(This letter to the editor is in response to a column criticizing the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia's failure to speak out against gun violence in the city.)
The Catholic Church is not a political lobbying organization, nor should it be, lest it lose even more credibility among the populace. One of the church's central tenets is "Thou shalt not kill," and there are already laws in place prohibiting murder. The church, therefore, rightly keeps its focus on overturning laws that permit killing the unborn and terminally ill. Its refusal to advocate for gun laws is a sensible choosing of battles by a rightly apolitical organization.