Contact: John Snyder, St. Gabriel Possenti Society, Inc., 703-212-9860, 321-385-9192

ARLINGTON, Va., May 31 /Standard Newswire/ -- "Who in his right mind can help abhorring the vicious clerical hypocrisy manifested in Chicago last weekend by Rev. Jesse Jackson and Rev. Michael Pfleger during their verbal assaults on the law-abiding owner of a suburban business," asked GUN SAINT author John Michael Snyder here today.

Jackson's group, the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, organized the demonstration against Chuck's Gun Shop in Riverdale IL. Jackson himself charged that the business sold the "majority of guns connected with recent shooting deaths in Chicago," but then admitted he did not have statistics on the store, reported NBC5.com.

"While Jackson poses as a protector of Chicagoans and others," Snyder noted, "the fact is that millions of law-abiding American citizens rely on legitimate firearm stores as legal sources from which they may obtain the arms they need to protect themselves and their families from the violent criminals who prey upon them. Jackson is using his 'Reverend' moniker as a shield from which to advance an anti-self-defense political agenda.

"His clerical lapdog in this effort is Rev. Michael Pfleger, Pastor of St. Sabina Catholic Church in Chicago. The Church's website supports specific pending Illinois restrictive gun control legislation. In an absolutely incredible statement for anyone, let alone a Catholic priest, Pfleger, according to a recording of his remarks at the demonstration provided by the Illinois State Rifle Association, called upon the protest crowd to 'drag' John Riggio, the owner-manager of the store, out 'like a rat' and 'snuff' him."

Pfleger's statement "is an absolute outrage," Snyder continued, "and he ought to be defrocked. There are ecclesiastical penalties which can be invoked against Pfleger. Hopefully, Chicago-area Catholics will demand that church authorities initiate canonical proceedings against this loose cannon."

Snyder's book, GUN SAINT, published by Telum Associates, LLC, recounts the history of St. Gabriel Possenti, a Catholic seminarian who rescued Italian villagers of Isola del Gran Sasso from a gang of terrorists in 1860 with a striking, single-shot demonstration of handgun marksmanship. Possenti died in 1862. Pope Benedict XV canonized him in 1920. The international, interdenominational St. Gabriel Possenti Society, Inc., which Snyder founded, seeks Possenti's official Vatican designation as Patron of Handgunners. It emphasizes the historical, philosophical and theological bases for the doctrine of legitimate self-defense.