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Ridgerunner
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Thank you very much, Super Grover. Not wishing to embarrass you, I will nevertheless say yours is one of the most erudite and earnest posts I have ever read.
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Ridgerunner
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I respectfully disagree with this assessment. Many of these superlong threads follow a pattern much like this one. Opening statements are made, the counter arguments are posed. People deliver their sources and quotes, and there have been a good number of them. There is argument over what was taken out of context, needs to be read in connection with something else, and so on. After awhile, polemics just start to rule, as one would have to write a term paper merely to cite the sources previously cited and make arguments previously made. So people ultimately just don’t, particularly those who have stayed in the thread throughout its existence. What would be the point of it, particularly, as here, when what began as a religious issue degenerated into a purely political argument in the guise of a religious dispute? To that I will add the “shooting in the back” phenomenon we often see. The last poster might be seen by one who only casually looked at the last page, and draw the conclusion that the last one standing carried the day, not realizing that the debate actually ended pages and pages ago, as did this one.
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Ender
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You discussed three of the four forms of magisterial teaching; you really should have covered the fourth as well. I disagree with you that 2267 (and Evangelium vitae on which it is based) is ordinary doctrine; I contend that they are the fourth form: prudential. If correct, the implication of this is obvious: we are not obliged to assent to it at all, although we are certainly bound to give it serious consideration.
In Cardinal Ratzinger’s letter to Archbishop McCarrick in 2004 he stated: “There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty”. This is a little ambiguous but it is a reasonable interpretation to take it at face value.
In the 2005 USCCB document The Culture of Life and the Penalty of Death the bishops said: *"*The death penalty arouses deep passions and strong convictions. People of goodwill disagree. In these reflections, we offer neither judgment nor condemnation". This statement would be mind numbing if it applied to any ordinary teaching.
The most specific declaration supporting this position, however, are these comments from Cardinal Avery Dulles in his 2001 letter Catholicism and Capital Punishment: “The Pope and the bishops, using their prudential judgment, have concluded that in contemporary society, at least in countries like our own, the death penalty ought not to be invoked, because, on balance, it does more harm than good.”
*“Like the Pope, the bishops do not rule out capital punishment altogether, but they say that it is not justifiable as practiced in the United States today. In coming to this prudential conclusion, the magisterium is not changing the doctrine of the Church.” *
If we understand the Catechism to reflect the prudential opinion of JPII we have a much easier time dealing with a subject on which the Church herself *seems *to be divided.
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Ridgerunner
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Your post is appreciated and well stated. However, I am still uncertain what anyone (Avery Dulles now included) thinks about just why capital punishment is not “justifed as practiced in the United States”. Does this mean resources could be made available for better security and thus total elimination of capital punishment should be the ultimate goal, with the mesne goal being better security, or does it perhaps mean the justice system itself is flawed in ways that it might be fixed, but is unlikely to be fixed. (e.g., capital punishment based on the actual likelihood of recidivism rather than on the outrageous nature of the crime or the passions stirred up by a skillful and ambitious prosecutor.)
Maybe that’s why it is still regarded as subject to prudential judgment but very cautiously.
In thinking about this in general, I am always reminded of the denoument in “MacBeth”. MacDuff actually offers MacBeth his life when MacBeth cries for mercy: “Lay off MacDuff!” when the struggle is going badly for him. But MacDuff exacts the “Catholic” price. MacBeth must give up his ill gotten gains, abandon his belief in the lies told by the witches, confess his misdeeds, amend his life, and accept the imposition of open penitence. MacBeth, of course, takes the alternative, which is the rejection of the very idea of mercy as well as the conditions of mercy; the last fatal lie: “Then lay on, MacDuff, and damned be him who first cries ‘Hold! Enough!’” Thus, MacBeth consigns himself to death. MacDuff is only the instrument chosen by MacBeth himself. It is little wonder that many think Shakespeare was Catholic. It does make one think a bit about the four corners of justice and “setting the world aright” when the individual is sufficiently resolved that he, himself, will not. But that is a whole different criterion for judging capital punishment, though I guess it is still topical.
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Super_Grover
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Your explanation would make more sense against the backdrop of past teachings. I really would prefer to believe that. I did acknowledge that some call this opinion. Some writings are certainly meant to be part of a search for the truth, and to reach deeper understandings, while other publications are meant to provide the guide rails that we are not supposed to cross. Perhaps I have too much of the old Catholic mindset that a publication such as a Catechism is intended to lay down certain convictions rather than provide existential exercises.
And there is this:
I am attributing much weight to the terms “sure norm,” “authentic magisterium,” and even the title “Catechism” itself, which evokes the sense of the authoritative. Doesn’t the invocation of the authentic Magisterium elevate these teachings to something beyond the fourth category of Magisterial teaching?
Is this really prudential opinion and not ordinary teaching? Does “religious submission on mind and will” still allow us to disagree with the Pope? Since reading your post, I have found others who share the belief that this statement on capital punishment is prudential opinion, while I find others who reach the conclusion that the CCC is of the third level of magisterial teaching. I’ll give great weight to Cardinal Dulles and read what he has to say. Thanks.
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Ender
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The Catechism contains teachings at all three of the levels you discussed and the citations you made about the nature of the Catechism itself are significant, which is why I referenced only Church sources to defend my position. There are other less weighty individuals who say the same thing.
catholicculture.org/commentary/articles.cfm?ID=15
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frankadams
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SoCalRC
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The problem is distinguishing between fundemental purpose and application. Again, note the Catechism from the Council of Trent. The legitimacy of the death penalty was argued on the fundemental purpose of the law - to protect and nuture human life.
The Church accepted slavery as something of an unavoidable human condition for a long time, but in the fullness of time the Church continued to lead us closer to God.
The Church was far more tolerant of early abortion for over a thousand years, but again, in the fullness of time the Church continued to lead us closer to God.
Now the Church is asserting its moral authority on the proper balance and application of a principle we can see goes back for at least centuries. Like the absolute nature of our ban our abortion, this can be a difficult teaching to accept. That some Catholics do not yet find themselves in sync with Rome I can understand. The compulsive desire to prove that the Church is ‘wrong’, that the Pope is exceeding his ‘authority’, or the clear statements from Rome do not mean what they say, those arguments I do not understand.
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vern_humphrey
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In fact, I have often cited evidence – only to have it ignored.
Reasonable doubt and ad hominim are the same thing?
Name them.
You attempt to place just war and the death penelty on par with abortion, but the document you cite says nothing of the sort.
Again, you have no point.
Hmmm…
Long on words, short on evidence.
You place just war and the death penelty on par with abortion.
Now back it up.
Some of the most wise and well thought out things I have heard were offered with less then 25 words.
Witness Einstein, Ghandi (SP?), MLK, etc…
Conversely, Bill Clinton had the longest State of the Union speech in history…and it was rubbish.
I think the connection you have drawn between long posts and wise posts may need to be rethought.
:clapping:
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Ender
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That is true as far as it goes but it doesn’t go far enough. First, the protection of human life may be the fundamental purpose of the law but it is not the fundamental purpose of punishment - which is what the debate is actually about. Second, what we tend to forget is that the sin is not just against our neighbor but against God himself and while part of the reason for punishment is to protect society, the “fundamental purpose” is to remit the sin made against God. Which is why the catechism of Trent also says:
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“The murderer is the worst enemy of his species, and consequently of nature. To the utmost of his power he destroys the universal work of God by the destruction of man, since God declares that He created all things for man’s sake. Nay, as it is forbidden in Genesis to take human life, because God created man to his own image and likeness, he who makes away with God’s image offers great injury to God, and almost seems to lay violent hands on God Himself !” *
It is a mistake to understand punishment as being directed at the protection of man from future sin rather than as primarily a remission of the debt of a past sin against God.
Would those be the statements from Rome in 1995 or those from Rome in 405, 1210, 1556, 1905, and 1952?
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vern_humphrey
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Many people have the mistaken idea that long posts, convoluted sentences, and rarely-used words somehow make for an “intellectual” post.
What they fail to realize is that the purpose of writing is to communicate. If the post does not clearly communicate the writer’s ideas, the writer, not the reader, has failed.
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SpiritMeadow
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I do place them on a par and I think that a fair reading of vatican documents supports that the Church claims that all life and death issues are substantially the same. We are simply not for death, except that which is natural. Too many delight in arguing that they are not YET prevented from promoting the death penalty or war. Good grief, have you heard of the utter mess they are having in Dallas with a corrupt prosecutor. 17 men have been released so far as being convicted of crimes they did not commit. How can anyone support a system that runs the risk of killing people who are not guilty but the victim of a faulty human system.
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SpiritMeadow
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Of course I don’t equate length with wisdom. That would be absurd and I would hope that your intelligence would make that obivious to you that yuou need not try to frame that as some argument. We are talking about a pattern of behavior on the part of some, who consistently parse very long thoughtful replies with simple condemnations of no import at all. They are simply meant to be funny and rude. they answer no statement whatsoever, but instead simply make blanket remarks of personal opinion. Vern is but one who does that.
I’m simply arguming that some spend a lot of time and trouble to look things up, only to have theirr posts responded to with one sentence dismissals sucha as “that’s just a jumble of nonsense.” That I submit is not an argument but the way a person with no information tries to get away with condeming something he doesn’t agree with but has no actual facts to back up his opinion.
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SpiritMeadow
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Vern you don’t know what ad hominem means. If you did, you would not have plastered that as an answer to my earlier post. To dismantle an argument is not ad hominem. It is however the basis of reasonable doubt.In fact, I have often cited evidence – only to have it ignored.
Reasonable doubt and ad hominim are the same thing?
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SpiritMeadow
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Vern, twice now you have hitched your argument on someone else’s only to find that you misread their post and instead of criticizing me they were criticizing you. That was embarassing enough I would think, to cause you to rethink the idea of not speaking for yourself. You do this constantly, rewriting someone else’s thoughts in an attempt to gang up on me or others. I do not intend to sit idly by. I am going to call you on it agian and again. Speak for yourself.
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vern_humphrey
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Spirit, you don’t know what ad hominem means. If you did, you would not constantly attack the man, not his argument.
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