“Some things seem naturally abhorrent – forceps to
crush a cranium in an abortion, a needle to deliver a sentence
intravenously on death row, and an assault weapon in the hands of the
man on the street,” U.S. Bishops’ Conference spokesman, Mary Ann Walsh
said in a statement to The Washington Post which chose the strongest images from the pro-life campaigns against
abortion to highlight the Episcopal Conference’s support for the arms
control measures President Obama has been trying to introduce. So far unsuccessfully, because of the Newtown shooting.
Speaking to The Washington Post the day before the Senate voted on a law that will ban assault weapons, Walsh stressed that “the Catholic Church opposes use of all three instruments to take a life. The church’s pro-life stand against abortion is undisputed.”
“It's not always a popular stance,” Walsh admitted on the U.S. Bishops’ Conference blog, but it is “one the bishops have been consistent on” for years and stressed even more firmly following the tragic Sandy Hook school massacre.
Just as “the church’s pro-life stand against abortion is undisputed,” Walsh writes, “the growing preponderance of lethal weapons on the streets…stands as another important pro-life position.”
The Church is fighting for the defence of the innocent unborn and those who put on death row in numerous American prisons but this is discovered too late.
According to Walsh, “after the gunning down of primary grade children in Newtown, Connecticut, it is clear assault weapons stand out dramatically as a threat to innocent life.
For this reason, the U.S. bishops’ spokesman writes in the article published in the American political establishment’s newspaper, “U.S. bishops now call on people to support federal legislation to require background checks for all gun purchases, to limit civilian access to high-capacity weapons and ammunition magazines and to make gun trafficking a federal crime. The bishops also want a ban on assault weapons.”
The Catholic Church in the U.S. has actively protested against abortion since 1973 and holds that in today’s societies, the “increased ability to isolate murderers” means the death penalty is no longer justified.
In the same way, Walsh said, adding a third front to the U.S. Catholic pro-life battle, “the Church now sees that protecting innocent life also means limiting the means of taking it.”
This means “limiting weapons that pose a danger to anyone going off to kindergarten, strolling on a college campus, watching a movie at a cineplex or speaking at a political rally at a shopping mall,” Walsh said, briefly summarising the most recent American tragedies, from Newtown to Aurora, to the attack which sent American politician Gabrielle Giffords to her death bed.