Less gun control? More gun control? How about more God Control?
Within the last month, we have witnessed two mass killings where the murderer used a firearm. In Buffalo, New York a white shooter senselessly killed ten black people in a grocery store. And now this past week, another school shooting in Uvalde, Texas where 19 children and 2 adults were killed.
Regardless of who actually pulls the trigger, the progressive left will blame the guns. Always the guns. On the other side, tor the conservative right, the solution is always more guns and especially more guns inside the schools with armed security and teachers.
The conservatives will offer moments of silence and prayers (which drives the left absolutely insane because—well they hate God), and the left will offer—more gun control.
Then for the next two to three weeks, we will hear non-stop bickering and back and forth between the two sides until another news story captures everyone’s attention, and then we move on to the next thing. Until the next mass murder happens again—restart argument cycle.
And, oh yea—amidst the back-and-forth political squabbling over who cares more about innocent, helpless children, another 2500 abortions per day will have taken place to the sound of crickets chirping in the media from the same people.
Reality Check
You see the reality is that a supermajority of the citizens and politicians in this country are not really serious about ending senseless violence, killings, and especially not murdering children. Why do I say that? Because virtually no one wants to talk about the real source of the problem: rejection of faith and God.
Traditional Catholics have known this for some time. We know this problem more specifically as the rejection of the social Kingship of Jesus Christ. It’s been a problem for a long time and Pope Pius XI wrote an entire encyclical (Quas Primas) on it back in 1925 A.D.
It’s one thing to say, we need more God in our life and culture. But it’s entirely another thing to say that Christ is entitled to exercise his authority in the civil affairs in this temporal world—that His Truth must prevail not only within the hearts of each individual but in the public square of culture and politics.
In other words, we must do more than just “turn back to God”—we need to restore Christendom!
The Problem with Christendom
The problem, however, is that no one really likes to hear that solution, which is why you never hear about it in secular or even most Catholic media. The return to an integral Christian society, where the Gospels and authentic Catholic teaching informs our values, culture and laws, would actually require everyday Joe Americans to change their lifestyles as well. And THAT is just a bridge too far.
You see, changing the culture so that Christendom will flourish requires all of us—that’s you and me—to change our habits, behavior and even worldview. For example:
- Instead of sleeping in and watching football on Sundays, we need to get our families into the church for the Sacrifice of the Holy Mass.
- Instead of delegating children’s entertainment to the internet with shoot-to-kill games and soft-pornography on electronic devices, spend more time together as families in prayer and wholesome entertainment.
- Instead of saving money by subjecting our children to the godless public education system, send them to quality private schools or home school them.
- Instead of condemning young adults to a life of student loan debt until they die just for the privilege of being indoctrinated with communist propaganda in “woke” universities, encourage them to learn a trade.
- Instead of streamlining the destruction of families using the legal system, repeal no-fault divorce and other anti-family laws.
- Instead of watching Harry Potter where new age witchcraft is romanticized, watch Lord of the Rings instead (and no it’s not hypocritical because both films have wizards, don’t get me started on that.)
- Instead of encouraging moms to work outside the home, encourage moms to stay home and raise the children while the father works—especially in those younger years of child development.
I am not sitting on any high horse here, nor am I claiming all the above are necessarily easy to do or practical to accomplish immediately. Like you, I have struggled with surviving and raising children in our modern culture. We still are working on some of those issues I identified above. But even striving to change our lifestyles and worldview will go a long way towards restoring the culture and society to Christendom.
The problem is, when we talk like this, or make such suggestions, immediately you get bombarded with vitriol, and I am not just talking about from those on the left either. This is because most Americans do not want to change their lifestyles, which no doubt, make for very comfortable lives in the grand scheme of things. But leading authentic Christian lifestyles is the antidote to the evil we are witnessing in the modern, secular humanist culture.
Christendom Promotes a Healthy Social Ecology
Now, you may ask, what does any of that have to do with stopping mass shootings? The answer to that is what I like to refer to, and others have called as well, social ecology. Like a plant, the health of an individual is going to depend on its environment. If the environment is poisonous or lacks sufficient nutrients, then the life form is going to get sick and possibly die.
The social ecology is a combination of multiple factors that make up the culture in which we live. Think about education, the national economy, politics, personal finances, employment, entertainment, family stability, public works, housing, etc. where all of these factors with a lot of others contribute to a social ecology.
Catholic social teaching over the centuries has provided us with a body of magisterial (authoritative) teachings, grounded in the Holy Scriptures and Holy Tradition, that instruct on these various components of society. Through authentic Catholic Action (not to be confused with the man-centered, Modernist version of “social justice”), the laity are called to apply these principles in our every-day lives—out there in the real world.
Sadly, more Christians, including traditional Catholics, have dropped the ball and allowed the secular humanist culture to saturate the social ecology with its poison rather than Christ’s Truth. We have allowed our children and the children of others in our communities to grow up in the past 50 years without knowing Christ, but especially with regard to the traditional social teachings of His Church.
And how about the adults? Do modern Americans understand why contraception is evil or what the true purpose of marriage is? Do modern Americans understand why keeping the Lord’s Day holy on Sunday is so vitally important or why allowing their children to participate in new age “games” or entertainment is detrimental to their eternal salvation? The list goes on.
But this is the social ecology we find ourselves in today, and it directly contributes to personal and moral destruction. If someone is raised to believe there is no such thing as sin, that boys can be girls if they want to, or that the value of a human being is completely subjective—like whether a mother wishes to give birth or abort a baby is up to her—then why should anyone be surprised when that same person decides for himself that there is a valid reason for gunning down nine year olds in an elementary school?
And if you think I am stretching this argument too far, the mother of the Uvalde shooter was just quoted two days ago as saying “he had his reasons for doing what he did” and “please don’t judge him.”
Absorbing poisonous social ecology is a process, but it doesn’t have to be a long process. A steady diet of media propaganda, pornography, violent video games, lack of parental involvement, public school education with no knowledge of Christ or His teachings can form a person—or rather deform a person—quickly. Add to that the natural propensity towards sin we suffer as a result of Original Sin with a lack of sacramental grace that can be received only through the sacraments of the Catholic Church, it spells a recipe for disaster.
The Remedy: Restoring God Control
God control is the social Kingship of Christ and restoring it has been a primary focus of this blog, from day one. In today’s world, it is a big task, and doesn’t seem like a very practical solution to the evil and culture of death we are witnessing.
Restoring God control seems impractical because first and foremost we have a Church infected with secular humanist Modernists that contribute to the poisonous social ecology we are fighting against. How does one give spirtual direction and lead someone with same-sex attraction back to Christ in a healthy way when you have Jesuits telling those same people that sodomy is perfectly virtuous behavior? How do you help those who hit rock bottom in their sin and possibly their lives as a Church when the man the world thinks is the Pope is telling people they aren’t really sinning and don’t need to repent or convert? “Who am I to judge,” he is famous for saying.
Politically, restoring God control seems like an uphill battle too. No one it appears wants to vote for a politician that tells them they shouldn’t use contraception or divorce their third wife. In a political world where “the People” determine what is lawful or acceptable based on their own personal vices or passions, the chances of restoring Christ’s Kingship seems bleak.
And while changing the culture seems difficult right now, we keep witnessing tragedies like the mass shootings this month. The world, which never appears interested in restoring Christendom, continues to seek answers to an evil it doesn’t understand. Our friends, family, politicians and millions of others know something is wrong, but they don’t have the tools needed to identify the problem, let alone fashion a remedy.
And so, perhaps, our situation is not as hopeless as it seems. Many continue to seek solutions to obvious evil. They just don’t have the tools needed to get there. This is where we come in. Traditional Catholic teachings explain both the problems and provide solutions. If only people would listen. If only we would tell them.