(HUFFINGTON POST) WASHINGTON — The dean of the Washington National Cathedral, the Very Rev. Gary Hall, vowed on Sunday to mobilize the nation’s faith communities to fight the influence of pro-gun lobbying groups and advocate for stronger gun control laws. In a morning sermon delivered to more than 1,000 congregants in Northwest Washington, D.C., Hall said, “Everyone in this city seems to live in terror of the gun lobby. But I believe the gun lobby is no match for the cross lobby.”
Hall delivered his sermon in the wake of Friday’s massacre of 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., a tragedy that has horrified the nation and reignited the debate over gun control laws.
An ordained Episcopal priest, Hall presides over an institution that Congress has designated as the National House of Prayer. But in Sunday’s sermon, Hall placed the Cathedral in a rare position at the center of a contentious political debate. “If we are truly America’s ‘National’ Cathedral, as we say we are, then we must become the focal point of faithful advocacy of gun control, calling our leaders to courageous action and supporting them as they take it,” Hall said.
