Can a Catholic Still Maintain the Death Penalty?

[TMC]

As a non-American, I think you’re right. Has there been such controversy over it in other countries?

It is not particularly controversial in other primarily Christian countries. But, as you can see, Americans are very pro-death penalty for some reason. Outside of the US its basically China, Japan and India, along with a handful of smaller countries

 

[TMC]

The Vicar of Christ, as our lawful pastor, is due respect according to his office, but he is not God, and his teaching is subject to error except in the circumstances outlined in Vatican I.

Yes, the Pope is subject to error, as are all humans. But his teachings need not be deemed infallible to be binding. More importantly, I think we should all be able to agree that the Pope, guided by the Spirit and aided as he is by the best Catholic theologians, is in a better position to judge the proper development of the deposit of faith than you or I.

 

[NSmith]

Why do you persist in only listening to part of what I say? I agreed that it was binding, and I have agreed that it is binding. I disagree that your personal interpretation of which doctrine is being developed, because it is not manifest in the Pope’s statements that he is focused on the death penalty’s moral legitimacy, as you contend, but is clearly following in the same vein as Pope John Paul II, seeking to affirm the responsibility of societies to foster a culture of life and of consistent eucharistic character.
Pope Francis is better situated, more learned, and chosen by God for the purpose of teaching the faith. Thus, he knows full well the limits of his office, and would not go so far as to do what you propose. I trust that he is teaching faithfully what he intended to teach. By distorting it, you risk missing the significant development on social doctrine that Pope Francis actually is making, because you are jumping into a development that it would be impossible for him to make.

 

[Motherwit]

The Vicar of Christ, as our lawful pastor, is due respect according to his office, but he is not God, and his teaching is subject to error except in the circumstances outlined in Vatican I. Insofar as it contradicts or seeks to upend what has come down to us from the same office and the same authority, we may disagree with him.

Is it your position that Pope Francis is in error regarding the death penalty?

 

[NSmith]

My position is that if Pope Francis had declared that the death penalty has always been and always will be gravely immoral, then that would be in error.
Since he has not said that, but he has stated in continuity with Catholic social doctrine that the death penalty in the current state of most countries is an affront to the Gospel, that is to say it is an affront to the mission that all Christians have to live holistically in the love of Christ, I do not hold that this is an error., on the contrary I hold that we owe him obedience at the very least in recognizing the significance of the dignity of all life, if not in actively seeking the abolition of the death penalty.

 

[TMC]

I rather think that Pope Francis has more humility than that. You are misinterpreting and misrepresenting him.

I certainly disagree, but I am happy to let his own words speak for him.

Here is his explanation of the development of this teaching. You will note that he expressly says that he is not saying the Church was wrong to teach differently in the past, although he does say it is “sad” that the Papal States were directly involved in putting people to death, and he further says “Let us take responsibility for the past and recognize that the imposition of the death penalty was dictated by a mentality more legalistic than Christian.”
https://w2.vatican.va/content/franc...20171011_convegno-nuova-evangelizzazione.html

 

[TMC]

By distorting it, you risk missing the significant development on social doctrine that Pope Francis actually is making, because you are jumping into a development that it would be impossible for him to make.

How am I distorting the teaching?

 

[Motherwit]

My position is that if Pope Francis had declared that the death penalty has always been and always will be gravely immoral, then that would be in error.

Did someone in the thread claim that?

 

[NSmith]

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?

Perhaps out of zealous defense of the Church’s new approach to this issue, some have exaggerated their stance. They were not helped by Pope Francis’ rather surprising statements, that the death penalty, “regardless of how it is carried out, abases human dignity” or that, “It is per se contrary to the Gospel.”
These excerpts of his address to the pontifical committee are very easy to interpret as a break with the teaching of Popes Innocent I, Innocent III, and Pius XII, as well as the Council of Trent, and Saints Augustine and Thomas Aquinas.
However, it is important to note, as Vatican II teaches, that the context and character of magisterial pronouncements, as well as their frequency, are important to consider. The CDF more carefully described Pope Francis’ intent with the revision, and their announcement to all the bishops of the Church was approved by Pope Francis
In that letter, they do not go quite as far as the address, and in my view neither does the Catechism, although the footnote of the latter refers to the address rather than to the letter that was disseminated to the bishops.
Cardinal Ladaria and the CDF, approved by Pope Francis, were very careful to avoid condemning the death penalty as intrinsically evil. Neither did Pope Benedict XVI or Pope John Paul II condemn it as such. Furthermore, Pope Benedict XVI permitted Catholics to disagree on the death penalty’s moral status but not on abortion or euthanasia.

 

[Motherwit]

Furthermore, Pope Benedict XVI permitted Catholics to disagree on the death penalty’s moral status but not on abortion or euthanasia.

That was in regard to the reception of Holy Communion in a letter responding to an American Bishops question in 2004. The US was experiencing difficulty in letting go of the death penalty. But Benedict XVI in the Compendium of the Social Doctrine says this of the Churchs position -

No. 405 The growing aversion of public opinion towards the death penalty and the various provisions aimed at abolishing it or suspending its application constitute visible manifestations of a heightened moral awareness.

Around the world the death penalty had become morally offensive and the Church recognized this as a valid moral movement. The thing now to be contemplated is why is the US a different kettle of fish to other countries that makes the death penalty still necessary here?

 

[Ender]

No, the claim is not an assumption but a citation from St. JPII’s encyclical Evangelium Vitae p. 56.

The assumption is that it is the protection of society that justifies capital punishment, and that its use is unjust if society can be safeguarded by imprisonment. This assumption is incorrect because protection is not the primary objective of punishment, and it is the primary objective (if anything) that justifies capital punishment.

I hold that JPII’s revision was a reasonable development of doctrine that maintained the constant teaching of the Magisterium that the state possesses a conditioned right to capital punishment adding a new condition (circumstance) based on new penal technologies.

Given that 2266 was not revised, the primary objective of punishment remains unchanged, which was not before and is not now, protection. It remains what it has always been: “to redress the disorder caused by the offense.” Whatever you think is meant by redressing the disorder of past crimes, one thing it cannot mean is protection against future crimes.

I wonder, though, if there might be a political element to the debate…

The arguments presented are either valid or invalid regardless of what motivates them. Questioning people’s motivation is not productive.

Having set a pillar in human dignity, emphasizing this value,the case seems to be that there is no way back at least as DP as we know it today, likely more as self defense under circumstances.

Capital punishment as a form of self defense fails because one of the primary requirements of killing in self defense is that the death not be intended, and in capital punishment the death of the prisoner is the objective of the act.

 

[NSmith]

I am not saying the death penalty is still necessary; that is not my decision to make. My entire purpose has been to be doctrinally precise with what exactly the moral movement is, and what its implications are, based on the teaching of the magisterium.
Development of doctrine cannot undo a valid teaching of a prior time. The Church could never say that the eucharist is not the real presence at any point in the future, and it wouldn’t matter who defined it, whether a pope or a council of every bishop on Earth, they would be wrong. The certainty of our faith is built on what was revealed once for all time in the ineffable Word.
To argue that the death penalty is now principally immoral when it wasn’t a mere 70 years ago is nonsense. Moral theology is built up on fundamental, unchanging principles, and they aren’t dictated by societal conditions or novel theological insights.
My point is that the Pope in communion with the bishops of the whole church has expounded an authentic act of their authority which does not change the principle morality of the death penalty, but as a developed understanding of our duties as Christians who seek to fulfill the mandate of the Gospel the death penalty has been judged to be inadmissible in our time.
If you don’t like that judgement, and it is your competency and jurisdiction to determine whether or not the death penalty was morally justified, as is the proper duty of state officials, then I think a faithful son of the Church would have to seek advice from his pastor. By no means does the nature of the revision as a prudential judgement make it less authoritative.

 

[signit]

So you are okay with the possibility of executing an innocent individual because of the possibility of the abolishment of life imprisonment?

Not happy about it; in fact, as I said earlier, not happy about the execution of any individual.

But I’d reluctantly accept it as the lesser of two evils.

If the chance that the convicted person is innocent is one in a million, but the chance that the person is guilty and would be set free to kill again is greater than that, I’d have to go with the execution.

Also, if there’s a choice, I’m more concerned with an innocent person’s life (who could be murdered if the person is not executed) than the murderer’s life.

And the abolition of life without parole is not that far-fetched. As I said, last year the Democrats in Massachusetts proposed abolishing it. Also, one of the U.S. Senators said recently during his primary election campaign that he generally opposes life without parole, and his opponent at the time said that he would allow the possibility of parole even for the Boston Marathon bomber.

 

[o_mlly]

The assumption is that it is the protection of society that justifies capital punishment, and that its use is unjust if society can be safeguarded by imprisonment. This assumption is incorrect because protection is not the primary objective of punishment, and it is the primary objective (if anything) that justifies capital punishment.

? Clearly Thomas argues that protection justifies capital punishment. The novelty of new penal technology underpins the development of doctrine by St. JPII as argued earlier.

I did not assume nor do I assert that the primary objective of punishment is protection. Rather, I cited the ordinary Magisterial document that teaches quite a different position: the primary purpose of punishment is to redress the disorder caused by the offence. I do not see any errors in fact or assumptions my post. ?

Whatever you think is meant by redressing the disorder of past crimes, one thing it cannot mean is protection against future crimes.

On the surface, the above is illogical. One cannot be protected from past crimes.

Given that 2266 was not revised, the primary objective of punishment remains unchanged

I grant the circular reference, but the authority of the Encyclical surpasses that of the authority of a catechism which has no intrinsic authority (Benedict XVI).

 

[Rau]

Such a development of doctrine, that is from the death penalty being not only admissible but a just and proportionate punishment for certain crimes to inadmissible in every case and every time, is not within the authority of the Supreme Pontiff to make.

That’s right. A pope cannot “develop” doctrine by reversing its assertion. An act (species) cannot change from “not intrinsically evil” to “intrinsically evil” from one pope to the next. Otherwise - which pope’s teaching is to be regarded as right and which wrong? One must accept that the present Pope’s words reflect a judgement about present times and circumstances, OR that Francis has not developed but rather REVERSED prior moral teaching. In the latter case one is faced with deciding: who is right? This Pope or all his predecessors?

 

[Rau]

I am only repeating to you what the Vicar of Christ has to say on the topic.

And others here only point out that you have understood his words in a a way that implies the church taught error for 2000 years. That’s an odd position for a Catholic to adopt.

 

[NSmith]

Some of the sources I have read while researching this put forward the position that the magisterium has never previously made any judgement on the death penalty until JPII, but I am not sure if this is exactly right. It seems like the confession of faith that the Waldensian heretics were asked to make, which included the right of the state to execute criminals in principle, is a magisterial assertion that to disagree on that point is at least related to the heresy of Waldensianism.
Not to mention the other popes that have mentioned it in encyclicals.
Now I would have to agree that the death penalty really didn’t make it into any dogmatic constitutions as far as I know. It was in the Roman Catechism after the Council of Trent.

 

[Rau]

Did someone in the thread claim that?

Yes. TMC believes that is what the Pope’s statement means. He fails to acknowledge the implication.

 

[Motherwit]

Motherwit:

Did someone in the thread claim that?

Yes. TMC believes that is what the Pope’s statement means. He fails to acknowledge the implication.

I can see TMC’s point and it isn’t with regard to the history of the death penalty in Church teaching, but that today, it is as Pope John Paul II stated “cruel and unnecessary” and should be abolished. Card Ratzinger for his part says that abolition of the death penalty is a consequence of a “heightened moral awareness”. The Church we believe, won’t teach error regarding faith or morals. I think that this over emphasis on it not being intrinsically evil is a ploy to release the death penalty from the conditions that would render it objectively unjust.

 

[TMC]

And others here only point out that you have understood his words in a a way that implies the church taught error for 2000 years. That’s an odd position for a Catholic to adopt.

Where have I said that.

What I am pushing back against is the attempt by some here to suggest that the Church’s teaching on the death penalty is prudential, contingent, mere opinion, or otherwise less than binding on all Catholics. Those that cannot let go of their apparent need to see the state kill those the state deems unworthy to live are working hard to portray the Church’s teaching as other than it is. It is that attitude towards the Church’s current teaching that is my issue.