Bringing criminals to justice,is that forgiveness?

[Paul_theApostle]

Is bringing criminals to justice forgiveness?

Should we forgive and forget or do everything we can to put them behind bars?

I heard a story of a monk whos brother was murdered,the murderer was in the monks house and the police knocked on the door looking for him,the monk hid the murderer in his house so the police wouldnt find him ,the monk didnt want him to get caught by the police…

 

[Trishie]

When we do wrong things we draw a consequence upon ourselves.
This is a fact in so many aspects of our lives.
Our acts have consequences, good or bad.

Should I never discipline my child just forgive everything without consequences, so that he will grow up thinking he can do anything at all and not have to face consequences? What kind of citizen, and what kind of father would he become?
Of course I forgive him, but his actions do have consequences.

Taking prisoners to justice isn’t vengeance, but if I flout the law in a way that is harmful to others, then what will make me reconsider how I live if I’m permitted to suffer no consequences? There is at least an intention of rehabilitation of prisoners, but if they instead allow themselves to be led further astray, this too is a consequence that requires their cooperation to whatever degree. Yes, it is a terrible thing for a criminal to have to face his consequence and sadly, his family with him.

Yet if I have proved a danger to others, if I have murdered or abused anyone, if I remain a danger in the community, then should I be left there free to hurt more people?
Should the murderer and the pedophile be left in the community free to enact further crimes.

Forgiveness doesn’t mean no consequences.
If we sin, there are consequences.

God forgives us when we repent, which not all criminals do, but there are consequences to our sins:

Proverbs 3:11-12 “My son, do not despise the Lord’s discipline and do not resent his rebuke, because the Lord disciplines those he loves, as a father the son he delights in.”

Galatians 6:7 “Do not delude yourself into thinking God can be cheated: where a man sows, there he reaps.”

1Corinthians 11: 32 “when we are judged in this way by the Lord, we are being disciplined so that we will not be finally condemned with the world.”

 

[Arizona_Mike]

Is bringing criminals to justice forgiveness?

Should we forgive and forget or do everything we can to put them behind bars?

I heard a story of a monk whos brother was murdered,the murderer was in the monks house and the police knocked on the door looking for him,the monk hid the murderer in his house so the police wouldnt find him ,the monk didnt want him to get caught by the police…

The namesake for your screen-name addressed this in Romans 13:

4 For the one in authority is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for rulers do not bear the sword for no reason. They are God’s servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. 5 Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also as a matter of conscience.

Crimes should be viewed with an eye to extenuating circumstances, but if turning a blind eye to crime results in the death of an innocent, or if the murderer that monk hid had gone on to murder a child, would that monk not have been culpable in her murder?

 

[Jaypeeto4]

**Should the murderer and the pedophile be left in the community free to enact further crimes.

Forgiveness doesn’t mean no consequences.
If we sin, there are consequences.

God forgives us when we repent, which not all criminals do, but there are consequences to our sins:

Proverbs 3:11-12 “My son, do not despise the Lord’s discipline and do not resent his rebuke, because the Lord disciplines those he loves, as a father the son he delights in.”

Galatians 6:7 “Do not delude yourself into thinking God can be cheated: where a man sows, there he reaps.”

1Corinthians 11: 32 “when we are judged in this way by the Lord, we are being disciplined so that we will not be finally condemned with the world.” **

Good post, TRISHIE !!
I’m glad that you recognize something that many do not (and its not all their fault, either), and that is, that Sins are, in fact, CRIMES, whether the State prosecutes those acts or not. A “Sin” is not merely an “act of imperfection,” as some have seemingly reduced Sin to being, but a VIOLATION of a LAW, whether human, Divine, or BOTH, and violations of laws are criminal acts. (( Then there is “thought crime,” which even Jesus teaches is real, but let’s not open THAT can of worms, because tyrants grossly abuse this concept )).

I said it is not Christians’s fault that most of us do not realize how serious Sins are, that they are in fact “criminal” deeds. Why is that? Well, part of it is our Christian culture.
To put it simplistically: Our Crucifixes are GORGEOUS.
Trishie noted correctly that Sins have consequences. Someone has to pay for them.
And ultimately, Someone DID pay for all of them. ((We have to pay some of it, too, as
a discipline)). But we, even most orthodox Catholics, do not realize how evil Sins actually are, because, again, our crucifixes are gorgeous. Look in your Catholic supply catalog.
Beautiful!! Solid gold or beautiful wood or shiny bronze, with a BEAUTIFUL Silver Corpus (Body of Christ) affixed to it. Shiny and gleaming and pretty. Looks lovely on the wall.
And look at the “Christ” of fine silver affixed to it: not a DROP of blood anywhere on that shiny Corpus. That’s a subtle reason, but a real reason, in part, why we don’t understand how evil Sins actually are. For Catholics, many of our crucifixes are beautiful, and for protestants, their crosses don’t even have even so much as a bloodless body on them. They are empty crosses.
Look at a REALISTIC crucifix sometime.
Then we will start to realize how evil Sins are, especially more serious or “mortal” sins.
A REAL-looking crucifix is hideous. It is horrendous looking. The Corpus affixed to it has blood pouring down Christ’s face, lacerations all over his body, and blood pouring out, streaming down from, nearly every pore. It’s a horrifying sight, not something lovely that accents your home’s tasteful Decor.
The whole purpose of using Crucifixion as a means of execution,
on the part of the Romans, their INTENTION in using this means,
was to instill SHEER TERROR into the hearts of all their subjects.
Disobey US, and THIS is HOW you will be punished. That was the message.
And Jesus chose, from all eternity,
to die BY THIS VERY METHOD. Before the world was made, he KNEW
that this method would be used, and chose to incarnate WHEN it was being used
and to allow himself to be put to death by THIS means rather than deny one word of the truth, in order to fully pay for all the crimes and sins of His human creatures.
Sin is horrible.
Our crucifixes ARE too pretty.
Love to all.

 

[bilop]

Is bringing criminals to justice forgiveness?

Should we forgive and forget or do everything we can to put them behind bars?

I heard a story of a monk whos brother was murdered,the murderer was in the monks house and the police knocked on the door looking for him,the monk hid the murderer in his house so the police wouldnt find him ,the monk didnt want him to get caught by the police…

One can not be forgiven until one repents. Bringing the criminal to justice will hopefully lead to their repentence, as they see the consequences of their actions. Leaving them free to continue their life of crime will likely not cause them to repent.

A human forgiving a criminal does him no good unless he repents, and is forgiven by God.

God Bless

 

[Jaypeeto4]

Addendum to TRISHIE,
again, loved your post.

There has to be rehabilitation if possible. And not all people convicted are williing, nor have any intention, now or ever, of repenting.

But there has to be a better way of going about this than
putting nonviolent people into the same places with brutally violent thugs and killers.
These nonviolent people are raped repeatedly, beaten, stabbed, mutilated by monsters
who are far far worse than they are.

And some ((not all)) of the guards are sickos, too.
The Abu Ghraib Prison war criminals in Iraq were American PRISON GUARDS.
In Alabama, Catholic Apologist Russell Ford, an inmate,
had to intervene to save the life of one of these sicko guards after the guard
VIOLENTLY ATTACKED a Catholic Priest during the Recessional after the
Priest had just finished offering the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
The other inmates, Catholic converts who had not yet conquered their violent tendencies,
were so outraged by the attack on the innocent priest that they were in the process of tearing that guard apart limb from limb. Only the intervention of Russell Ford and few other more mature in the faith Catholic inmates saved this vicious and sacrilegious guard’s life.

People should not be put into places
where they come out 1000 times morally-worse than they were before they went in,
made that way by the violent and demon-infested atmosphere in those places.

In the bible, except for the sexual sins which (in that age before antibiotics) were punished with death, nonviolent offenses were dealt with by such things as restitution or sometimes indentured servitude. The Law of Moses, to be enacted fully once the nation was established in the land, made no provision whatever for “prisons.” These come from pagan societies. In the Tanakh, if you stole from somebody, you paid him back.
If you violated another person through assault, you were punished corporally.
If you raped a person, you could be executed or forced to marry the person ((though why in God’s name you’d force the victim to marry the attacker…)), if you murdered somebody, on purpose, you were executed for it. (( This was not, at all, always enforced, by the way, and both King David and the unbelievably diabolical King Manasseh, are proof of that )).

Still, even though Christ’s death atoned and fully paid for every one of our offenses,
true repentance requires a desire to right the wrong, either directly or indirectly.
If we don’t try to right it, or at least REALLY WANT TO, then we are not REALLY repentant. We have to try to correct the moral imbalance our misdeeds have created.
That ennobles US and spares us from having to do it all in PURGATORY.
But you don’t “throw people away,” which very often is what our systems do in the Western world. Rapists, child rapists and abusers, murderers, these folks are very likely, very very likely, to continuously offend, however, and have to be removed from the community, usually PERMANENTLY. Nobody “enjoys” having to do that to people,
but innocent members of society, and the most helpless, have a RIGHT to be protected from dangerous predatory offenders and evildoers.

 

[aicirt]

Is bringing criminals to justice forgiveness?

Should we forgive and forget or do everything we can to put them behind bars?

I heard a story of a monk whos brother was murdered,the murderer was in the monks house and the police knocked on the door looking for him,the monk hid the murderer in his house so the police wouldnt find him ,the monk didnt want him to get caught by the police…

Why didn’t he want him to get caught by the police? What if he went out and killed someone else? This was the monk’s biological brother? Not that it makes a difference but there’s more to this story than what you’ve stated.

 

[Jaypeeto4]

**One can not be forgiven until one repents. Bringing the criminal to justice will hopefully lead to their repentence, as they see the consequences of their actions. Leaving them free to continue their life of crime will likely not cause them to repent.

A human forgiving a criminal does him no good unless he repents, and is forgiven by God.

God Bless **

Very sensible. And you are right, of course.
But then again, consider the case of Alessandro Serinelli.
Who was he?
He was the young man, actually we here would consider him an Adult,
who viciously murdered (SAINT) Maria Goretti because this UNDERAGE CHILD
would not have sex with him. He schemed to trap her alone in the house with him
and then vengefully stabbed this child repeatedly while she pled for her life.
It took her I think two days to die in horrible pain from those wounds.
She forgave him as she lay dying, but this at the time had no effect on him.

He was convicted and thrown into prison.
He was angrier than ever, infuriated. He was filled with rage.
He couldn’t take revenge on Maria, as she was already dead. But he was filled
with loathing. His imprisonment wasn’t moving him toward repentance one bit.

Then something happened.
Something unexpected. Which DID have a powerful effect.

Maria Goretti appeared in person to Alessandro in his prison cell and
pronounced her full forgiveness of him. He totally repented because of that.

The whole story, after this, is very long and involved, way too long for a posting here,
but suffice it to say, that after he was released, he lived a life of virtue,
BEFRIENDED Maria’s mother and other relatives, and,
WITH Maria Goretti’s mom and relatives, Alessandro Serinelli, her sadistic killer,
attended her Canonization by Pope Pius XII in Saint Peter’s Square.

Sometimes forgiveness does work.
I think the fact that she came to him from heaven itself,
was an added powerful Impetus, though.

 

[Ubenedictus]

Is bringing criminals to justice forgiveness?

Should we forgive and forget or do everything we can to put them behind bars?

I heard a story of a monk whos brother was murdered,the murderer was in the monks house and the police knocked on the door looking for him,the monk hid the murderer in his house so the police wouldnt find him ,the monk didnt want him to get caught by the police…

a fine question i hope to follow this thread, i find it hard to differentiate between justice and revenge. Actually in my minds eye, justice is for God, forgiveness is for man. The line between justice and revenge may be really blurry, those who say they want justice may simply be venting anger, revenge. If i could be as calm as the monk about my brother’s death, i may do same.
Ubenedictus

 

[Ubenedictus]

Addendum to TRISHIE,
again, loved your post.

There has to be rehabilitation if possible. And not all people convicted are williing, nor have any intention, now or ever, of repenting.

But there has to be a better way of going about this than
putting nonviolent people into the same places with brutally violent thugs and killers.
These nonviolent people are raped repeatedly, beaten, stabbed, mutilated by monsters
who are far far worse than they are.

And some ((not all)) of the guards are sickos, too.
The Abu Ghraib Prison war criminals in Iraq were American PRISON GUARDS.
In Alabama, Catholic Apologist Russell Ford, an inmate,
had to intervene to save the life of one of these sicko guards after the guard
VIOLENTLY ATTACKED a Catholic Priest during the Recessional after the
Priest had just finished offering the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
The other inmates, Catholic converts who had not yet conquered their violent tendencies,
were so outraged by the attack on the innocent priest that they were in the process of tearing that guard apart limb from limb. Only the intervention of Russell Ford and few other more mature in the faith Catholic inmates saved this vicious and sacrilegious guard’s life.

People should not be put into places
where they come out 1000 times morally-worse than they were before they went in,
made that way by the violent and demon-infested atmosphere in those places.

In the bible, except for the sexual sins which (in that age before antibiotics) were punished with death, nonviolent offenses were dealt with by such things as restitution or sometimes indentured servitude. The Law of Moses, to be enacted fully once the nation was established in the land, made no provision whatever for “prisons.” These come from pagan societies. In the Tanakh, if you stole from somebody, you paid him back.
If you violated another person through assault, you were punished corporally.
If you raped a person, you could be executed or forced to marry the person ((though why in God’s name you’d force the victim to marry the attacker…)), if you murdered somebody, on purpose, you were executed for it. (( This was not, at all, always enforced, by the way, and both King David and the unbelievably diabolical King Manasseh, are proof of that )).

Still, even though Christ’s death atoned and fully paid for every one of our offenses,
true repentance requires a desire to right the wrong, either directly or indirectly.
If we don’t try to right it, or at least REALLY WANT TO, then we are not REALLY repentant. We have to try to correct the moral imbalance our misdeeds have created.
That ennobles US and spares us from having to do it all in PURGATORY.
But you don’t “throw people away,” which very often is what our systems do in the Western world. Rapists, child rapists and abusers, murderers, these folks are very likely, very very likely, to continuously offend, however, and have to be removed from the community, usually PERMANENTLY. Nobody “enjoys” having to do that to people,
but innocent members of society, and the most helpless, have a RIGHT to be protected from dangerous predatory offenders and evildoers.

a good thought, but is the prison there to make the inmates better? or is it there to punish them and make them worse?
Ubenedictus

 

[JRKH]

Is bringing criminals to justice forgiveness?

Should we forgive and forget or do everything we can to put them behind bars?

There is so much more to this than simple forgiveness. There is Love.
Love as Jesus commands us to Love in the Gospels requires that we look at all aspects of the matter. We are to Love our neighbor as our self.
Would we be doing this if we permit an unrepentant criminal to prey on those we love as ourselves?
Surely Loving and forgiving those who have wronged us is a good thing, but so also is acting in a way that is for their highest good which can rightly mean being brought before the justice of civil law and doing a stint in jail.

Likewise, a truly repentant criminal will not seek to evade capture if it will put others in harms way. If my neighbor is willing to put me in harms way (harboring a fugitive or whatever) is he loving me as he should? What does this say about his professed repentance?

As I hope you begin to see - there are many layers to this other than simple “forgiveness”.

Peace
James

 

[Ubenedictus]

One can not be forgiven until one repents. Bringing the criminal to justice will hopefully lead to their repentence, as they see the consequences of their actions. Leaving them free to continue their life of crime will likely not cause them to repent.

A human forgiving a criminal does him no good unless he repents, and is forgiven by God.

God Bless

a beautiful one, i have seen forgiveness touch people even those considered hardened, that is something our justice punishment doesnt do. I think one repents/responds better to forgiveness than our justice/punishment system. How do you see it?
Ubenedictus

 

[Ubenedictus]

**Should the murderer and the pedophile be left in the community free to enact further crimes.

Forgiveness doesn’t mean no consequences.
If we sin, there are consequences.

God forgives us when we repent, which not all criminals do, but there are consequences to our sins:

Proverbs 3:11-12 “My son, do not despise the Lord’s discipline and do not resent his rebuke, because the Lord disciplines those he loves, as a father the son he delights in.”

Galatians 6:7 “Do not delude yourself into thinking God can be cheated: where a man sows, there he reaps.”

1Corinthians 11: 32 “when we are judged in this way by the Lord, we are being disciplined so that we will not be finally condemned with the world.” **

Good post, TRISHIE !!
I’m glad that you recognize something that many do not (and its not all their fault, either), and that is, that Sins are, in fact, CRIMES, whether the State prosecutes those acts or not. A “Sin” is not merely an “act of imperfection,” as some have seemingly reduced Sin to being, but a VIOLATION of a LAW, whether human, Divine, or BOTH, and violations of laws are criminal acts. (( Then there is “thought crime,” which even Jesus teaches is real, but let’s not open THAT can of worms, because tyrants grossly abuse this concept )).

I said it is not Christians’s fault that most of us do not realize how serious Sins are, that they are in fact “criminal” deeds. Why is that? Well, part of it is our Christian culture.
To put it simplistically: Our Crucifixes are GORGEOUS.
Trishie noted correctly that Sins have consequences. Someone has to pay for them.
And ultimately, Someone DID pay for all of them. ((We have to pay some of it, too, as
a discipline)). But we, even most orthodox Catholics, do not realize how evil Sins actually are, because, again, our crucifixes are gorgeous. Look in your Catholic supply catalog.
Beautiful!! Solid gold or beautiful wood or shiny bronze, with a BEAUTIFUL Silver Corpus (Body of Christ) affixed to it. Shiny and gleaming and pretty. Looks lovely on the wall.
And look at the “Christ” of fine silver affixed to it: not a DROP of blood anywhere on that shiny Corpus. That’s a subtle reason, but a real reason, in part, why we don’t understand how evil Sins actually are. For Catholics, many of our crucifixes are beautiful, and for protestants, their crosses don’t even have even so much as a bloodless body on them. They are empty crosses.
Look at a REALISTIC crucifix sometime.
Then we will start to realize how evil Sins are, especially more serious or “mortal” sins.
A REAL-looking crucifix is hideous. It is horrendous looking. The Corpus affixed to it has blood pouring down Christ’s face, lacerations all over his body, and blood pouring out, streaming down from, nearly every pore. It’s a horrifying sight, not something lovely that accents your home’s tasteful Decor.
The whole purpose of using Crucifixion as a means of execution,
on the part of the Romans, their INTENTION in using this means,
was to instill SHEER TERROR into the hearts of all their subjects.
Disobey US, and THIS is HOW you will be punished. That was the message.
And Jesus chose, from all eternity,
to die BY THIS VERY METHOD. Before the world was made, he KNEW
that this method would be used, and chose to incarnate WHEN it was being used
and to allow himself to be put to death by THIS means rather than deny one word of the truth, in order to fully pay for all the crimes and sins of His human creatures.
Sin is horrible.
Our crucifixes ARE too pretty.
Love to all.

good post, this one got me thinking. Sin is really horrible, i think that crucifix is to remind us of the love of God. Love seeks to make the beloved better, i have a feeling that repentance is what Jesus wish for the sinner to make them better. A payment for sin would ineffective in this world if the sinner cant willingly pay or balance his evil with Good. What payment happens in the prisons? Instead the sinner come back worse, is that the message of the crucifix? I think there should be a better and effective way.
Ubenedictus

 

[Ubenedictus]

The namesake for your screen-name addressed this in Romans 13:

4 For the one in authority is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for rulers do not bear the sword for no reason. They are God’s servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. 5 Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also as a matter of conscience.

Crimes should be viewed with an eye to extenuating circumstances, but if turning a blind eye to crime results in the death of an innocent, or if the murderer that monk hid had gone on to murder a child, would that monk not have been culpable in her murder?

what happens when the criminal is touched by the monks’ forgiveness and he repent and become a guy who touches life. Isnt that a better payment than prison?
Ubenedictus

 

[JRKH]

what happens when the criminal is touched by the monks’ forgiveness and he repent and become a guy who touches life. Isnt that a better payment than prison?
Ubenedictus

IF(as opposed to “when”) the criminal is so touched then yes he could do great good. Of course he could also do great good for others in prison as well. - perhaps even greater good since, by stepping up and accepting punishment, he is being a much more open and living example of repentance.
If he repents, but cannot share this repentance…having to continue to hide…Not telling anyone of the matter…it surely limits the great good that could come of it.

Just some thoughts…

Peace
James

 

[fix]

Is bringing criminals to justice forgiveness?

Should we forgive and forget or do everything we can to put them behind bars?

I heard a story of a monk whos brother was murdered,the murderer was in the monks house and the police knocked on the door looking for him,the monk hid the murderer in his house so the police wouldnt find him ,the monk didnt want him to get caught by the police…

This from the CCC:

1899 The authority required by the moral order derives from God: "Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore he who resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment."17

 

[aicirt]

During last week’s Eucharist Congress in Dublin, an Aftrican Bishop told the story of his family being slaughtered in the Hutus-Tutus war in 1992. Much later a man came before the Bishop. He fell on his knees begging the Bishop to forgive him because he was the one who had slaughtered his father. The killer was a family friend. The Bishop never knew and never suspected. Aghast, the Bishop drew back looking at this “friend” in stunned horror. Finally, he reached out embracing the man. The Bishop said at that moment a terrible weight had been lifted from his shoulders. The killer wept too thankful he had been forgiven.

This man sought forgiveness. Whatever had occured to make that happen is left to our immagination. The benefit to the Bishop was he was freed from his anger.

 

[Paul_theApostle]

After i posted my question,i also thought of what people have been saying here,about safety for the community and not letting criminals roam free to commit more crimes

From St Pauls epistle i see now how the Governing powers have the right to bring people to justice

I get confused though about when i see on the news families very pleased and happy when a criminal who hurt their family is convicted in court and they are say that they are satisfied or relieved that the person is finally sentenced and brought to justice

now are those people and families being forgiving or wanting revenge?

 

[JRKH]

After i posted my question,i also thought of what people have been saying here,about safety for the community and not letting criminals roam free to commit more crimes

From St Pauls epistle i see now how the Governing powers have the right to bring people to justice

I get confused though about when i see on the news families very pleased and happy when a criminal who hurt their family is convicted in court and they are say that they are satisfied or relieved that the person is finally sentenced and brought to justice

now are those people and families being forgiving or wanting revenge?

Perhaps they just want Justice.

It’s impossible to make a call on these things. Each case, each person is different.

Peace
James

 

[oceanea]

I would like to ask about the criminals who hid the criminals. They are not apologizing for their crimes, they are apologizing for the crimes of others. I believe that the men who abused the children are sick. But the men who hid them are arrogant, are corrupt. They are far worse than the abusers because they allowed it to continue. The put their institution above the precious lives of children. There is no excuse for that. And as of yet, I have heard no apology.