Abortion vs Captial Punishment

[JoeyWarren]

In the upcoming elections, there persist delimnas for Catholics.

If you vote Democratic, you vote for a party that for the most part supports Pro Choice and for the most part rejects the Death Penalty.

If you vote Republican the opposite is true. you vote for a party that supports Pro Life and for the most part supports the Death Penalty.

Catholics believe both Pro Choice and the Capital Punishment is a sin.

So who do you vote for then?

MURDER by abortion?

or

MURDER by the belief of “A Murder for a Murder”.

I personally see this as a quandary.

 

[Della]

JoeyWarren:

Catholics believe both Pro Choice and the Capital Punishment is a sin.

So who do you vote for then?

MURDER by abortion?

or

MURDER by the belief of “A Murder for a Murder”.

I personally see this as a quandary.

You have stated Church teaching wrongly. The Church does not, never has, and never will teach that execution of murderers is intrinsically evil. Therefore, capital punishment is not a sin. Quandary solved!

 

[JoeMike]

Those who are put to death by abortion are innocent.

Those who are put to death by capital punishment are not innocent, and their future innocent victims must be protected.

For me, it’s not much of a quandary.

 

[JB]

Well, presuming you believe abortion and capital punishment to be equally evil acts (which may or may not be the case), you might choose one as the greater of the two evils and vote against it judging by quantity:

How many lives are lost to abortion in the US each year? hundreds of thousands? millions? more?

How many lives are lost to capital punishment in the US each year? dozens? fewer?

I don’t know the exact statistics offhand, but these ballpark guesses are probably roughly correct.

 

[WanderAimlessly]

From the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

**2267 **Assuming that the guilty party’s identity and responsibility have been fully determined, the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.

If, however, non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people’s safety from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and are more in conformity to the dignity of the human person. Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an offense incapable of doing harm - without definitely taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself - the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity “are very rare, if not practically non-existent.”

Saying that, those who are pro-choice but are anti Death-penalty in all cases are imply that it is alright to murder the innocent (i.e. the unborn child) and let the guilty to live. Kind of Orwellian in thinking

PF

 

[JoeyWarren]

Della:

You have stated Church teaching wrongly. The Church does not, never has, and never will teach that execution of murderers is intrinsically evil. Therefore, capital punishment is not a sin. Quandary solved!

Also, many Christians today, cannot reconcile capital punishment with a consistent “respect-for-life ethic”. The purpose of punishing criminals is to redress the disorder caused by the offense, to preserve public order and personal safety, and to correct the offender. The poor and minorities, who cannot afford the costly appeals process of our legal system, have suffered capital punishment the most, a form of punishment that does not reform the criminal. Furthermore, there is little evidence to show that capital punishment deters crime, a key reason people have used to justify it. And although scripture recognizes society’s right to use the death penalty in grave cases, it is to the credit of Christian nations to follow Jesus’ example of forgiving love and refrain from exercising it. The gospel of Jesus’ forgiving love teaches that because of the many means society has to deter crime today, capital punishment should very rarely be used. It should only take place in cases of absolute necessity: in other words, when it would not be possible otherwise to defend society. Today, however, as a result of steady improvements in the organization of the penal system, such cases are very rare, if not practically non-existent.

The Christian person should not be hold on to vices such as the need for revenge or the need for retribution and other vices that lead to the “want of murder” toward another.

My priest painted a picture for us during a recent RCIA class. Picture in your mind Children sitting on the Lap of Jesus. Now picture a man sitting in an electric chair, now picture Jesus walking up and throwing the switch.

He could not see it nor can I.

 

[turboEDvo]

Della:

You have stated Church teaching wrongly. The Church does not, never has, and never will teach that execution of murderers is intrinsically evil. Therefore, capital punishment is not a sin. Quandary solved!

No, the church teaches that killing another human being is never “right” but can be morally justified if it is necessary to protect others AND non-lethal means to prevent the deaths of others at the hands of the accused does not exist.

There is a difference. The church DOES teach that killing another human is never right, only justifiable in certain circumstances.

Eamon

 

[JoeyWarren]

JB.:

Well, presuming you believe abortion and capital punishment to be equally evil acts (which may or may not be the case), you might choose one as the greater of the two evils and vote against it judging by quantity:

How many lives are lost to abortion in the US each year? hundreds of thousands? millions? more?

How many lives are lost to capital punishment in the US each year? dozens? fewer?

I don’t know the exact statistics offhand, but these ballpark guesses are probably roughly correct.

Yes one would have to choose a lesser of two evils. Abortions have been occuring ever since the first person learned of herbs that could produce the effect. And I have not even breached the 30,000 that are dead in Iraq because of the “Murder for a Murder” belief of our president.

I am against abortion, but I also see it as a battle that is insignificant in the larger scheme of things.

More important things?

1. Bringing living lost souls back to christ.
2. Stopping the senseless deaths of unjust wars.
3. Feeding children that are alive and breathing that woulld die of starvation.

Roe vs Wade will never be overturned unfortuanately. You could have all Catholics sitting on the Supreme Court and it would still not be overturned. Do you really want to overturn it? All it will do is force the same people, instead of going to a steril clinic and having it safely done, they would then go to back alley clinics where conditions are less than ideal and the health of the mother-to-be is put at risk. History before Roe vs Wade shows this to be true. And if they don’t have access to a back alley abortion clinic, they would just leave the baby in a dumpster…

 

[JoeyWarren]

And if you were able to shut down all of the back street abortion clinics, you would still have the drug trafficking of the “Morning After Pill” Look at the war on drugs. It has failed. As would the war on abortion would fail. You can’t stop free will. When there is a will there will be a way to achieve an abortion.

 

[shannyk]

Wow …I can’t believe some of the comments I’m reading.

The Church does not, never has, and never will teach that execution of murderers is intrinsically evil. Therefore, capital punishment is not a sin. Quandary solved!

Capital punishment certainly CAN be sinful under Catholic teaching. Taking the life of an innocent person, which is sometimes the case, IS a sin. The Church has said that capital punishment when used to protect the greater good (keeping a murderer rapist etc away from innocent people) is morally justifiable. No where does the Church state that capital punishment is “not a sin” in every case. Certainly when it is possible(which nowadays it is most of the time) to keep someone who is a danger to society safely away from innocent people without taking their life this should be done.

Wanders quotation from the Catechism concisely states this.

 

[JoeyWarren]

Breaking News:

– Gov. Mike Rounds signs legislation banning nearly all abortions in South Dakota, The Associated Press reports.

Thats almost creepy with coincidence.

 

[shannyk]

I am against abortion, but I also see it as a battle that is insignificant in the larger scheme of things.

If the slaughter of innocent human beings is “insignificant” then nothing is significant.

Joey, your signature says to live the Gospel. If you honestly think that turning your back on millions of God’s children who happen to be unborn, is living the Gospel, I worry for you.

You are in my prayers.

 

[shannyk]

Joey,

Yeah SD has been in the news a lot as of late. here’s an especially interesting excerpt from the South Dakota Task Force on Abortion’s report…

“the policy underlying abortion is a lie. First and foremost, because it denies the essential benefit of motherhood. It tells us that we are not forfeiting anything of value for ourselves. We are told we lost nothing, nothing of value. The truth is that the loss is massive. Massive and life altering. Your House Bill 1166 provides 5 an important and essential message that the pregnant mother does have a great benefit, that her child already exists and that she has this existing relationship with her child, and that she has a great fundamental and constitutional right to that relationship, all of which she is giving up, all of which is lost as a result of the abortion…If I had been given this information, I would never had had an abortion.”

Lots more to read here if you are so inclined. I think it’s a worth while read.

 

[JoeyWarren]

I am not turning away. Actually I spend every 4th Saturday infront of the only Abortion Clinic in Montgomery, Al. protesting with a sign hoping some girl will turn away.

Living the Gospel fighting losing battles are two different issues.

The issue is you have two candidates one is for abortion and the other isnt.

Too many voted for the candidate because of this. And look at where it has gotten us with George Bush. He’s got our children in a war and occupation that we cannot walk away from now. A candidates personal issue with Abortion is not a valid character marker nor it is a valid leadership marker. Now Bush has handed our ports over to the Arabs. That scares the hell out of me. We have this problem now because we have a President who thinks he is appointed by God and idiot christians are believing it. All because some of you voted for him because of his Abortion stance. Cut off the nose to spite the face…

 

[Della]

For those who think I support execution in all cases–I didn’t say that. Nor did I say that to kill a human being is all right. I said that the execution of criminals is NOT INTRINSICALLY EVIL, just as the Church teaches.

Abortion IS intrinsically evil and THAT is the REAL difference.

As to arguments against capital punishment, I see no reason not to argue against capital punishment out of compassion. I believe there are many cases that ought not to have come to the ultimate punishment. But, let’s not argue against it by stating Church teaching incorrectly, as some here have done, because it will not help make the case, but push us outside of the truth.

 

[shannyk]

I am not turning away. Actually I spend every 4th Saturday infront of the only Abortion Clinic in Montgomery, Al. protesting with a sign hoping some girl will turn away.

God love you

Living the Gospel fighting losing battles are two different issues.

Doesn’t the Gospel tell us that the battle will be won?? Darkness will not prevail. You are not fighting a loosing battle because you are fighting on His side.

The issue is you have two candidates one is for abortion and the other isnt.

Well I don’t know about that. One said he was personally against it, but basically didn’t have the ummmmm spine? if you will to back up his supposed beliefs. And one says he’s pro-life, but in response to this whole SD thing has said he thinks there should be an acception for the life of the mother, rape and incest. So basically he turns his back on thousands of babies because of the circumstances under which they were concieved. This doesn’t jive with Catholic teaching, and to me, as someone who was concieved in rape, it’s not pro-life.

I didn’t vote for either of these guys BTW

 

[turboEDvo]

Della:

For those who think I support execution in all cases–I didn’t say that. Nor did I say that to kill a human being is all right. I said that the execution of criminals is NOT INTRINSICALLY EVIL, just as the Church teaches.

No.

The Church teaches that it is wrong to take life.

The Church also teaches that it is justifiable murder if the murder of an agressor is an unintended result of self-defense. This means that you did not intend to kill the individual but did so while protecting yourself.

However:
“The legitimate defense of persons and societies is not an exception to the prohibition against murder of the innocent that constitutes intentional killing.” CCC 2264

This is because the murder of an attacker MUST be the unintended result of self-defense (as CCC 2264 goes on to say)

As well:

“Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an offense incapable of doing harm - without definitively taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself - the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity ‘are very rare, if not practically non-existent.’” Quoted from CCC 2267

Thus, it would appear that the Church has actually said that the necessity to murder a man is virtually non-existent in today’s society.

To summarize, the Church says that killing is wrong and there is essentially no need on the state level to kill people.

Eamon

 

[estesbob]

JoeyWarren:

In the upcoming elections, there persist delimnas for Catholics.

If you vote Democratic, you vote for a party that for the most part supports Pro Choice and for the most part rejects the Death Penalty.

If you vote Republican the opposite is true. you vote for a party that supports Pro Life and for the most part supports the Death Penalty.

Catholics believe both Pro Choice and the Capital Punishment is a sin.

.

There is no dilema or quandry at all. The Church allows for Capital Punishment. iI also teaches that abortion is intrinsically evil. Sems to me there is not doubt as to which party one should support.

 

[estesbob]

turboEDvo:

Thus, it would appear that the Church has actually said that the necessity to murder a man is virtually non-existent in today’s society.

To summarize, the Church says that killing is wrong and there is essentially no need on the state level to kill people.

Eamon

\

There is no need for you to summarize what the church teaches as their teaching is quite clear. Capital Punishment is allowed-abortion is not. Lke me you may not agree with the former but there is no moral equaivalence between the two A Catholic who votes for a candidate who supports the death Penalty is not running afoul of Church teaching. One who votes for a pro-abortion candidate is.

 

[turboEDvo]

estesbob:

Capital Punishment is allowed

That is a gross oversimplification that is entirely misleading to somebody who does not understand that Church’s stance on capital punishment.

Eamon