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A Quick Note re: the Church and Gun Safety Legislation

I was reading the WBEZ website yesterday, and came across a story about Cardinal Cupich, the Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Chicago. Cardinal Cupich called on legislators to pass legislation to curb gun violence.

“The Second Amendment, unlike the second commandment, did not come down from Sinai,” Cupich told NPR. “There is an understanding that we all have in our hearts, engraved in our hearts, a natural law about the value of human life. And there is no amendment that can trump that.”

So can he do that? Can he speak out about political issues? Is he, the leader of the 3rd largest archdiocese in the United States, with more than 2 million Catholics, risking the Catholic Church’s tax exemption?

The answers, in order: yes, yes, and no.

Likewise, our church faces no legal impediment to talking about gun safety legislation, asking members to support it, or even lobbying on behalf of such legislation at the state or federal level.

The church does face certain limitations: lobbying can only make up an “insubstantial” part of the church’s activities. But, while there’s no bright line definition of what counts as “substantial,” given all of the time and money the church puts into its religious mission, as a practical matter it probably couldn’t reach lobbying substantiality even if it tried.

In fact, the only real impediment to the church engaging on this issue is its own internal policies. And even those really don’t impede its actions. While the church generally refrains from engaging in politics, it says that:

In exceptional cases, when moral issues or the Church’s practices are involved, the Church may take a position on political matters. In such cases, the Church may engage in political discourse to represent its views.

Does promoting gun safety legislation represent a moral issue? Cardinal Cupich argues that it does. It’s a moral duty, he says, because “it’s about saving lives.”

Now I’m not making a normative case for church involvement here. What I am saying is, if the church doesn’t engage with this politically, that’s its decision. It isn’t boxed into a place of inaction by law. Nothing that prevents them from engaging substantively on the question. In the end, the choice is entirely theirs.

Also, whether or not the church acts, there is nothing to prevent members from engaging and trying to shape law and policy in a way that will protect lives. The church, after all, encourages us to “participate in worthy causes to make their communities wholesome places to live and raise families.” If we fail to participate civilly, that’s our choice.


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