In a blog for the Huffington Post, Rev. Thomas W. Worcester, S.J., professor of history at the College of the Holy Cross, posed that the Catholic and Christian value of human dignity and right to life should in fact extend beyond the national abortion debate into the arena of gun control.
Explaining that the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has been unfairly criticized for failing to address issues regarding the value of human life other than abortion, Fr. Worcester contended that the bishops are actually advocates for many types of human dignity in the face of ethical adversities such as the death penalty, torture and of course, gun use. With this in mind, Worcester argued that American Catholics should heed the U.S. Catholic bishops’ call to “restrict access to guns and to [take] on the pernicious power of the National Rifle Association.”
After critiquing aspects of our contemporary society that allows gun culture to flourish, Fr. Worcester commended the USCCB for their stance. “The mentality of a right, or an entitlement, to possess and use deadly weapons must give way to a mentality of respect for and cherishing of life.” He continued, “Nothing less than a dramatic change in mentality is needed, from inordinate attachment to guns to a culture of life that rejects firearms and the slaughter of innocents they make possible.”
This ‘Holy Cross in the News’ item by David Cotrone ’13.
