A Texas bishop has railed against the ease of access to guns in the US and says mass shootings are the ‘most pressing life issue.’
The comments of Bishop Daniel E Flores of Brownsville, Texas, follow the May 24 rampage that left at least 19 children and two of their elementary school teachers dead in Uvalde, Texas.
“Don’t tell me that guns aren’t the problem, people are. I’m sick of hearing it,” Bishop Flores tweeted May 25.
“The darkness first takes our children who then kill our children, using the guns that are easier to obtain than aspirin. We sacralise death’s instruments and then are surprised that death uses them.”
Texas authorities said an 18-year-old wearing body armour evaded police after crashing his truck near an elementary school close to the US-Mexico border and entered the school building at around noon armed with two assault weapons.
San Antonio Archbishop Gustavo García-Siller comforted families who waited outside a local civic centre in Uvalde waiting for news of their loved ones.
“When will these insane acts of violence end?” the archbishop later said.
“It is too great a burden to bear. The word tragedy doesn’t begin to describe what occurred. These massacres cannot be considered ‘the new normal.'”
“The Catholic Church consistently calls for the protection of all life. These mass shootings are a most pressing life issue on which all in society must act — elected leaders and citizens alike,” he said.
“We pray that God comforts and offers compassion to the families of these little ones whose pain is unbearable.”
Chieko Noguchi, director of public affairs for the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, said the organisation joined Archbishop García-Siller in prayers for the community.
“There have been too many school shootings, too much killing of the innocent. Our Catholic faith calls us to pray for those who have died and to bind the wounds of others,” she said.
“As we do so, each of us also needs to search our souls for ways that we can do more to understand this epidemic of evil and violence and implore our elected officials to help us take action.”
The Diocese of El Paso, Texas, suggested that a course of action from the Catholic Church could come “in findings ways to more effectively identify people at risk of such behaviour and push for reasonable limits to the proliferation of firearms.”
From Rome, Pope Francis also weighed in, saying: “It’s time to say ‘Enough’ to the indiscriminate trade of weapons!” and encouraged all to be committed in the effort “so that tragedies like this cannot occur again.”
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