Can a Catholic Still Maintain the Death Penalty?

[Motherwit]

All of those are moral evils, not prudential matters…
[/quote]
Who makes that determination? By what measure is this gauged? I’m looking to understand what moral authority you are appealing to?

That hasn’t been proven at all outside of random peoples opinions.

Again, that is an opinion only.

 

[Motherwit]

You consider popes to be random people’s opinions?
[/quote]

I’ve never read any Pope declare the death penalty a commandment, dogma or ‘eternal doctrine’. That is an interpretation coming from random people’s opinions. The Church has referenced cp as a ‘permission’ or an exception to the commandment ‘thou shall not kill’ but always in regard the states duty to society’s good.

 

[Motherwit]

I don’t accept that Popes ‘disagree’ with Francis at all. They taught for their time on one aspect and that is what we’d now refer to the death penalty not being intrinsically evil. That doesn’t mean that it is intrinsically just though.

Our Lord commanded them to forbear from uprooting the cockle in order to spare the wheat, i.e. the good. This occurs when the wicked cannot be slain without the good being killed with them, either because the wicked lie hidden among the good, or because they have many followers, so that they cannot be killed without danger to the good, as Augustine says (Contra Parmen. iii, 2). Wherefore our Lord teaches that we should rather allow the wicked to live, and that vengeance is to be delayed until the last judgment, rather than that the good be put to death together with the wicked. When, however, the good incur no danger, but rather are protected and saved by the slaying of the wicked, then the latter may be lawfully put to death.

All those Popes at least since the 13th century have referenced Aquinas as correct.

 

[Motherwit]

My desire to defend the Pope and the teachings of the Magisterium today might irritate you but that won’t silence me. I have a right to defend my faith.

 

[Motherwit]

Motherwit:

What entitles us to do that?

Our own sense of right and wrong.

There is really no authority to condemn others behavior based on that alone. For it to have the full force of truth behind it we have to give an account of the source of the authority that confirms our sense of right and wrong. That’s what I’m asking of opponents of Church teaching. What is the source of authority that confirms your claim? It can’t be the Church because the Church doesn’t contradict itself. If the dp is inadmissible today, it means that in the past even though some thought of it as a commandment, it was actually a permission for the sake of the common good. We now have a fuller understanding that it’s service is ultimately to human dignity and if that is not being served it’s just unjust killing.

 

[Ender]

Pro Life = thou shalt not kill = NO Death penalty. ever. under any circumstance. period. Pretty easy on this one actually.

So easy one can only wonder how the Fathers, Doctors, popes, and councils got it wrong for 2000 years. How could they have been so wrong for so long, and if they were all wrong about that, one can surely wonder how much they got right. If they were all wrong about something so simple what is the basis for trusting them on anything? And what does that say about the claim that the Holy Spirit protects the church from serious error? That one is pretty much up in smoke if virtually everyone in the church taught evil as good for two millennia. You might want to consider the implications of your position.

 

[o_mlly]

That one is pretty much up in smoke if virtually everyone in the church taught evil as good for two millennia.

The church has not taught that death is ever good. Death came into the world through sin. As an effect of sin, death is always evil and can only be justified by a proportionate or greater good.

The state has the conditional right to impose the death penalty but never the duty. Is it possible that a right to act exists but the circumstance to act on that right cannot? The state of one’s knowledge is possibly such a circumstance. Before something is known, we may act in ignorance one way but after coming to know, we may not. Nor can we ever go back to a state of unknowing.

Is the church’s teaching authority premised on a perfect understanding of God’s will from its inception? If so then what role does the Holy Spirit have in Christ’s promise?

“I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now.
But when he comes, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you to all truth" (John 16 12:13).

 

[Rau]

That’s what I’m asking of opponents of Church teaching. What is the source of authority that confirms your claim?

The debate is about the meaning of recent statements. My claim is that the church’s recent statements on CP are prudential judgements. Your remarks through the thread suggest you concur. The question therefore is the one I put earlier. Can anyone express such a judgement and require the assent of others? I don’t think you answered that question earlier?

 

[Motherwit]

Motherwit:

That’s what I’m asking of opponents of Church teaching. What is the source of authority that confirms your claim?

The debate is about the meaning of recent statements. My claim is that the church’s recent statements on CP are prudential judgements. Your remarks through the thread suggest you concur. The question therefore is the one I put earlier. Can anyone express such a judgement and require the assent of others? I don’t think you answered that question earlier?

It’s fairly obvious that the Church has been gradually coming to a teaching of inadmissibility. All the statements over the last 30 or more years have really been very direct but as is the case when something has become a beloved ‘institution’, it behooves patience and time to bring everyone around to the truth. I think I stated in this thread that ‘prudential judgment’ is being used to artificially keep a wedge in the door of abolition and that the next thing will be the Church addressing that with the strongest possible denouncement.

 

[Bernoulli]

It’s fairly obvious that the Church has been gradually coming to a teaching of inadmissibility. All the statements over the last 30 or more years have really been very direct but as is the case when something has become a beloved ‘institution’, it behooves patience and time to bring everyone around to the truth.

The previous formulations were more clear that the teaching was a prudential judgment, and that the death penalty is not always excluded. For example, the old text of the Catechism referred to “the traditional teaching of the Church” that “does not exclude recourse to the death penalty”. Even the previous Pope wanted to abolish the death penalty, but at the same time, they couldn’t speak against the truth.

 

[Motherwit]

Motherwit:

It’s fairly obvious that the Church has been gradually coming to a teaching of inadmissibility. All the statements over the last 30 or more years have really been very direct but as is the case when something has become a beloved ‘institution’, it behooves patience and time to bring everyone around to the truth.

The previous formulations were more clear that the teaching was a prudential judgment, and that the death penalty is not always excluded. For example, the old text of the Catechism referred to “the traditional teaching of the Church” that “does not exclude recourse to the death penalty”. Even the previous Pope wanted to abolish the death penalty, but at the same time, they couldn’t speak against the truth.

It’s really no different to the trajectory of the Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus issue. Catholic Seminaries and universities in the earliest 20th century, weren’t strident on the interpretation that only Catholics can get to heaven. Then the Church was challenged in the early 1940 by Fr Feeney and his companions who were adamant that it was an eternal truth that no one bar Catholics could be saved. They used the early Fathers and the Scriptures to prove the Church’s position false as well. It took another 50 years for the matter of the Church’s interpretation to be stamped in ink in Pope John Paul II’s 1992 Catechism.

EENS CCC 846-7 … This affirmation is not aimed at those who, through no fault of their own, do not know Christ and his Church

And with the dp, around the world the local Churches have been at the forefront of the abolition movement. Then the dissent arose in the US when Sr Helen Prejean began a public campaign for abolition in 1982. 38 years later, the Church has stamped her position in that same ink.

CCC 2267 …Consequently, the Church teaches, in the light of the Gospel, that “the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person”,i and she works with determination for its abolition worldwide.

Those of us who trust that the Church is our true teacher don’t buy into this idea that any old joe can happily call her teachings errors or mere opinions.

 

[Bernoulli]

It’s really no different to the trajectory of the Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus issue.

I don’t think invincible ignorance was a total novelty. It exists in the Scriptures (Romans 1) and the Church Fathers (St. Augustine’s letter).
Interpreting some passages of Unam Sanctam to account for invincible ignorance is not obvious at first sight, which shows that hermeneutical methods are needed to interpret magisterial documents. The case of the Catechism change is similar to Unam Sanctam — the meaning consistent with the whole doctrine is not always straightforward.

 

[Rau]

I think I stated in this thread that ‘prudential judgment’ is being used to artificially keep a wedge in the door of abolition and that the next thing will be the Church addressing that with the strongest possible denouncement.

CP is being revised to “intrinsically evil”, or judgements about its use are prudential in nature. One or the other - choose one. If the former, its “moral object” has been reassessed to something which is evil from good. If the latter, judgements about Intention or balance of consequences are being made.

“Inadmissible” - as something distinct from intrinsically evil - does not fit any catholic theology of which I am aware. I maintain the word has been used as the strongest available language to describe a prudential judgement about it. I say all of this as a supporter of abolition of CP by civil authorities.

 

[Motherwit]

Motherwit:

It’s really no different to the trajectory of the Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus issue.

I don’t think invincible ignorance was a total novelty. It exists in the Scriptures (Romans 1) and the Church Fathers (St. Augustine’s letter).
Interpreting some passages of Unam Sanctam to account for invincible ignorance is not obvious at first sight, which shows that hermeneutical methods are needed to interpret magisterial documents. The case of the Catechism change is similar to Unam Sanctam — the meaning consistent with the whole doctrine is not always straightforward.

Making my point about the death penalty in the scheme of history.

 

[Motherwit]

Motherwit:

I think I stated in this thread that ‘prudential judgment’ is being used to artificially keep a wedge in the door of abolition and that the next thing will be the Church addressing that with the strongest possible denouncement.

CP is being revised to “intrinsically evil”, or judgements about its use are prudential in nature. One or the other - choose one. If the former, its “moral object” has been reassessed to something which is evil from good. If the latter, judgements about Intention or balance of consequences are being made.

“Inadmissible” - as something distinct from intrinsically evil - does not fit any catholic theology of which I am aware. I maintain the word has been used as the strongest available language to describe a prudential judgement about it. I say all of this as a supporter of abolition of CP by civil authorities.

The claim that unless something is intrinsically evil, it’s just a matter of personal opinion is as far from Catholic theology as can be.

 

[Ender]

The church has not taught that death is ever good. Death came into the world through sin. As an effect of sin, death is always evil and can only be justified by a proportionate or greater good.

If death was always evil it could never be justified since one may not do evil that good may come of it (CCC 1789), therefore it cannot always be evil.

The state has the conditional right to impose the death penalty but never the duty.

The state has the duty to apply a just sentence for crime. Death is a just penalty for intentional murder as it is the one God has commanded. Again, there can be any number of practical reasons for not applying it in particular situations, but I have yet to see the argument that it should not be the default punishment absent such prudential objections.

Is the church’s teaching authority premised on a perfect understanding of God’s will from its inception? If so then what role does the Holy Spirit have in Christ’s promise?

It is quite unclear how we can claim it is the Holy Spirit leading the church to oppose capital punishment now when presumably it was the Spirit which led the church to acknowledge it for 2000 years. What’s going on here?

 

[BornInMarch]

(B) If I were to look up world map showing what nations have legalized abortion, would you want me to conclude that abortion is moral?

This is a good point. The argument that “every other country has Stance B/we’re the only country with Stance A” only works if one believes in moral relativism, which Catholic Theology does not allow for.

 

[o_mlly]

If death was always evil it could never be justified since one may not do evil that good may come of it (CCC 1789), therefore it cannot always be evil.

Death is always an evil effect that one may tolerate under the principle of the double effect. One of those principles – the good effect may not come through the evil effect – is the point in 1789.

The state has the duty to apply a just sentence for crime. Death is a just penalty for intentional murder as it is the one God has commanded.

Death, being not the only just penalty for murder, gives the state other options.

It is quite unclear how we can claim it is the Holy Spirit leading the church to oppose capital punishment now when presumably it was the Spirit which led the church to acknowledge it for 2000 years. What’s going on here?

I’m not certain but something has been going on for at least the last 30 or so years. The church teaching on the evil of duels to settle personal disputes took several centuries to become the sensus fidelium. We may have a long way to go.

https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05184b.htm

 

[Ender]

The claim that unless something is intrinsically evil, it’s just a matter of personal opinion is as far from Catholic theology as can be.

That has never been the argument. This is the argument:

1. An act either is, or is not, intrinsically evil.
2. If an act is not intrinsically evil then the decision to commit it is a prudential judgment.
3. Prudential judgment, even from a pope, does not oblige assent.
4. That we may dissent from a judgment does not mean we are free to simply disregard it.

Death is always an evil effect that one may tolerate under the principle of the double effect.

Punishment itself can be considered an evil depending on the perspective from which it is viewed, but it is in fact considered a good when it is applied.

The evil of natural defect, or of punishment, He does will, by willing the good to which such evils are attached. Thus in willing justice He wills punishment;…

…because the judge has care of the common good, which is justice, and therefore he wishes the thief’s death, which has the aspect of good in relation to the common estate; (Aquinas ST I-II 19,10)

Death, being not the only just penalty for murder, gives the state other options.

This assertion assumes facts not in evidence, but, death being just, what is the moral argument against it?

 

[billsherman]

If an act is not intrinsically evil then the decision to commit it is a prudential judgment.

Uh . . . I’m fairly certain Catholic moral theology is a little deeper than “Here is a list of things you can’t do, everything else is cool.”

I’m not a theologian, but it sounds kind of like you just nullified the entire discipline.