Can a Catholic Still Maintain the Death Penalty?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Alainval
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
TMC said:
The Church used to teach that the death penalty could, in some rare instances, be such a justification. The Church now teaches that the death penalty cannot be justified.
Click to expand...
The acceptability of the death penalty was always subject to circumstances. I believe it remains so.
 
Rau said:
The acceptability of the death penalty was always subject to circumstances. I believe it remains so.
Click to expand...
Why would you believe that? The Church says that it is not - it is simply inadmissible. A Catholic cannot support the death penalty. There are no exceptions in Church teaching, no circumstances that make it justified.
 
Maybe they? may want to prayerfully consider how the human person, life and their dignity has escaped their main concern…
Maybe the Cathecism and Compendium can answer these questions from the very beginning
 
Last edited:
One thing that is always true: Revenge belongs to God. If nations do not do what God set them up to do, and the sins of those nations continue to offend God sufficiently, then those nations will collapse, and God will raise up another authority in its place.
See the examples of Sodomites, Gomorrhites, Egyptians, Caananites, Amalekites, Philistines, Assyrians, Babylonians, Israelites, Judaeans, Greeks, Romans, and on to the modern nations we know, which even now are beginning to show signs of crumbling. Because of sin and the dereliction of duty on the part of their authorities, God set his face against these peoples and they were destroyed, their power was taken from them, their people made into a disgrace. And God did not make it that these nations fell peacefully, but by the sword, by pestilence, some even by fire were made into their ruin.
Therefore it is essential that nations continue to rightly observe their duties, and within their competency exercise the power God granted to them, so that with respect for persons and for God they might continue to exist for the glory of God by whose mercy they are permitted even to exist. The death penalty is not itself always evil, we know this because we ought to fear the Lord’s just penalty, lest he should determine that our own countries are deserving of it. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the Living God.
For the same reason we should be extremely slow to take the life of anyone unjustly, because that is one of the gravest sins, which cries out to heaven for vengeance, and more swiftly than all of them will it incur the wrath of the Almighty.
 
Last edited:
Sorry, this makes no sense. We are not talking about a prudential judgment of the Pope. We are talking about a clear teaching, which has been formally incorporated into the Catechism. Sure, people (including clergy) can dissent from the teaching. I know lots of people (including clergy) that dissent from other Church teachings. But that is what it is - dissent. The Church’s teaching on the issue is clear and binding on all Catholics.
 
One cannot really speak for the future in the sense that extraordinary circumstances may require extraordinary decisions.
Look at the pandemics…, they required extraordinary permissions…
And here we are :Jesus We trust in You.
As always…hopefully together.
 
Last edited:
TMC said:
Why would you believe that? The Church says that it is not - it is simply inadmissible. A Catholic cannot support the death penalty. There are no exceptions in Church teaching, no circumstances that make it justified.
Click to expand...
So does this mark a correction of the error that persisted for 2000 years. All those murdered souls… Has the church apologized?
 
Last edited:
Rau said:
So does this mark a correction of the error that persisted for 2000 years. All those murdered souls… Has the church apologized?
Click to expand...
I realize that you are trying to be cute and snarky, but I don’t think it is a cute topic.

Perhaps we can simply agree that we should all support a moral response to crime and not support an immoral and unjustified practice, like state-enforced killing of those the state deems unworthy of continuing to live?
 
You find that funny?

Are you talking about Acts 5? I don’t see that as an endorsement of the death penalty.
 
Please give me some specific examples, but I would say that might be a reason you decide to dissent from the Church’s teaching, but it doesn’t change Church teaching. There are certainly other examples of practices that were tolerated in the early Church that everyone agrees are immoral today (and vice versa).
 
If you support the death penalty, you are dissenting from CC 2267, which is definitely Church teaching. How can you say otherwise?
 
I am really not sure what the basis of your position is. Are you saying that you get to say what the Church teaches? How can you deny the plain words of the Catechism, and still think that you are not dissenting?
 
Interpreting the Church’s teaching in light of tradition is left to those with teaching authority - like the Pope. The Pope has done that, and the Catechism reflects the authoritative teaching of the Church. If every Catholic can just look at each paragraph of the Catechism and accept it or reject it based on that individual’s own idea of “tradition” then there is no Catholic teaching and no Church.
 
Ridgerunner said:
More than that. Open borders spread protestantism among Latinos like Covid spreads in a nursing home.
Click to expand...
As apt as you may consider this analogy, it’s in poor taste to allude to Protestants and a disease in the same analogous breath.
Tis_Bearself said:
This isn’t even a hard issue where the death penalty is providing us with all kinds of great benefits. It’s not doing much at all.
Click to expand...
Just to add to your case for the death penalty’s uselessness, states with the highest death penalty rates also have the highest murder rates. Such a correlation shouldn’t even exist if the death penalty is an effective deterrent.

Editing to add: From a theological standpoint, these data make it harder to justify killing the perpetrators.

en.wikipedia.org

List of U.S. states and territories by intentional homicide rate - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org

 
Last edited:
blackforest said:
it’s in poor taste to allude to Protestants and a disease in the same analogous breath.
Click to expand...
I’m not often accused of having good taste. But neither do I have any obligation to regard protestantism well, because it’s view of morality is subjective, and it has drawn many away from the true Church.
 
goout said:
I’m really not sure why people cling to the absolute admissibility of the death penalty like a warm blanket.
Click to expand...
Me neither. I would hope that it’s not because they like the idea of executing people.
In some cases they may think society is not truly safe as long as these “worst offenders” are alive and could commit bad deeds again.
 
Last edited:
You can disagree with Protestantism without implying that it’s a “disease.”

To state otherwise reflects the ridiculous polarization in which our society is choosing to engage.
 
Alainval said:
Ever since the new revision of the Catechism there has been some uproar among more conservative Catholics as to whether or not a Catholic can still hold to the proper use of the death penalty despite the Catechism rejecting it now. Is it permissible for a Catholic to still hold to the death penalty?
Click to expand...
Death penalty has always been permissible and still is and always will be. Whatever change you speak of is null.

I believe you are speaking of a comment Pope Francis made on the death penalty. That is the Pope’s opinion, it is not infallible nor did it change the teaching. It cannot change, even the Pope wanted to change it.
 
Last edited:
I support the death penalty. I know I’m not supposed to, but…meh. There are some who are so vile that they should be euthanized.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top