine High School. At the time, he buried some of the victims, and met with their families.
During his testimony to the U.S. Senate shortly after the Columbine shooting, Chaput spoke of “a culture that markets violence in dozens of different ways” that has become “part of our social fabric.”
“When we build our advertising campaigns on consumer selfishness and greed, and when money becomes the universal measure of value, how can we be surprised when our sense of community erodes,” he asked at the time. “When we glorify and multiply guns, why are we shocked when kids use them?”
Chaput also addressed the use of the death penalty and the legality of abortion as “certain kinds of killings we enshrine as rights and protect by law,” which creates a societal “contradiction.” This contradiction has reduced the view of human life, he said.
In 1999, Chaput suggested that America embrace a “relentless commitment to respect the sanctity of each human life, from womb to natural death,” and that he did not think the shooting at Columbine High School would be the last mass shooting.
“In examining how and why our culture markets violence, I ask you not to stop with the symptoms,” he said. “Look deeper.”
Chaput repeated this call in his column Monday, saying, “treating the symptoms in a culture of violence doesn’t work. We need to look deeper. Until we’re willing to do that, nothing fundamental will change.”
In focusing on the hearts of those who commit mass shootings, twisted by the culture created in the past 50 years, Chaput’s statement was markedly different than others published by Catholic bishops in the wake of the shootings.
The USCCB issued a sweeping statement on August 4 requesting “effective legislation that addresses why these unimaginable and repeated occurrences of murderous gun violence continue to take place in our communities.”
Bishop David Zubik of Pittsburgh called for various gun control measures in an August 5 statement, including “limiting civilian access to high capacity weapons and magazines.” Zubik also said there was a need to address websites that encourage violent acts, as well as to improve access to mental healthcare and work to overcome racism.
Full story at Catholic Herald.
Some criticize the comments of Bishops in certain political-related matters. I wonder if the same persons will criticize Abp Chaputs comments here.
Not sure what The Bishop meant by “sexually anarchy?”
Sexual anarchy refers to sex without cultural rules. Historically, gay rights advocates stated that the acceptance of homosexual acts won’t undermine marriage and the family.
The problem with such statements is that homosexual acts are disconnected from the natural purpose of sex: Procreation. Once sex is disconnected from its natural purpose, a culture will have trouble developing a new norm other than relativism and hedonism because the sex drive is too strong for a culture to adopt an arbitrary norm.
Sexual anarchy is when your wife starts making way more money than you do.
The good archbishop is trying to get us, as a society, to look at some root causes.
Until our culture deals with, among other things, sexual anarchy (“a state of disorder due to absence or nonrecognition of authority”), the devaluing of human life at all ages and states, fatherlessness, selfishness, irresponsibility, greed and other underlying issues, we’ll be dealing largely with symptoms. After the mass stabbing here in Southern California, did you hear the loud clamoring for knife control? Of course not, for at least two reasons: nothing to gain politically and the ridiculousness of blaming a common inanimate instrument.
Has anyone noticed how political the USCCB has become? Maybe if they would tend to “the flock” the numbers of fleeing Catholics from the faith would decrease. Be of God, not man bishops.
Archbishop
Chaput is right, although he fails to mention to significant role that violent Hollywood movies and violent video games have on especially mentally ill people.
Of course, no major news source will publish Chaput’s thoughts and no major media will interview him.
When the worshipers at a little Christian church in Texas suffered from death from a deranged shooter, there was little cry about “anti-Christianity,” but when the Jewish synagogue was attacked, every major news source fanned the flame of “anti-Semitism.” We are constantly being manipulated.
Please, CalCath readers, send a copy of Archbishop Chaput’s letter to your local news outlets! and give an extra copy to your bishop.
“Chaput is right, although he fails to mention to significant role that violent Hollywood movies and violent video games have on especially mentally ill people.”
Pls cite the studies linking “violent hollywood movies and violent video games” to these massacres.
What constitutes “violent hollywood movies” Would it be Saving Private Ryan? Raiders of the Lost Ark?
After you are done with movies and video games, you can move on to books? At Tale of Two Cities? A Clockwork Orange?
Freedom is difficult. Responsibility is difficult. Adulthood is difficult.
I’m not going to give up my rights just because you and some others can’t do so on your own. Whether you like it or not, these are all first amendment.
God bless Archbishop Chaput. He has been trying to tell people all along but some are deaf.
Sin is responsible for mass violence.
The only time change happens is when change happens. Do people in other countries have access to violent computer games? Yes. Do they kill as we do? No. Is the rate of mental illness in other countries about the same as ours? Yes. Do they kill as we do? No. Do people in other countries watch violence on tv and in movies like we do? Yes. Do they kill as we do? No. Do people in other countries live with same-sex marriage and with sexual anarchy as we do? Yes. Do they kill as we do? No. Do other countries have more guns than people like we do? No. Do they kill as we do? No. Do people in other countries carry concealed weapons as we do? No. Do they kill like we do? No. It’s just too simple to say the killings are caused by mental illness, or tv violence or violent games.
Bob, look at the murder rate per capita. According to UN statistics, the US is 94th. So, actually, in many nations, they kill one another at a much higher rate than we do. One murder is tragic and too many. And, the archbishop did not simply attribute such shootings to mental illness, television or video games. I encourage you to re-read what he said.
Bob, your implication seems to be that we are the worst country in the world in homicide, or is it that we are the best. In answering your own questions the way you do it is impossible to tell. Just as a reference point according to UN stats on homicide per 100,000 the US ranks 83rd out 193 countries or about the middle of the pack.
Bob One,
You make some good points, but also leave out some good points. American culture has always been different than other cultures, even the European ones. For this reason, gun, drug, and porn use seem to be higher in this country than in other countries.
If our country has always been “cruder” than our European variants, it has become much much cruder in recent years. This is why I fear for the Church if liberals ever manage to liquidate the Bill of Rights.
Bob One, supporting the abolishing the right to defend oneself….giving government absolute power
I think in referring to “sexual anarchy” the Archbishop means the aberrant behavior of some Catholic clergy and religious.
If you can equate due process capital punishment with the routine dismemberment of an unborn child, you’re all done. You’re essentially Kaput.
With all due respect the Archbishop is not qualified to make guesses about important things that intersect psychology, psychopathology, sociology, legality, morality and other fields, choosing instead to substitue his fields (morality & theology) for theirs. What is needed is an authentic dialogue between his fields and the others. Not EVERY problem in the world can be boiled down to a moral question, just as few problems in the world are devoid of a moral dimension.
I seriously doubt that he has ever once convened a group of experts in these fields to help inform his statements. He just makes them up off the cuff, like an eccliastical tweet. There is simply no established link between so-called sexual anarchy (whatever that even means) and mass murder.
Although not in expert in all fields (no one is), the archbishop is a pastor of souls. Like a president or CEO or anyone else, he has some areas of expertise and relies on others for theirs. Your Fellow Catholic, what qualifies you to judge the archbishop as “not qualified?”
And what have the so-called experts ever done to stop all this. They just keep blathering away and nothing ever changes. It begins in the heart of each individual person, and until people decided they will obey the Ten Commandments, including the sexual ones, nothing changes. That is all Archbishop Chaput is saying, and he is right.
Should be “decide” not “decided”. This computer just jumps around which makes it so hard to type on it.