Abortion nay Capital Punishmant Yay? Hypocrasy

[catharina]

What do we achieve? Maybe a just state? Fewer murders? A more peaceful society?

Besides, how do you know God hasn’t appointed the time of death as the time of execution? If we do NOT execute according to God’s timetable, aren’t we defying God’s will? God wants them executed at a certain time and we say no because it violates our sensibilities?

These questions are tongue in cheek, of course. However, to me they are just as rational as the quoted question, are they not?

Without tongue in cheek: I rely on the words of Jesus Christ, “Let he who is without sin, cast the first stone;” I don’t imagine that God has ordained that I should figure out who He might or might not ‘name for death via execution’ by a State; I’m unaware of any data supporting the notion that execution leads to or promotes a more just state or more peaceful society; and as for causing deaths as a means to limit deaths - the logic is what? Missed it.

This thought: “If we do NOT execute according to God’s timetable, aren’t we defying God’s will? God wants them executed at a certain time and we say no because it violates our sensibilities?” Surely, you can’t imagine that we can “think” for God? How far wrong can execution go? Jesus Christ the Lord was executed as a criminal.

 

[blessedtoo]

I’m unaware of any data supporting the notion that execution leads to or promotes a more just state or more peaceful society; and as for causing deaths as a means to limit deaths - the logic is what? Missed it.

.

Post #67

What gets little notice, however, is a series of academic studies over the last half-dozen years that claim to settle a once hotly debated argument — whether the death penalty acts as a deterrent to murder. The analyses say yes. They count between three and 18 lives that would be saved by the execution of each convicted killer.

A 2003 study he co-authored, and a 2006 study that re-examined the data, found that each execution results in five fewer homicides, and commuting a death sentence means five more homicides. “The results are robust, they don’t really go away,” he said. “I oppose the death penalty. But my results show that the death penalty (deters) — what am I going to do, hide them?”

Statistical studies like his are among a dozen papers since 2001 that suggest capital punishment has deterrent effects. They all explore the same basic theory — if the cost of something (be it the purchase of an apple or the act of killing someone) becomes too high, people will change their behavior (forgo apples or shy from murder).
msnbc.msn.com/id/19160965/

 

[catharina]

Post #67

Thank you.

Next question:
do you have recent data on wrongful executions?

 

[cpayne]

Thank you.

Next question:
do you have recent data on wrongful executions?

Wrongful executions are that: wrongful, a mistake. Just executions are that: just.

We are commanded in scripture to forgive, to not cast the first stone. The state is also ordained (in scripture) to establish justice, by execution if need be. The two commands do not contradict each other.

 

[Ender]

I rely on the words of Jesus Christ, “Let he who is without sin, cast the first stone;”

This could as easily mean no one should be punished at all; recall that the woman in this instance not only wasn’t executed but she wasn’t even punished. You interpret this incident way too broadly; certainly the Church has never interpreted it that way or she would not have supported the death penalty until the end of the 20th century. This response reinforces my earlier comment about our unwillingness to ascribe individual responsibility for individual sins.

Ender

 

[catharina]

This could as easily mean no one should be punished at all; recall that the woman in this instance not only wasn’t executed but she wasn’t even punished. You interpret this incident way too broadly; certainly the Church has never interpreted it that way or she would not have supported the death penalty until the end of the 20th century. This response reinforces my earlier comment about our unwillingness to ascribe individual responsibility for individual sins.

Ender

I recognize that the State/nation has a right to impose death for those who are judged to have committed certain offenses. My concern is that we who follow Christ would choose do so, that we would make that choice to impose death. Until very recent times, there was little to insure that a criminal could be held securely for natural life. Now there are some situations that are that secure so that the public safety is insured and the incarcerated might have time to repent and reform. So why would we, who look to a merciful God for help, wish to impose death on anyone?

Incidentally, your own interpretation might be off the mark. We know what was written. Was the woman still punished? by full ostracism? by gossip? I don’t know. We aren’t told about that.

 

[Ray_Scheel]

Now there are some situations that are that secure so that the public safety is insured and the incarcerated might have time to repent and reform.

Aside from the statement made by JP II saying this was so and other statements by people within the Church based more or less entirely on that claim, given that there are some rather recent escapes from fairly modern maximum security facilities (Search: “Texas 7 inmate escape” for a start) and murders of guards and staff by inmates in the same (and even some escapes and several escape attempts from death row itself), what is your basis for this claim that such situations are secure enough for the relative handful of people generally determined to be as or significantly more dangerous to society that are held on death row? Considering how few crimes are potentially punishable by the death penalty now, we’ve probably reached the point of diminishing returns in implementing prison science advances vs. increased public safety.

 

[Texas_Roofer]

Post #67

The article does not tell how the model was set up or show any data used. It refers to the studies. This needs to be explored deeper, remember when a similar study claim abortion was the largest deterrent to crime? It turns out he set the smaller family size (contraception & family plan) affect to zero. Well it gave him the results he wanted.

btw

Test on death penalty knowledge
deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?did=557&scid=60

Issue of death penalty as deterrence
deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?scid=12&did=167

 

[Texas_Roofer]

This is doubly disingenuous.

how could the catechism be disingenuous?

No one has claimed the catechism itself is prudential

so why bring it up?

……
We have distorted the nature of forgiveness to the point that we are willing to forgive, and unwilling to condemn, practically any behavior no matter how repugnant.

Again the context proposed in this thread it appears to oppose the catechism?

I believe that more is expected of us than to apologize for sins we have not committed, which is sanctimony, and to be merciful to those who have not repented of their sins, which is fails justice and misunderstands mercy.

the catechism is clear about justice, which it defines yet again these writings seem to have a different interpretation.

This could as easily mean no one should be punished at all; recall that the woman in this instance not only wasn’t executed but she wasn’t even punished. You interpret this incident way too broadly; certainly the Church has never interpreted it that way or she would not have supported the death penalty until the end of the 20th century. This response reinforces my earlier comment about our unwillingness to ascribe individual responsibility for individual sins.

Are you familiar with the trinity?

 

[catharina]

Perhaps some food for thought?

**Catholic wrongly convicted seeks end to death penalty **

by George P. Matysek Jr.
The Catholic Review
February 26, 2007

CAMBRIDGE, Md. - If anyone has experienced sheer terror, it’s Kirk Bloodsworth.

Tried and found guilty of the brutal rape and murder of a 9-year-old Rosedale, Md., girl, the barrel-chested crabber from the Eastern Shore was sentenced to die in the gas chamber for his horrific crimes.

But Mr. Bloodsworth didn’t have anything to do with what he was accused of. A former Marine with no criminal record, he had been wrongly convicted and would later become the first American on death row to be exonerated by DNA testing.

But as he was led onto the grounds of the Maryland State Penitentiary in Baltimore, Md., in 1985 on his first day on death row, no one believed his story - least of all the other prisoners.

Handcuffed and shackled as he slowly made his way across the yard of the penitentiary, Mr. Bloodsworth noticed other prisoners racing to the fences to glimpse the monster they had heard so much about.

This was the man a Baltimore County jury convicted of beating Dawn Hamilton with a rock, sexually mutilating her, raping her and strangling her to death by stepping on her neck.

As the new prisoner shuffled onto the old prison campus, he was dwarfed by the gothic structure’s tall granite walls, silver spires and imposing turrets that loomed ominously over Forrest Street like a medieval castle.

Jeering at him, the inmates shouted repeated threats of violence.

“We’re going to do to you what you did to that little girl,” they screamed. “We’re going to get you, Kirk!”

Seated on the couch in the living room of his small home in Cambridge more than 20 years later, pain was still visible on Mr. Bloodsworth’s face as he recalled those long-ago events that forever changed his life. With his brow deeply furrowed, the plainspoken 46-year-old man said he believed hell is a place of torment and that his experiences must be similar to those in that place of misery.

“I remember that first night in my cell and the smell coming from this place,” he said, recounting how roaches frequently scurried along the walls of his small living quarters.

“Not only did it stink of every kind of excrement you could think of,” he said, “but you also could smell hatred - and it was all pointing at me.”

The threats that greeted him when he first entered the state penitentiary continued through the night and beyond, with inmates shouting through the air vents how they planned to torture him.

Despite the strong temptation to despair, Mr. Bloodsworth said he decided he would fight to prove his innocence. He believes God sustained him through nearly nine years of taxing prison life, sending him otherworldly consolations and leading him into the Catholic Church.

With the same steely determination that got him through his prison ordeal, Mr. Bloodsworth is now devoting the rest of his life to abolishing the death penalty and seeking reforms of what he calls a “broken” criminal justice system.

It’s a battle he is convinced he has been called to win.

Full Story

© 2007 The Catholic Review
This excerpt is provided for educational purposes only

catholicmediareport.org/story.php?story_id=3108

PS - The actual criminal was later identified through the DNA

 

[Potato1]

Perhaps some food for thought?

**Catholic wrongly convicted seeks end to death penalty **

by George P. Matysek Jr.
The Catholic Review
February 26, 2007

CAMBRIDGE, Md. - If anyone has experienced sheer terror, it’s Kirk Bloodsworth.

Tried and found guilty of the brutal rape and murder of a 9-year-old Rosedale, Md., girl, the barrel-chested crabber from the Eastern Shore was sentenced to die in the gas chamber for his horrific crimes.

But Mr. Bloodsworth didn’t have anything to do with what he was accused of. A former Marine with no criminal record, he had been wrongly convicted and would later become the first American on death row to be exonerated by DNA testing.

But as he was led onto the grounds of the Maryland State Penitentiary in Baltimore, Md., in 1985 on his first day on death row, no one believed his story - least of all the other prisoners.

Handcuffed and shackled as he slowly made his way across the yard of the penitentiary, Mr. Bloodsworth noticed other prisoners racing to the fences to glimpse the monster they had heard so much about.

This was the man a Baltimore County jury convicted of beating Dawn Hamilton with a rock, sexually mutilating her, raping her and strangling her to death by stepping on her neck.

As the new prisoner shuffled onto the old prison campus, he was dwarfed by the gothic structure’s tall granite walls, silver spires and imposing turrets that loomed ominously over Forrest Street like a medieval castle.

Jeering at him, the inmates shouted repeated threats of violence.

“We’re going to do to you what you did to that little girl,” they screamed. “We’re going to get you, Kirk!”

Seated on the couch in the living room of his small home in Cambridge more than 20 years later, pain was still visible on Mr. Bloodsworth’s face as he recalled those long-ago events that forever changed his life. With his brow deeply furrowed, the plainspoken 46-year-old man said he believed hell is a place of torment and that his experiences must be similar to those in that place of misery.

“I remember that first night in my cell and the smell coming from this place,” he said, recounting how roaches frequently scurried along the walls of his small living quarters.

“Not only did it stink of every kind of excrement you could think of,” he said, “but you also could smell hatred - and it was all pointing at me.”

The threats that greeted him when he first entered the state penitentiary continued through the night and beyond, with inmates shouting through the air vents how they planned to torture him.

Despite the strong temptation to despair, Mr. Bloodsworth said he decided he would fight to prove his innocence. He believes God sustained him through nearly nine years of taxing prison life, sending him otherworldly consolations and leading him into the Catholic Church.

With the same steely determination that got him through his prison ordeal, Mr. Bloodsworth is now devoting the rest of his life to abolishing the death penalty and seeking reforms of what he calls a “broken” criminal justice system.

It’s a battle he is convinced he has been called to win.

Full Story

© 2007 The Catholic Review
This excerpt is provided for educational purposes only

catholicmediareport.org/story.php?story_id=3108

PS - The actual criminal was later identified through the DNA

Soooooo… he wasn’t killed? Whats the problem?

 

[catharina]

Soooooo… he wasn’t killed? Whats the problem?

A problem for all could be that there could be others, equally innocent, who have been or will be killed - and it’s good that you sense there’s a problem.

 

[Ray_Scheel]

A problem for all could be that there could be others, equally innocent, who have been or will be killed - and it’s good that you sense there’s a problem.

This has been a problem with implementing any sort of punishment from the dawn of time until the present, and the legal system is getting steadily better at preventing and/or correcting these errors, I’m not sure what the relevance of that observation is to the rest of the thread…

 

[RWMorris]

I’d like pro death sentence catholics to post here and justify it and if there anti abortion why the double standard?..Also what about treat thy nieghbour as you would like to be treated? Would you want to be sentenced to death or given a chance of forgiveness and redemption?

I am a pro death sentence Catholic. Actually I would be quite satisfied with “Life, with no chance of parole” sentence, even for the worst offenders. But the reality is such sentencing in some states does not exist.

Take Texas for instance. Jurors in Texas are faced with a choice of “Life” or “Death” sentence. There is no “Life, with no chance of parole.” The Texas district attorney’s lobby is against such sentencing. (I’m sure I’m oversimplifying a complex issue.)

So Texas Jurors are stuck with two unpleasant choices for really serious offenders. Hence, a higher percentage of Texas’ worst offenders find themselves on death row.

If we could, in some way, guarantee that the worst offenders will never see liberty again, I’m all for lock’em up and throwing away the key.

It is a greater sin to release such animals back on society and even a greater sin to execute an innocent man. So, I’m kind of stuck. Is there some way that our 50 states can adopt rules that would satisfy the concerns of society concerning the release of the worst of offenders, and end the death penalty that in all probability has executed an innocent? (Even one innocent being executed is one too many!)

Until such sentencing is available to all offenders, I’m afraid I’ll continue to support the death penalty. It is interesting to note that recidivism rates for paroled murderers is only about 13%, far lower than most other criminals. Studies have shown that most murders are crimes of passion and singular in nature. Once the cause of said passion is removed from the offender’s life, the cause of the murderous behavior is also removed.

 

[catharina]

This has been a problem with implementing any sort of punishment from the dawn of time until the present, and the legal system is getting steadily better at preventing and/or correcting these errors, I’m not sure what the relevance of that observation is to the rest of the thread…

I answered a specific question that I believed was addressed to me; perhaps it wasn’t?

 

[catharina]

I am a pro death sentence Catholic. Actually I would be quite satisfied with “Life, with no chance of parole” sentence, even for the worst offenders. But the reality is such sentencing in some states does not exist.

Take Texas for instance. Jurors in Texas are faced with a choice of “Life” or “Death” sentence. There is no “Life, with no chance of parole.” The Texas district attorney’s lobby is against such sentencing. (I’m sure I’m oversimplifying a complex issue.)

So Texas Jurors are stuck with two unpleasant choices for really serious offenders. Hence, a higher percentage of Texas’ worst offenders find themselves on death row.

If we could, in some way, guarantee that the worst offenders will never see liberty again, I’m all for lock’em up and throwing away the key.

It is a greater sin to release such animals back on society and even a greater sin to execute an innocent man. So, I’m kind of stuck. Is there some way that our 50 states can adopt rules that would satisfy the concerns of society concerning the release of the worst of offenders, and end the death penalty that in all probability has executed an innocent? (Even one innocent being executed is one too many!)

Until such sentencing is available to all offenders, I’m afraid I’ll continue to support the death penalty. It is interesting to note that recidivism rates for paroled murderers is only about 13%, far lower than most other criminals. Studies have shown that most murders are crimes of passion and singular in nature. Once the cause of said passion is removed from the offender’s life, the cause of the murderous behavior is also removed.

“Lock 'em up and throw away the key” sounds fine to me too, in the case of guilty and convicted worst offenders.

 

[Ender]

I recognize that the State/nation has a right to impose death for those who are judged to have committed certain offenses. My concern is that we who follow Christ would choose do so, that we would make that choice to impose death.

Do you also recognize that the state has not merely the right but the **duty **to impose a punishment proportional to the crime?

Until very recent times, there was little to insure that a criminal could be held securely for natural life. Now there are some situations that are that secure so that the public safety is insured and the incarcerated might have time to repent and reform.

The failure of the question about safely warehousing people is that it completely ignores the question of justice. Think about your comment that “public safety is insured.” Doesn’t that mean punishing a person so that he can’t commit a crime in the future? What about the appropriate punishment for the crime he has already committed? Nowhere in section 2267 is this even acknowledged as an issue.

So why would we, who look to a merciful God for help, wish to impose death on anyone?

“Wish” to impose death? I doubt that anyone wishes to impose death; I see it not as a good thing but as a necessary thing.

Incidentally, your own interpretation might be off the mark. We know what was written. Was the woman still punished? by full ostracism? by gossip? I don’t know. We aren’t told about that.

I make no interpretation of that incident; I am prepared to accept it however the Church interprets it. I think I said that I was pretty sure the Church didn’t interpret it the way you did.

Ender

 

[Ender]

A problem for all could be that there could be others, equally innocent, who have been or will be killed - and it’s good that you sense there’s a problem.

This point goes to the question about the quality of a state’s justice system but not to the moral question regarding whether it is necessary or appropriate to execute someone. Since the answers to moral questions don’t change with time and circumstances I’d like to stick to the morality of capital punishment.

Ender

 

[Texas_Roofer]

This point goes to the question about the quality of a state’s justice system but not to the moral question regarding whether it is necessary or appropriate to execute someone. Since the answers to moral questions don’t change with time and circumstances I’d like to stick to the morality of capital punishment.

Ender

One could look to the scriptures and the catechism. God refused the death penalty for the adulteries women, or should we say limited it to those free of sin? Would God’s standard not be higher than the catechism? And what about justice; the catechism is clear requiring justice of the individual not society. The catechism does not call for repeating the crime of the criminal ever no theft for the thief, no lies to the liar, no raping the rapist, and no killing the killer. What the catechism advises is redressing the disorder, which is to correct the sinner on the reason of sin. It would seem quick killing of the killer would actually prevent the killer from ‘justice’ as referred to in the catechism.

 

[hasikelee]

Was by rlg94086

The life of an unborn child is so important yet it is okay for us to put to death a man who commited a sin?

Isnt life life regardless?

I’d like pro death sentence catholics to post here and justify it and if there anti abortion why the double standard?

Also what about treat thy nieghbour as you would like to be treated? Would you want to be sentenced to death or given a chance of forgiveness and redemption

Intrested to know

Hmm, my thoughts are, I don’t feel the need to justify anything. I am antiabortion for reasons pertaining to social structure, science and pretty much just common sense and when I am on the topic of abortion, it can stay on that topic. Dragging other issues into the debate to discredit a person is simply a lame attempt to sidestep the issue.

Also, “the death penalty” is really quite vague. Are we talking abou the long, drawn out cases in America, where most of the people are able to avoid the death penalty anyways? And in the meantime they are treated at least with some semblance of humanity?

Or are we talking about China, where they have death mobiles that drive into villages, put a person in the van and kill them?

What about the countries that line 'em up and shoot 'em?

Don’t forget the ones that bury people to the waist then stone 'em to death.