Can a Catholic Still Maintain the Death Penalty?

[Motherwit]

Motherwit:

This is the very essence of the Americanist heresy. ‘Testem Benevolentiae Nostrae’

This is an assertion without any substance at all, starting with the facts that (a) no one has challenge the infallibility of the pope (when he teaches infallibly), and (b) absolutely no one has suggested that 2267 in all its variations is infallibly taught.

You’ve misunderstood Pope Leo’s statement. He is saying that in light of the defining of papal infallibility, American Catholics were using that to claim that only what is specifically defined as an infallible teaching requires assent. Everything else amounts to papal opinion without any significant authority.

they hold such liberty should be allowed in the Church, that her supervision and watchfulness being in some sense lessened, allowance be granted the faithful, each one to follow out more freely the leading of his own mind and the trend of his own proper activity.

… confounding of license with liberty, the passion for discussing and pouring contempt upon any possible subject, the assumed right to hold whatever opinions one pleases upon any subject and to set them forth in print to the world, have so wrapped minds in darkness that there is now a greater need of the Church’s teaching office than ever before, lest people become unmindful both of conscience and of duty."

Motherwit:

That came as a side note in a letter regarding the conditions for receiving Holy Communion in 2004. 16 years later there’s likely much more to consider since the Church has deemed it ‘inadmissible’.

If you’re going to appeal to Francis’ change then you have to abandon JPII’s change; they cannot coexist. If capital punishment is inadmissible then JPII’s concern with the state of a nation’s penal system is irrelevant; his position is no longer meaningful. Which pope have you chosen to believe?

To use Aquinas example again. The medical wisdom in the 13th century was that it was necessary to amputate an infected limb in order to save the whole body. Today medicine has treatment for infection that doesn’t require amputation of limbs and the body can be restored to wholeness without it. Both decisions serve the overall wholeness of the body. In fact they would be contradicting each other if today the decision to keep using amputation was taken. Just as a decision to keep using the death sentence in the light of alternative measures would also be the contradictory to the wholeness of the body of society.

 

[Rau]

Which I guess accounts for the cheering, celebrations, salivations, bbqing parties outside prison. Teared seating on a viewing platform. We killed a man. Woohoo. We are so good.

No - it does not account for that behaviour. You need to look into the hearts of the people partying to understand why they do.

 

[Rau]

The medical wisdom in the 13th century was that it was necessary to amputate an infected limb in order to save the whole body. Today medicine has treatment for infection that doesn’t require amputation of limbs and the body can be restored to wholeness without it. Both decisions serve the overall wholeness of the body. In fact they would be contradicting each other if today the decision to keep using amputation was taken.

In this scenario, it is as though there are 2 acts. The treatment, and the decision to prefer amputation to modern infection control. The latter would seemingly be inexplicable when overwhelming evidence says infection control better serves the whole.

Personally, I say non-lethal punishments better serve the whole too. JP 2 said that too. Francis 1 says that too. I could be wrong - though I would have a few Popes in my corner.

 

[Motherwit]

While I generally agree with this statement, they have had non-lethal means of dealing with criminals for life since before Scripture was penned. It’s not just about protecting all of society.
[/quote]

Nobody is saying that punishment should be abolished altogether. Justice is still being served. Just not in a bloody manner.

 

[Motherwit]

That’s not what I said.

I said they could have done it non-lethally back then, but they didn’t abolish it then, either.
[/quote]

It’s how we’ve grown isn’t it. Laws and mores changed as we better appreciated equal rights and physical and psychological impacts on human beings etc. We’ve evolved over time.

 

[Motherwit]

We do not appreciate life more than the early Christians, so I would say you are wrong, personally.
[/quote]

I seriously doubt that you would want to go back to crucifixions, scourgings, stocks, stranglings in the Forums, the racks, torture, exile, homo sacer (de citizened whereby anyone was allowed to kill the person with immunity). Society has grown in the undertanding of human dignity which is why we have abandoned that sort of cruelty.

 

[Motherwit]

The Church understands human dignity the same now as it did under Christ and so that argument does not apply.

God knows human dignity more than any person and He did not shy from the death penalty or directives to it.

It’s an argument between you and God, I’ll side with God.
[/quote]

I side with the Church guided by the Holy Spirit and the countries who’ve abolished the death penalty as an unacceptable measure today.

 

[o_mlly]

God did not execute the first murderer but protected him from execution. “If any one slays Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold’. And the Lord put a mark on Cain, lest any who came upon him should kill him” (Gen 4:15-16).

 

[CollegeCatholic24]

In my opinion, the death penalty is no longer a proper punishment unless the state’s jurisdiction do not have the necessary resources to keep the public safe from the offender. So, I believe the death penalty should be abolished in the U.S., especially since it contradicts the eighth amendment (cruel and unusual punishment).

 

[MarysLurker]

In my opinion, the death penalty is no longer a proper punishment unless the state’s jurisdiction do not have the necessary resources to keep the public safe from the offender

Can any government eliminate the risk that a life sentenced serial killer will falsify evidence decades later (once the case is forgotten, witnesses have died, etc.) in order to overturn his conviction or get release on bail?

 

[Ender]

You’ve misunderstood Pope Leo’s statement. He is saying that in light of the defining of papal infallibility, American Catholics were using that to claim that only what is specifically defined as an infallible teaching requires assent. Everything else amounts to papal opinion without any significant authority.

Whatever Pope Leo was referring to, and whatever you’re referring to by referencing him, is simply irrelevant given that no one, and certainly not me, has made such an obviously false claim.

The medical wisdom in the 13th century…

We’re not discussing the increase in scientific knowledge; we’re discussing morality, which, unlike knowledge, does not grow or change from one time to another.

Just as a decision to keep using the death sentence in the light of alternative measures would also be the contradictory to the wholeness of the body of society.

This is a vague generality which “resolves” the issues by refusing to actually address them. This is more of “we know so much more now than before”, which is an argument for a prudential choice, but not a doctrinal change.

 

[astntw]

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

most of humanity lives (China, India, Japan, Africa, the Middle East etc) lives in countries where it is legal.

as for church teaching, i dont understand how it can be moral but immoral , i guess space-time alters morality

 

[Motherwit]

The medical wisdom in the 13th century…

Everything that affects human beings is subject to moral considerations and judgment.

82. The intent of the Church’s social doctrine is of the religious and moral order [122]. Religious because the Church’s evangelizing and salvific mission embraces man “in the full truth of his existence, of his personal being and also of his community and social being”[123]. Moral because the Church aims at a “complete form of humanism”[124], that is to say, at the “liberation from everything that oppresses man” [125] and “the development of the whole man and of all men”[126]. The Church’s social doctrine indicates the path to follow for a society reconciled and in harmony through justice and love, a society that anticipates in history, in a preparatory and prefigurative manner, the “new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells” ( 2 Pet 3:13).

What you are advocating is libertarianism. Unhinging the social conscience from these matters of human justice that the Church has been fundamentally oriented to since Christ came.

This social doctrine also entails a duty to denounce , when sin is present: the sin of injustice and violence that in different ways moves through society and is embodied in it[120]. By denunciation, the Church’s social doctrine becomes judge and defender of unrecognized and violated rights, especially those of the poor, the least and the weak[121]. The more these rights are ignored or trampled, the greater becomes the extent of violence and injustice, involving entire categories of people and large geographical areas of the world, thus giving rise to social questions , that is, to abuses and imbalances that lead to social upheaval. A large part of the Church’s social teaching is solicited and determined by important social questions, to which social justice is the proper answer.

Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church

 

[astntw]

we will have to remind the kurdish/nigerian militia when they come across that the next the isis/bokoharam war criminal who raped 70 kafir girls on his way to his next slaughter cant execute him but must throw him into some mud hut prison in the desert where later him and his pals get freed either by other isis blasting their way in to let them out or the guards themselves setting them free.

 

[Ender]

Everything that affects human beings is subject to moral considerations and judgment.

OK, just not relevant to anything I’ve said.

What you are advocating is libertarianism. Unhinging the social conscience from these matters of human justice that the Church has been fundamentally oriented to since Christ came.

Nowhere have I suggested such a thing. I make very specific arguments which are in no way addressed by these generalities.

God did not execute the first murderer but protected him from execution. “If any one slays Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold’. And the Lord put a mark on Cain, lest any who came upon him should kill him” (Gen 4:15-16).

And God took the lives of Ananias and Sapphira, specified the death penalty in his covenant with Noah, and commanded Moses to include it in the laws he gave the Israelites. It is not reasonable to infer from the incident with Cain that God opposes death as punishment, nor has the church ever made that argument.

 

[o_mlly]

It is not reasonable to infer from the incident with Cain that God opposes death as punishment, nor has the church ever made that argument.

? St. JPII in EV made exactly that argument.

And yet God, who is always merciful even when he punishes, “put a mark on Cain, lest any who came upon him should kill him” (Gen 4:15). He thus gave him a distinctive sign, not to condemn him to the hatred of others, but to protect and defend him from those wishing to kill him, even out of a desire to avenge Abel’s death. Not even a murderer loses his personal dignity, and God himself pledges to guarantee this.

 

[o_mlly]

We do not read the bible literally but rely on the Church to interpret the text. One may interpret the text if, and only if, the church leaves that text open to personal interpretation. Did you read EV yet?

 

[o_mlly]

It’s more like you all forgot the New Testament’s gospels. Please read EV.

 

[o_mlly]

Endorse? Tolerate would be a better choice of words. The state’s right to execute has from the beginning been conditional, not absolute.

Did you read EV?

Of course we must recognize that in the Old Testament this sense of the value of life, though already quite marked, does not yet reach the refinement found in the Sermon on the Mount (EV p. 40)

 

[o_mlly]

You chose to make bold the sentences before and after the one above. Why?

St. JPII preserves this traditional purpose for allowing the death penalty. The death penalty is an instrument, not an end. If the penalty no longer serves to meet the intended end, i.e. the common good, then as an instrument the death penalty serves no good end.

Nevertheless, I know I cannot persuade you otherwise, so write your letter of complaint to your bishop or directly to the Vatican.