As the Senate takes up a heated debate over gun control and background checks, Catholic bishops have used the months since the Newtown school massacre to push gun control in email blasts and Senate Judiciary Committee testimony. But among the Catholic faithful, not everyone supports gun control measures.

Call them the NRA Catholics.
Discord? No

John M. Snyder, a lifelong Catholic and former seminarian, is one. Snyder isn’t thrilled to be opposing the bishops, but he sees little choice. An outspoken gun rights activist for decades — once the chief Washington lobbyist for the Citizens Committee For the Right to Keep and Bear Arms — he doesn’t see any discord between his faith and his activism.