J.M.J.
CIC CANON 285, §1 and §2
CCEO CANON 382
Father Joseph
developed a passion for the outdoors as a young boy. His father taught him how to
use guns for hunting and insisted that he take a gun safety course. Upon
graduation from high school, Joseph entered the U. S. Marines and received
extensive training in the use of weapons. After he was ordained, Father Joseph
continued to hunt and, after having met the local civil requirements, began to
carry a firearm because of the violence that occasionally erupts in his area.
He volunteered for the local police reserves, and when Father Joseph is needed
for crowd control at fairs and parades, he carries a gun. Recently, he was
asked by the parish council whether, in the event that one of the parishioners
who carries a firearm for protection to Mass was unavailable, he would stand,
with his firearm concealed, in the rear of the church when not celebrating Mass
to prevent someone from doing violence in the church.
Canon 285, §1 of the 1983 CIC states: “Clerics
are to refrain completely from all those things which are unbecoming to their
state, according to the prescripts of particular law.”
Canon 382 of the 1990 CCEO similarly directs:
“Clerics are to abstain completely from all those
things unbecoming to their state, according to the norms determined in detail
by particular law, and also to avoid those things which are alien to it.”
Canon 138 of the 1917 CIC specified
various things that clerics must avoid. “Clerics shall entirely abstain from
all those things that are indecent to their state; . . . they shall not carry
arms, except when there is just cause for fearing; . . . .” John A. Abbo and
Jerome D. Hannan in The Sacred Canons:
A Concise Presentation of the Current
Disciplinary Norms of the Church cited as justification for the carrying of
arms by clerics “their natural right of self-defense.”
The 1983 CIC nowhere repeats the specific
prohibition found in the 1917 CIC that clerics may not carry arms “except when
there is just cause for fearing.”
Canon 285, §2 of the 1983 CIC declares:
“Clerics are to avoid those things which, although not unbecoming, are
nevertheless foreign to the clerical state.”
To carry a firearm because of local violence and to protect
crowds at fairs and parades is “not unbecoming.” The 1992 Catechism of the Catholic Church
states: “Legitimate defense can be not only a right
but a grave duty for one who is responsible for the lives of others. The
defense of the common good requires that an unjust aggressor be rendered unable
to cause harm. For this reason, those who legitimately hold authority also have
the right to use arms to repel aggressors against the civil community entrusted
to their responsibility.” (2265)
Yet, one wonders why a priest, who is
ordained to be an alter Christus,
should be so engaged.
Father Joseph should refrain from serving
in the police reserves when it would require carrying a firearm even for the
laudable purpose of maintaining public order. Instead, he could volunteer as
the chaplain for the police reserves without the responsibility of carrying a
firearm.
As to carrying a concealed weapon in the
rear of the church, it seems much better that this task be employed by a
competent lay person rather than by Father Joseph, who would be well advised to
submit these matters to his bishop’s consideration.
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