The Catholic "church" has been pretty vocal about the fact that they support the complete banning of private gun ownership. These are the articles covering this topic. keywords; Catholic gun control. Jesuit Pope Vatican
Search This Blog
Catholic Priest Michael Pfleger and Thousands shut down Chicago highway with gun control march
Thousands of Chicago protesters shut down a major highway on Saturday to oppose gun violence and call for stronger gun laws. After an hour-long standstill, police announced they were shutting
down all northbound lanes of the Dan Ryan Expressway to allow protesters
to march on the road. Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the city’s police superintendent had voiced
support for the protest, which was led by the Rev Michael Pfleger, the charismatic Catholic priestheading a largely African American church in one of the South Side neighborhoods hard-hit by gang violence.
Illinois state police have jurisdiction over the interstate, and had threatened to arrest anyone who stepped on to the entry ramp. But protesters were allowed on to several lanes of highway on
Saturday as corrections department buses waited alongside. Protestors
chanted “shut it down.” Pfleger, the Rev Jesse Jackson and Chicago police Superintendent Eddie Johnson were walking side-by-side among them. After long negotiations between police and march leaders, the protest
was eventually allowed to take over the whole highway northbound and
proceed. Daniel Blalock, 35, said had been willing to get arrested if
necessary: “I didn’t come here planning to go home. I want peace, just
peace. It’s going to take a long time but this is the first step.” Shortly before the march began, Illinois’s governor, Bruce Rauner,
said that Pfleger and other organizers had agreed to limit their
demonstration to the highway shoulder, without taking over the road. In a
tweet, Pfleger called the assertion a “LIE” and said the protest would
go on as planned. Later in the day, Rauner called the shutdown “unacceptable.” The
Republican said in a tweet Saturday that he was “disappointed” in
Emanuel, and called on him to “take swift and decisive action to put an
end to this kind of chaos.” Emanuel responded in a tweet : “It was a peaceful protest. Delete your account.” Protesters said they hoped the march would push public officials to
pass stronger gun control laws and address the underlying causes of gun
violence in Chicago. “If Governor Rauner and Mayor Rahm Emanuel can meet in secret to
decide to give Amazon a billion dollars,” referring to officials’
attempts to lure the company to Chicago, “they can meet and decide to do
something about not only gun violence but inequality,” said attorney
Eric Martin White, 50, carrying an American flag. I’m hoping that this is just a little spark that encourages people
to continue to lift their voices and demand a redress of grievances,” he
said. Katherine Pisabaj, 19, wore a black halter top to the march to show
the scar running down her stomach, where doctors operated after she was
shot in the back on 25 February in the city’s Logan Square neighborhood,
a hipster enclave that also sees gang violence.
Her mother, Yolanda
Segura, held a sign calling on President Trump to help Chicago. Pisabaj’s four young nephews joined them, sitting on the hot concrete
of the highway as protesters waited for news of the lane closures. “This can’t be a shared experience any more, I don’t want my nephews
to have to go through what I went through,” she said. “Now that young
people are speaking up and getting involved, we have a lot more power. I
don’t think this will be an issue my whole life, we’re going to make a
change.” Pisabaj, a college student planning to study nutrition science, said
police found that a gang member had shot her in a case of mistaken
identity. “It can happen to anyone of any age anywhere,” said Segura.
“We need stronger laws on guns.” Pfleger and his parishioners are calling for “commonsense” gun laws
and for city and state officials to meet with them to talk about what
they see as the root causes of the city’s notorious gun violence:
poverty, lack of jobs, subpar or shuttered schools for largely African
American residents on the city’s South and West sides. Last year more than 3,000 people were shot in Chicago, more than 600 of them fatally.
There have long been frequent neighborhood protests and events
against gun violence in Chicago, including marches, midnight basketball
games to provide positive alternatives for youth, and block parties to
reclaim public space from gangs.
While Chicago’s almost entirely Democratic elected officials
generally support gun control, Saturday’s march also drew criticism.
Many complained about the traffic it would create for weekend travelers,
while one African American pastor accused Pfleger, who is white, of
grandstanding and trying to “play Tarzan” in the black community.
Pfleger has pointed out that the highways are periodically closed for presidential visits and other reasons. Jackson was quoted in the Chicago Tribune saying, “Stopping traffic is less damaging than the shooting and the killing and the jailing.” On Thursday night, Chicago police arrested 106 people and seized
large quantities of drugs in what the police superintendent described as
an effort to crack down on gun violence and see prosecution of repeat
gun offenders.
MAX ROSSI/REUTERS Pope Francis criticized weapons manufacturers who call themselves Christians on Sunday. “They say one thing and do another,” he said. TURIN, Italy — People who manufacture weapons or invest in weapons industries are hypocrites if they call themselves Christian, Pope Francis said on Sunday. Francis issued his toughest condemnation to date of the weapons industry at a rally of thousands of young people at the end of the first day of his trip to the Italian city of Turin. "If you trust only men you have lost," he told the young people in a long, rambling talk about war, trust and politics after putting aside his prepared address. "It makes me think of ... people, managers, businessmen who call themselves Christian and they manufacture weapons. That leads to a bit a distrust, doesn't it?" he said to applause. He also criticized those who invest in weapons industries, saying "duplicity is the cur...
Pope Francis blesses attendees and palm leaves during at St Peter's square on March 25, 2018 (CNN) A day after hundreds of thousands of people protested gun violence at March for Our Lives events in the US and around the globe, Pope Francis called on the world's youth to continue speaking out and standing up. "Dear young people, you have it in you to shout," the Pope said in his Palm Sunday address at St. Peter's Square in Rome. Pope Francis at the the end of Palm Sunday Mass in Vatican City Palm Sunday -- celebrated on the Sunday before Easter -- is commemorated by Christians as the day Jesus entered Jerusalem in the week of his crucifixion, when palm leaves were strewn in his path. Noting that this Palm Sunday coincides with World Youth Day, the pontiff used the opportunity to compare youth to Jesus's followers, who were scorned by his detractors. "It is up to you not to keep quiet," Pope Francis said. "...
article link VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Saying his heart was broken at the news of at least 19 children and two adults being shot and killed at a Texas elementary school, Pope Francis said it was time to say “Enough!” and enact stricter laws on gun sales. At the end of his weekly general audience May 25, with thousands of people gathered in St. Peter’s Square, the pope prayed publicly for the victims of the shooting the day before at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. “With a heart shattered over the massacre at the elementary school in Texas, I pray for the children and adults who were killed and for their families,” the pope told the crowd. “With a heart shattered over the massacre at the elementary school in Texas, I pray for the children and adults who were killed and for their families,” the pope said. Tweet this “It is time to say, ‘Enough!’ to the indiscriminate trafficking of guns,” the pope said. “Let’s all work to ensure that such tragedies never happen again...
Comments
Post a Comment