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canadianguy1143
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Is killing in self defense considered natural death? Or if you have a reasonable belief that an armed person is going to kill you, then you can’t use lethal force??
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Tsuwano
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The Church does indeed state that under very rare and special circumstances the taking of a human life by the State through execution may be justified if there is a direct threat to innocents and there is no possibility that non lethal means can be used to counter the threat. The U.S. Bishops and Pope John Paul II have stated that such a rare circumstance is almost never present against the State in our modern era, and is especially absent in developed nations where the rule of law and the penal system is as well entrenched and as sophisticated as our own. I agree with this position.
Saying that a murderer deserves the death penalty for a crime he has committed and saying the State is morally justified in taking that life are two different things. Again, judging from what the U.S. Bishops and Pope John Paul II have written concerning the death penalty, it is possible to say that the death penalty, even when carried out legally, is seldom morally justifiable with our modern justice and penal system.
Not ridiculous at all. St. Maximillian Kolbe did not volunteer to die. He volunteered to take the place of a man condemned to death knowing that his own death would result. Maximillian Kolbe did not wish to die. He wished to live a life of complete love and selflessness knowing that this would result in others taking his life. Nevertheless, the point is that he was condemned to death by a State that did have the legal authority to carry out it’s killing of innocents, but, as you say, did not have the moral authority and so, again as you say, its actions were not legitimate in either the eyes of civilized nations or of God. Many modern nations, I feel, are similar in that they feel they have both the legal and moral authority to condemn others to death. My point is that they are similar to the Nazis in that they do indeed have a legal authority, but they lack a moral authority (except in very rare circumstances which, as the Pope has declared, is almost never present in modern societies) and so their actions are illigitimate in the eyes of God.
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thunderballs75
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Tsuwano.
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Tsuwano
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What I read in your post was this line, “By implementing the DP, the state is telling society that life is so precious, that the only possible punishment for deliberately taking a life is death.” As I stated in my post responding to yours, I don’t believe you meant to write such a clear declaration without ambiguity, but the ambiguity is, in fact, missing. I simply want to be clear that you agree that there are other possible punishments for deliberately taking a life other than death. I’m satisfied with your agreement that a shopkeeper who deliberately takes a life in self defence does not deserve the death penalty.
Yes, I know that you disagree with my statement that the death penalty abrogates our values of justice, life and human dignity. Most people who support the death penalty do disagree with this. They are sincere in their belief that the death penalty is morally justifiable in our modern justice system, but the U.S. Bishops, the Catechism of the Catholic Church and the statements of Pope John Paul II concerning the death penalty disagree with this assessment. I don’t believe it is possible to compare the actions of a person who kills in self defense on the spur of the moment with those of a sophisticated State, complete with laws and prisons that are perfectly capable of keeping an incarcerated killer from terrorrizing the populace at large and which allows years to pass before executing the condemned, with one another. The State does not execute in self defense. The United States has never been in danger of falling because it failed to execute a prisoner. The State executes because it believes it is fulfilling justice. Its actions are not taken in order to protect, but in order to punish. Given that there are different means of extracting punishment which do not degrade the humanity of the individual or of those involved in the execution or of the Society responsible for the execution or cut off all opportunities of repentence for the condemned, I do not believe the death penalty is morally justified.
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Tsuwano
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Killing in self defence may be justifiable, but the State does not kill in self defense. It kills as a means of punishment. Killing as a means of punishment, when other less lethal, more dignified means of punishment are available, is morally unjustified.
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canadianguy1143
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If the murderer deserves the death penalty for a crime, then who would be morally justified in taking that life then? The victim’s family? Hardly.
St. Maximilian Kolbe volunteered in the sense that he wouldn’t have been executed had he remained quiet in that lineup. I would agree that he didn’t wish to die up until the time that the Nazi’s had chosen that man whom St. Maximilian Kolbe wished to die for.
As for your point about the Nazi’s having a legal authority to execute, that is something that people who are far more versed in International Law than you or I. However I would like to ask you this: Was Japan justified in taking the lives of the residents of Pearl Harbor in 1941 anymore than what the Nazi’s did to its victims?
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canadianguy1143
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Tsuwano
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In answer to your first question, the only one allowed to take life is the one who gives life; namely God. A murderer may deserve death for the actions he has done, but the State, though it may be legally justified, is not morally justified in taking that life unless the individual presents an imminent threat to others. A prisoner does not usually pose an imminent threat to others or to society. A person on death row has usually been in prison and has been removed from society for a number of years and is not an imminent threat. If that person somehow acquires a weapon and is in danger of shooting a guard or another prisoner with that weapon, then he may be killed by lawful authorities. This would be both a legal and a moral action.
I accept your second thought concerning St. Maximillian Kolbe.
In answer to your question concerning the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor; of course they were not justified, either legally or morally, in attacking Pearl Harbor and taking the lives of the people who died there. Other options were available to the Japanese authorities at the time and there was strong disagreement, even within the military, concerning the attack. The Japanese people today generally recognize that the attack against Pearl Harbor was an immoral act born of hubris, fear and racist attitudes. The Nazis were somewhat different in that they represented a legally and freely elected government and were originally operating against German citizens. I think it is easier to compare the Nazis with the governments of the slave states before the Cival War. They were also acting within legal confines, though certainly not moral ones. The legality of Nazi laws were lost when those actions were taken against non German citizens in occupied lands. Of course, I need to be very careful when I say the Nazis were acting legally. By that I simply mean they were acting within laws enacted by their own government, not that the laws were good or moral. They were not. A law can be evil and still be legal. This is how I perceive the laws allowing the imposition of the death penalty.
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dixieagle
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The Church’s position is such that it is virtually impossible to think of an instance where the death penalty is justified.
One is either pro-life (“from conception to natural death”) or one is not.
Of course, it is simple common sense, and in line with Church teaching, that one may defend one’s own life or that of another from an attacker (as someone is sure to raise that issue.)
One is either pro-life (“from conception to natural death”) or one is not.
Of course, it is simple common sense, and in line with Church teaching, that one may defend one’s own life or that of another from an attacker (as someone is sure to raise that issue.)
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canadianguy1143
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Source please? When Saddam Hussein was executed, was there any statements from the Pope or Vatican or any Bishop condemning it?
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Tsuwano
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I believe the Vatican did, in fact, condemn the execution of Saddam Hussein, though I can’t offer a source for this. The Vatican also condemned the way Saddam Hussein was stripped of his dignity when he was captured and publicly examined (remember the famous footage of military personnel opening his mouth and examining his teeth) on world wide television.
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Ender
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Actually, this is exactly what the Church taught prior to 1995 and, incoherently based on what 2267 says, teaches today. The Church has always accepted what was written in Genesis 9:6 - *“Whoever sheds the blood of man by man shall his blood be shed, because man is made in the image of God.”
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Surely it cannot affect our sense of justice as the Church has never held that the death penalty was unjust, nor does she do so today. JPII may have felt that it was unnecessary but he must have considered it just or he would have banned it totally on that basis instead of making its use dependent on the circumstances of a states penal system.
This is precisely what the state is obligated to do inasmuch as the primary objective of all punishment is not protection but retribution, that is: justice. Protection is a secondary objective along with rehabilitation and deterrence.
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Tsuwano
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Actually, your understanding of the Church’s devolopment of it’s response to capital punishment is simplistic if you feel it stands on scripture quotes alone. Scripture must be read in context and must also allow for the teaching of the New Testament in which Jesus rejects violence and calls for compassion and forgiveness as a basis for the Christian life. Tossing out quotes from the Bible without explaining the context or the development of the scriptural text is not pursuasive. One must also note that early Christians felt that the taking of human life was incompatible with the life and teachings of Jesus and it was only after Christianity was recognized by the Roman Empire that this view of capital punishment declined. The Church does have a tradition of supporting the death penalty which developed over time, but in the same way that the early Christian view of the dealth penalty changed from one of incompatibility with the Christian faith to one of acceptance, that view is again changing as our understanding of the message of Jesus and our understanding of how this affects our life continues to mature.
To say that the Church has never felt that the death penalty is unjust is again rather simplistic. The Church has often protested against injustice, including the unjust application of the death penalty. Pope John Paul II and the U.S. Bishops have allowed that there may be times in which the death penalty is applicable in cases of extreme gravity, but they have also said that means other than killing should be preferred when these would be sufficient to protect public order. In his encyclical The Gospel of LIfe, Pope John Paul II elaborated by saying that the situations when capital punishment is necessary to protect society are “very rare, if not practically nonexistent.” He continued by acknowledging that capital punishment is “cruel and unnecessary.” He also stated that “the dignity of human life must never be taken away, even in the case of someone who has done great evil.” The U.S. Catholic Bishops expressed their opposition to capital punishment in 1980 with the publication of their statement Capital Punishment and as recently as 1999 called on Catholics to work to end capital punishment by stating “The death penalty offers the tragic illusion that we can defend life by taking life.”
People who support capital punishment always claim that the death penalty is a means of retribution, or of creating justice, but this is difficult to reconcile with the fact that justice can occur without the taking of life, and in fact, may be even more visible when the prisoner is allowed to reflect on his actions while incarcerated for life. All too often the death penalty is more akin to revenge rather than retribution. Too many people want the condemned to suffer more than they want him to repent, and this, I’m afraid, is not a Christian attitude and is one I believe Jesus would have difficulty accepting.
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LoveJesus
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Wow! I like that. Thank you for explaining that so eloquently.
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shannyk
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here ya go
foxnews.com/story/0,2933,240158,00.html
amywelborn.typepad.com/openbook/2006/12/the_vatican_sta.html
The catechism pretty much sums it up nice and neat
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.”
Good for the bishops, they’re doing what they should be even if they haven’t in other cases.
Amen amen!!
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Ender
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My position on capital punishment is based on what the Church has said about it from 400 to 1995. Yours appears based on what has been written since 1995.
I am not so much quoting scripture as I am quoting the Church quoting scripture. I referenced Gen 9:6 because the Church cites it, notably in the Catechism of Trent:
So much does God abominate homicide that He declares in Holy Writ that of the very beast of the field He will exact vengeance for the life of man (Gen 9:5)
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 ! (Gen 9:6)
There were a number of the early fathers who opposed capital punishment but that was never the teaching of the Church, as Pope St. Innocent I made clear:
*In regard to this question we have nothing definitive from those who have gone before us. It must be remembered that power was granted by God [to the magistrates], and to avenge crime by the sword was permitted. He who carries out this vengeance is God’s minister (Rm 13:1-4). **Why should we condemn a practice that all hold to be permitted by God? **We uphold, therefore, what has been observed until now, in order not to alter the discipline and so that we may not appear to act contrary to God’s authority.
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Ender
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At least my comment was not disingenuous - the discussion is in regard to Church teaching about capital punishment, not about whether or not she condemns its misuse.
Section 56 of Evangelium Vitae and section 2267 of the Catechism say the same thing. There is nothing written in the previous 1995 years that supports those comments. Nor did JPII call capital punishment “cruel and unnecessary”, at least not in that document.
He also said: “the commandment “You shall not kill” has absolute value when it refers to the innocent person.” This rather obviously leaves open the option of taking the life of the guilty person.
The Church has always held that executions were just or she would never have allowed them in the first place. Even today the presumption is that they are just or there wouldn’t be even the possibility of executing someone. JPII did not oppose them because they were unjust but because (in his opinion) they were unnecessary.
What is the Christian position on rash judgment and gratuitous insult?
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Tsuwano
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Your position on capital punishment seems to imply that the Church’s thinking on the issue does not or should not develop, but as I mentioned in my previous post, just as the Church’s thinking on the issue changed from an early rejection of the death penalty to a position of acceptance when Christianity was recognized as the state religion of the Roman Empire, so now in our era the Church’s thinking is once again evolving. It is clear that at present Christian theologians are once again reassessing the reasoning behind the usefullness and morality of state executions, but in truth, this reflection on the death penalty has been a constant throughout Church history. Why else would we have opinions offered by theologians through the ages both questioning and offering support for the death penalty? There are a variety of factors which may bring about change in the Church’s position regarding various social issues. One major factor regarding the Church’s recent stance against the death penalty is the development of highly organized and sophisticated systems of justice and means of punishment in the modern world. The Church does recognize a state’s right to execute when it’s citizenry are under direct threat, but such instances are extremely rare in our day and age.
No one is arguing that homicide is not an affront against God and man. We recognize this and recognize God’s just punishment in God’s own way and time. What we question is the State’s right to take a life when it is not directly threatened, when the taking of that life does not serve as a deterrence against others taking lives and when the taking of that life seems closer to an act of public revenge rather than just punishment.
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Tsuwano
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Well, what constitutes misuse of the death penalty? There is no doubt that the Church, in its long history, has sanctioned the use of the death penalty. St. Thomas Aquinas is one theologian who felt the State had a right to use executions as a means of deterring the wicked and protecting the innocent. At the same time, he argued for the liberal use of mercy and restraint in the State’s use of this right. The death penalty should be very rare, if used at all, and more than arguing for it’s own right to use this harsh penalty, the State should be cognizant of it’s grave responsibility to reflect the mercy and love of God in its judicial decisions.
Pope John Paul II refered to capital punishment as “cruel and unnecessary” in a speech in St. Louis, Mo. in 1999. It was also during this visit to St. Louis that the Pope requested the Governor of Missouri to grant a stay of execution for a man who was scheduled to be executed on the day of the Pope’s arrival. That execution was cancelled and the man’s sentence was changed to life imprisonment without parole.
You are mistaken to think that the Pope’s statement emphasizing the absolute value of the 5th commandment is a sanction for the death penalty. If anything, it is a warning against making judgments which may condemn innocent men and women to death in the name of justice. Such mistaken judgments have been made and, if “Thou shalt not kill” is indeed an absolute value (and I believe it is), then the State is subject to the very same condemnation from God as is the person who murders. Rather than leaving open the door for executions, the Pope’s statement calls for a deeper reflection on and a greater use of mercy in the State’s deliberations.
The Church has never said that executions are just, only that they may be just under certain circumstances. The Pope and the U.S. Bishops have said that those circumstances are seldom seen and are practically nonexistant in modern democratic societies. The presumption at present is that executions are not just and the State bears the responsibility of proving that an execution is just before passing sentence. Your last line concerning the Pope’s opposition to the death penalty not because it is unjust, but because it is unnecessary, makes little sense. If an execution is unnecessary and is carried out anyway, it is unjust.
Your inquirey concerning the Christian position on rash judgment and gratuitous insult is, I take it, rhetorical. If not, I’m sure you can find the correct answer to your question on your own. As rhetoric, however, you seem to be saying that I have no right to think there are some people who are more interested in making the condemned murderer suffer more than allowing him to repent. Indeed, you seem to think I was refering to you in making the statement. I was not, unless of course, you are one of those who are more interested in making the condemned person suffer rather than seek repentence. I have no way of knowing that and hope you are not in that category. Nevertheless, I stand by my statement that there are people who are in that category and that they do not reflect the teachings or spirit of Jesus in holding that stance. Indeed, it boggles the Christian imagination to think that Jesus could have pulled the switch, dropped the trap, inserted the needle, raised the axe, fired the faggots or pulled the trigger to execute anyone, including a murderer, and we rebel against that image of our Lord. We know instinctively that this is not what Jesus would have done or supported. Indeed, we are given the example of Jesus interrupting a public execution of a woman caught in adultery and releasing her from those who would condemn her to death. Was she innocent? It doesn’t seem so, but we find that the emphasis Jesus places on mercy is greater than that placed on judicial action or the letter of the law. I think our courts should imitate the actions of Jesus in this respect and be merciful in justice, rather than vengeful.
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Ender
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Her position did not develop; it changed. Vatican City had the death penalty on her books until 1969; JPII made no reference to anything previously written that supports his position. More to the point, it appears more likely that this is simply JPII’s personal opinion and does not rise to the level of Church teaching.
This statement is false. As I showed with the quote from Innocent I, there was no prior position against capital punishment. There were individual Church Fathers who wrote against it but their position was never the Church’s position.
What is the primary objective that all punishment must satisfy? It is neither deterrence nor protection; it is retribution … justice.
Your uncharitable judgment of others is no argument at all; it is simply an inappropriate comment.
Ender
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