For those of you fortunate enough not to live in the Land of Lincoln, or, as it is commonly known today, The State Everyone Laughs At, you may have not been familiar enough with the State and therefore thought that Cardinal George’s most recent attempt to remove Father Pfleger, or as many of us refer to him as Father “Flakey”, would have caused him to mend his ways. Those of us who have followed Father Pfleger for decades, realized that this was merely the latest useless huffing and puffing of Cardinal George, and that Saint Sabina’s would soon return to normal, which is as a bastion of Left Wing political orthodoxy, with an exteme emphasis on race, where Catholicism is very much an afterthought.
This was graphically demonstrated by Father Pfleger having Gary McCarthy, Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s new top cop, preach a “sermon” during Mass earlier this month. Chicago has an atrocious murder rate. It also has the strictest gun control laws in the nation. Here are Gary McCarthy’s deep thoughts on this contradiction:
Gary McCarthy is a newcomer to Chicago, but he already has the Chicago political game down pat. Appeal to racial paranoia? Check. Toss in some irrelevant political red meat? Check, by his summoning up of Palin Derangement Syndrome. His laughable attempt to chalk up concern for Second Amendment rights to racism was truly perverse. Under slavery most slave states forbade slaves or freed blacks from possessing firearms, and, after the Civil War, prime goals of the white “Redeemer Governments” after Reconstruction were to impose bans on blacks, many of whom had fought in the Union army and knew how to use firearms, from possessing firearms by the use of Black Codes that effectively rendered black populations defenseless from armed violence.
You know, I do wonder what the reaction would have been if Gary McCarthy had decided to talk about the real causes of crime in inner city Chicago?
1. A soaring illegitimacy rate among blacks and hispanics that makes it almost a certainty that boys born into these groups will grow up with little if any paternal guidance, with predictable results.
2. One of the worst school systems in the country that, at immense cost to taxpayers, specializes in turning out illiterates who are unemployable.
3. Entertainment that glorifies gangster violence and vile misogynistic attitudes towards women.
4. Rampant alcoholism and drug use.
5. Little effort by the Chicago city government to effectively combat the gangs that make life in the inner city of Chicago a living hell.
6. Informal policies of the Chicago city government that effectively write off certain sections of the city in regard to serious efforts to combat crime.
7. The most corrupt city government in the country where most politicians are far more concerned with graft than carrying out the essential function of government to protect the people from violence and crime.
8. Inane gun laws that guarantee to armed criminals that most of their likely victims will be unarmed.
There was much more that Mr. McCarthy could have said that would have been truthful and would have made headlines in Chicago and around the country. Instead, he simply demonstrated that this outsider wishes to become a member in good standing of the powers that be in the Windy City. He is off to a good start in reaching that goal.
Don, as the last holdout to concealed carry, Wisconsin becoming the 49th state to have just passed it, Illinois is not laughable in my opinion. I do not see how allowing citizens to carry a handgun hidden in their pants or whatever improves public safety.
As ratified by the States, the Second reads: “A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” Gun advocates seem to ignore the first four words.
In fact, the original raison d’être for gun rights included the following:
* deterring undemocratic government;
* repelling invasion;
* suppressing insurrection;
* facilitating a natural right of self-defense;
* participating in law enforcement;
* enabling the people to organize a militia system.
Only one had to do with the right of individual self-defense while the rest focused on collective security.
When I lived in AZ, I kept a loaded revolver under my car seat but never in the house because my wife feared the kids would get to it. I used to plink in the desert mostly, but it was more lethal and efficient than a baseball bat should i get into an altercation of some kind. Still, there were moments of road rage that caused me to come close to menacing others who I deemed to be a threat to my safety. Once I got cut off by a bunch of Mexicans on the freeway or began waving their weapons at me. For an instant I thought I’d respond in the same way and who knows what would have happened next? But being outnumbered and outgunned I refrained from reaching for my gun and instead got off at the next exit rather than try to be a macho man.
There came a time when I got tired of target shooting and sold the gun and never got another one.
Perhaps in time Illinois will succumb to pressures of the NRA and join the rest of the nation in allowing concealed carry. Then maybe you won’t be laughed at so much.
“The Second Amendment is a doomsday provision, one designed for those exceptionally rare circumstances where all other rights have failed – where the government refuses to stand for reelection and silences those who protest; where courts have lost the courage to oppose, or can find no one to enforce their decrees. However improbable these contingencies may seem today, facing them unprepared is a mistake a free people get to make only once”.
Judge Alex Kozinski
The militia when the Bill of Rights was drafted Joe consisted of all adult white males in most states, and all adult males in some states. The idea that government could take away a right to bear arms from an individual law abiding citizen would have struck the Founding Fathers as bizarre.
I haven’t shot a weapon since my Army days. I have no interest in them. However, I do like living in rural Illinois where most of my neighbors are armed, some of them quite heavily. I think it does have a negative impact on the crime rate when it is assumed that almost everyone in an area has a firearm.
The pictures we see today if we are looking are clear to a lot of us.
I have never owned a gun and never had one in the house or car or in my pants. Why, because for about seventy of my years I never saw the need for one. I lived in what one would call safe neighborhoods all of my life. Yes, there were areas in every city I’ve lived in which were not as safe as mine and the local police spent most of their time and our tax dollars in those areas.
However, having observed the gradual decline of our society over the last thirty to forty years like any other normal citizen who is the least bit concerned with his or community safety we realize two things for sure.
One. The local police anywhere today are by numbers and fiscal constraints unable to cover adequately the responsibilities we as citizens are really expecting of them. They will tell you that today more than ever they only are able to handle the steam off the boiling crock-pot of crime in our major cities. There is no room in the jails and the courts are overloaded with cases to the extent police feel compelled to “allow” petty crime to go unnoticed. We might add that honest cops who would be watching out for us are responding to 911 calls from fast food outlets by customers upset that the restaurant is out of French fries. Get the picture?
Two. Our federal government, now in the hands of career politicians able to assert themselves as a separate “ruling class” charged with providing our every need cradle to grave, has gradually assumed the role of our “protectors” by actually using things like the plight noted above as cover for their own protection from a public now aware of their intentions to remove (relieve us of) our freedoms and liberty and be “transformed” within a modern fundamentally changed America. They are convinced as a group of elite intelligentsia with unlimited power and benevolent compassion that we are incapable of caring for ourselves and they are duty bound to take our weapons before we are so unappreciative of their obvious plan that we should, God forbid, take action to prevent it from happening. But some still don’t get the picture.
What is clearly disheartening to many Catholics at this very moment is we have to witness the amazing contrast in ecclesiastical maneuvers of making Pfleger even more famous by extending his reign and at the same time shutting down Fr.Corapi. A very sad picture for the church in America.
Well stated, Bill Sr., except it was Corapi who shut himself down not his superiors. He could have fought it out but didn’t. Now on his website there are ads to join something called “The Life Universal Church.” Jim Jones redux.
Joe
I have heard many of Fr. Corapi’s sermons and lectures but I haven’t visited his website as yet. I wonder if there is such a new thing as “The Life Universal Church” will it be condemned by the Vatican or will Corapi be invited to Sunday mass along with the Muslim and their Quran as being proposed now to expound on the equality of their faith.
I hate having to say things like this
“Only one had to do with the right of individual self-defense while the rest focused on collective security. ”
1 is plenty
There are no collective rights, the Constitution is all about individual rights and strictly limits government power.
Not only does the Constitution limit government it limits democracy, individual rights are protected againt the whims of popular opinion.
While I think there are serious problems with John Corapi’s behavior as of late, watching Fr Flagrant (a little Ann Coulter lingo there) get reinstated makes Corpai’s suspension look like an injustice on steroids. Hey, maybe you Chitown Catholics can petition the Holy See to have Bp. Mulvey installed as Abp. of Chicago. It seems at least when he suspends a priest, it actually sticks. And Fr. Pfleger can start his own ministry, Barack Lap Dog.
Re Bill Sr.’s remarks.
The homicide rate in this country has declined by about 55% in the last 30 years. Currently, the Chicago municipality is suffering a rate of 16 homicides per 100,000 residents per annum. The metropolitan mean for the country as a whole in 1980 would have been around 13 per 100,000 and that for the central cities where the slums are higher still. The inner city homicide rate where I grew up peaked at 27 per 100,000 in 1993. This same report assesses it at half that, even though the inner city comprehends a smaller and poorer slice of the whole metropolis than was the case 18 years ago. Homicide rates in the five boroughs of New York City are now lower than they were in 1963. Some things have improved in this country in recent decades.
Art,
Those are great stats and we should be proud of ourselves.
Now over the same period can you give us a rundown on the abortion rates both overall and in urban areas in particular. While we’re still smiling.
Our household has four firearms. Three handguns and one 12 GA coach gun. For those who wish to know a coach gun is a side-by-side shotgun with a short barrel used on stage coaches for close in defense. Though it has nice IC and M chokes so can be used in the field. Don’t need accuracy when using it. Approximating the target at 40 yards is enough. Add to that a concealed weapons permit and all I can say is come and take ’em,
I’ll also add that our neighborhood has more than enough guns of varied types to deter any criminals.
Phillip that reminds me of one of my friends, a deputy sheriff, who could easily arm a squad from his personal arsenal. He is also one of the easiest going, live and let live persons I have ever met. However, he is amply prepared if he encounters people who do not share his peace loving view of life.
I tried to laugh, but it came out kind of choked, as I live in NY. I’ve long found it disturbing that in this state self-defense seems to be earnestly frowned upon…. non-lethal pepper sprays and stun guns are out, and knives are suspect, and handguns a trial to obtain. Even slingshots with wrist braces (which help weaker individuals to shoot with more force and accuracy) are mystifyingly forbidden by law.
The joke is, “when seconds count, the police are only minutes away!” About twenty minutes away—in good weather—assuming the phone is available, and you’re not out in the woods somewhere facing down two-legged or four-legged predators. So, “facilitating a natural right of self-defense” is a very immediate, important gun right to me, and NY doesn’t “facilitate” too well.
Yeah, Don, trust in God but keep your powder dry.
That has always been my sentiment Joe, but normally we do not quote Oliver Cromwell on this blog! 🙂
OK, Don, I’ll bite. What do you have against Ollie?
OK, Don, I’ll bite. What do you have against Ollie?
Really?
“I’ll bite. What do you have against Ollie?”
Uhhh, this IS a Catholic blog, right? And beyond that, do you really need to ask an Irishman why Cromwell is persona non grata?
I thought Protestants were your “separated brethren.” At least that’s what the Pope says. And in Cromwell’s case, he was separated all right — literally from his head and body. Isn’t that enough revenge for you Catholics? 😕
Don, “…and forgive us our trespasses and those who trespass against us…”
Ah, the blood spilled in the name of God. I suppose Charlemagne gets a pass and Pope Alexander IV who established the Office of the Inquisition within Italy in 1254. That Torquemada was a charming fellow after working hours.
I have ancestors who were persecuted by Protestants and others who were persecuted by Catholics.
As Christian Americans, in today’s world, we will either hang together, or we will hang separately, to paraphrase Ben Franklin.
Federal gun laws that facilitate the flow of illegal firearms, into our urban centers across this country, that are killing our black and brown children,” he said.
Did he ever get around to mentioning who was on the trigger side of those firearms? I have never heard of a federal gun law discharging a firearm.
A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
You seem to draw the exact opposite meaning from that sentence than I do. You interpret the first clause to define the purpose of the latter, that is – because we need people to be in our well regulated militias, they need to have arms to serve in them. That is, the right to bear arms serves the need of the militia. Personally, I see that as bass ackwards.
I see the first clause as explaining the that, because a militia is a necessary evil, the people need to be free to carry arms to protect themselves from the militia, should it turn on them. The right to bear arms is a protection for the people against a well regulated militia gone bad. Seems that, the founding fathers having just experienced standing armies under British rule, it would make more sense for them to intend this as a protection for the people, not a recruiting call for the army.
Tu Qouque is always a poor argument Joe. As for the blood spilled over religion, a popular topic for agnostics and atheists, it is a terrible thing although it no more discredits religion than blood shed to preserve a nation discredits the nation. The admonition of Christ to forgive our enemies has never been taken as a call for amnesia or a “get out of jail free card” as to justice either in this world or the next.
All credible research, I have seen, indicates there is a correlation (not causation) between conceal carry laws and a reduction in the crime rate: 30% lower homicide rate and 46% lower robbery rate.
http://www.collegiatetimes.com/stories/14664/statistics-show-concealed-carry-saves-many-lives-takes-few
The author of Freakonomics argues that backyard pools are more dangerous to children than guns. He states children under 10 years old are 100 times more likely to die in a backyard pool than from a gun related incident.
Joe’s argument that when he carried a gun he almost used it is a reason that it is best that Joe doesn’t carry a gun. It does not speak to others carrying a gun. His argument is anecdotal evidence and policy decisions should not be made on anecdotal evidence alone. Other people have used the same argument or one very similar to it and it makes me wonder if there is some type of “talking point” memorandum propagated by the anti-gun advocates.
Finally and most importantly to me, the Catholic Church’s position on gun control is nuanced but grounded in the protection of human life:
“[One has] the right of legitimate defense by means of arms exists. This right can become a serious duty for those who are responsible for the lives of others, for the common good of the family or of the civil community. This right alone can justify the possession or transfer of arms”. (Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, “The International Arms Trade: an Ethical Reflection” in Origins 8 (24), 7 July 1994, p. 144).
The Catechism 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.”
Love toward oneself remains a fundamental principle of morality. Therefore it is legitimate to insist on respect for one’s own right to life. Someone who defends his life is not guilty of murder even if he is forced to deal his aggressor a lethal blow:
If a man in self-defense uses more than necessary violence, it will be unlawful: whereas if he repels force with moderation, his defense will be lawful…. Nor is it necessary for salvation that a man omit the act of moderate self-defense to avoid killing the other man, since one is bound to take more care of one’s own life than of another’s.
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.”
Part 3, Section 2, Chapter 2, Article 5, Subsection 1, Heading 2, Paragraphs 2263-2265 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church
Why Joe, I have nothing against Oliver Cromwell other than the following:
1. His bloody persecution of the Church in England and Ireland.
2. His massacres of priests and Catholic laity in Ireland.
3. His stealing of massive amounts of Irish land from the rightful owners and giving the dispossessed Irish the choice of Hell or Connaught.
4. The fact that in memory of all this the worst curse that any Irish man or woman can give is “The curse of Cromwell on ye!”
Other than that, I am certain “Old Ironsides” was a fine fellow! 🙂
Catholic Lawyer, et al…To be clear, I am not anti-gun and my decision to give up my gun was mine alone and not meant as a template for others. Each person has to make his or her own decision. And I happily concede and indeed affirm the right of self-defense in whatever manner is necessary, whether as an individual or a nation.
Don says, “As for the blood spilled over religion, a popular topic for agnostics and atheists, it is a terrible thing although it no more discredits religion than blood shed to preserve a nation discredits the nation.”
The key phrase would appear to be “to preserve a nation” and must mee the following conditions, according to the U.S. Catholic Bishops, “for legitimate military defense by military force”:
* the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain;
* all other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective;
* there must be serious prospects of success;
* the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. The power as well as the precision of modern means of destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition.
As you know, Augustine, Aquinas and many other leading theologians weighed in heavily on the definition and questions of what is a “just war” often disagreeing with each other. Such inquiries, then, are not confined to “agnostics and atheists” alone as you would suggest but are grist for the earnest quest for truth.
“but are grist for the earnest quest for truth.”
And no more gets Oliver Cromwell off the hook for his misdeeds than any other red herring that may pop up. At any rate this is getting a few light years off target from the subject of the post, and I would request that all further comments be directed at the subject of the post.
Don, in that vein (or is it vain?), herewith a quote from Mario Puzo for your reaction:
A lawyer with his briefcase can steal more than a hundred men with guns.
Mr. McCarthy needs a history lesson.
Gun control was actually an element of Jim Crow, with Southern states passing restrictions on the right of blacks to keep and bear arms. The same was true during the antebellum period. In fact, if you read the Dredd Scott decision, it explicitly argues against treating blacks as citizens because if you did so they would have the right “to keep and carry arms wherever they went.”
Source.
“A lawyer with his briefcase can steal more than a hundred men with guns.”
Depends upon the lawyer and the hundred men. 🙂
Good answer, Don! You’re really on your game today. One of these days I’m gonna getcha though 😕
To Joe Green,
Father Corapi is fighting this. He is willing to put himself in Civil court to fight the charges by the former employee. As Bill Donahue of the Catholic League as said, the American priest has less civil liberties than any segment of the United States population.
I have been on all of Fr.Corapi’s Facebook pages for almost a year. I have never seen anyone promoting the Life Universal Church. If you are a Facebook user you would know that there are all kinds of adds on the right hand side of the page. They chaneg form each time you log on. I have had ads for Wonen ‘s Dating Services for Women, Lesbians Untied, Rainbow coalition. Am I gay-No, but if you logged on to my page you might think I am. I can click on an x by the side of it and click on an add asking not to post that particular ad. They ask do you find this offensive, uninteresting, sexually explesive, against my views, boring. Over time, and much time and clicking on ads, I have found very very few gay oriented ads on my page. Father’s pages were set up by followers of his ministty. He does have 2 that He set up and reads occasionally. As views of those pages, we cannot click on those ads. It has to be the page moderator on a group page or Father himself. I hardly think he is watching his 2 pages 24/7. I will mention it to the moderators of the page and post this on his page, hoping he reads it. Maybe he can contact Facebook. He stated on his page that he is not leaving the priesthood, not seeking lacization. He is fighting for his civil and spiritual rights.
Thank you Marcia
It’s sad but not surprising that today a Catholic priest is a preferred and easy legal target with an almost automatic assumption of quilt not just for the accuser but also the mainstream media. I will stand with Father Corapi and his word and honor rather than the gleeful press thirsty for a kill.
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First impression is that Pfleger’s church looks more like the Jerry Springer show than any part of a Catholic mass. As a Chicago native, how far the city has fallen when they believe they have to bring in someone who by his accent sounds like he’s from New York to be Police Chief of Chicago…talk about the ultimate insult.