Catholic World News News Feature
US group protests Vatican support for gun control June 30, 2006
An American Catholic group has issued a strong protest against Vatican support for gun-control efforts.
The St. Gabriel Possenti Society, a Virginia-based organization devoted to protecting the individual's right to self-defense, criticized statements by Archbishop Celestino Migliore, the Holy See's representative at the UN, endorsing "the promotion of disarmament" and calling for stiffer international controls on the sale and possession of firearms.
John Snyder, the founder and chairman of the St. Gabriel Possenti Society, said the archbishop's words pointed to a "terribly misguided secular political initiative." He urged Catholics in the US to protest that initiative.
"History has shown that government is the world’s greatest mass murderer, responsible for modern genocide," Snyder argued. "For example, the atrocities perpetrated by the Nazis, Soviets and Chinese Communists, were all made possible by first disarming the people."
