There are a number of news stories from the Vatican today, including the Holy Father’s weekly catechesis on the elderly, but I am dedicating this page solely to Pope Francis’ words on the Texas tragedy and to a very impactful editorial in today’s Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano.
Please share this. I want as many people as possible to read the Vatican commentary. The paper hit a bull’s eye! But how many people will read it, agree with it, and then go about their merry way, asking for ever-more lenient gun laws.
If you want to know what it is like to own, use or carry a weapon in Italy, read on: What you need to know about gun laws and ownership in Italy (thelocal.it)
If America did that, would it end school massacres and other random killings of individuals or groups?
(Hopefully you also shared yesterday’s column, A SHEPHERD, HIS FLOCK AND CANON LAW)
POPE FRANCIS DEPLORES “INDISCRIMINATE ARMS TRAFFICKING”
At today’s general audience, in a sun-splashed and very hot St. Peter’s Square, Pope Francis greeted the faithful in a number of languages after delivering the day’s catechesis on the elderly.
In English, with a solemn look on his face and tone in his voice, he expressed his anguish at the news of the killings in a Texas school: “I am heartbroken about the Texas elementary school killings. I pray for the children, for the adults killed and for their families.”
And, to great applause from the tens of thousands of pilgrims, he said: “It is time to stop indiscriminate arms trafficking! Let us all commit ourselves, so that such tragedies can no longer happen!” (vaticannews photo)
VATICAN PAPER WEIGHS IN ON TEXAS KILLINGS AND THE AMERICAN ARMS LOBBY
A front page editorial in today’s L’Osservatore Romano:
“Twenty-one victims, 19 of them children: this is the chilling toll of the umpteenth massacre committed in a school in the United States. This time, crying for the madness of an eighteen year old, killed by the police, the community of Uvalde, Texas, one of the states with the most permissive laws on the possession of weapons, in the name of that second amendment to the Constitution considered sacred, untouchable.
“It is as if we had stood still in the days of the wild frontier, with people always alert, ready to defend themselves from a possible external enemy, without realizing that the enemy is at home. Today, after yet another massacre, those who defend the possession of weapons and fight for ever less restrictive laws speak of horror, senselessness, say they are grieved, saddened and pray for the victims and their families: words that are offensive in the face of pain unspeakable of one who is crying a child.
“On Friday, some of them will probably participate in the annual assembly of the National Rifle Association, the powerful American arms lobby, to be held in Houston, not far from the site of the massacre. One cannot help but feel the weight of what happened, the weight of the many, too many, victims sacrificed every year on the altar of this alleged freedom. But how many scruples will there be when in Congress they block, as in the past, yet another law against easy weapons? What is lacking is the courage and determination to stop this death lobby. At stake are not only the civilization of a people, the dignity of a democratic nation, which would already mean a lot, but people’s lives.”
This is today’s front page of L’Osservatore Romano: a headline that says “Enough of indiscriminate arms trafficking! With a broken heart, the Pope prays for the victims of the massacre in Texas”
Joan's Rome 