Combine easy access to guns with a culture that breeds resentment, self-focus, personal license and contempt for human life and the law, and what you get is what happened over the past weekend: the terrible shootings of innocent people by Nicholas Glenn and others.  Taking away the guns – making them far more difficult to acquire – is the easy part, but it doesn’t begin to address the deeper moral and social dysfunctions of American urban life.  Violence begins in the heart before the hand picks up a weapon.  Violence is now part of the American Way from womb to tomb, and it should surprise no one when it hits home locally.

I ask Catholics across the archdiocese to pray in the coming days for the victims of the weekend shootings and their families, and for leaders who can bring genuine peace to our community.

+Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap.
Archbishop of Philadelphia

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