To the Editor:
What should we do as Christian people to make our country safer for all of us? How do we examine our relationship with guns? The latest mass shootings have brought these questions into stark relief. We are failing each other as a nation. We, as Christian Catholics, hear Jesus proclaim in the Gospels to “love your neighbor as yourself.”
What does that mean right now in this moment? We don’t want a country where every school, church, synagogue, grocery store and mall is an armed camp or “hardened target.” Is that the kind of country we say we love? Every day we all sacrifice certain freedoms for the sake of living together: traffic laws, food regulations, pet and animal restrictions. These are all for the common good. We must now compromise on weapons that can mow down multiple people in minutes but also are used safely by many responsible owners. We must find that middle ground. It is an obligation by our faith. Jesus made it clear: “Amen, I say to you, what you did not do for one of these least ones, you did not do for me.” Mt. 25:45
Mary Lu Callahan
Iowa City
