April 30, 2013 – Catechism 2318 - 2330

Of all the briefs in review, 2 things jumped out at me.  First, scandal is included in the section on killing.  I think this shows how serious the church takes this sin.  I have already talked about it many times, but having it placed alongside abortion, war, and other sins of killing another human shows just how important and serious it needs to be taken and how careful we must consider our actions and their affect on others.  It can “kill” the soul of another by leading them into a grievous sin.

The second was the distinction of an “arms race” being seen as bad not only because it promotes and increases the focus on war and materials, but because it takes away resources from the poor.  I saw a quote from Einstein somewhere that talked about never having peace as long as we are trying to win an arms race.  And we see that the arms race has not proven to lead to peace.  It may have defeated the Russians (at the cost of how many lives because of the poor in Russia that were ignored by their government), but we opened the door to terrorism.  Massive amounts of weapons can’t stop terrorism.  And how much of our budget was plunged into the war machine because we thought that was the only way to win.  What would have happened if we ignored the arms race and had used that money to promote education and building the infrastructure of our country.  Would we have been defeated by a country that was more heavily armed or started an education race that may have reshaped the world.  Who knows and with the liberal education that is so prevalent in our system, that might have gotten us in a worse spot than we are today.