Can one be a catholic and support the death penalty?

[john_doran]

Mystophilus:

I just thought that I should mention that the Catechism gives the death penalty qualified support: “if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.”

but then it’s not so much punishment as it is self-defense.

 

[Steven_Merten]

Thou Shalt Not Kill.

That seems pretty straightforward.

Hello Caby,

St. Peter Successors calling upon Jesus to “hold sins bound in heaven”, seems pretty straightforward to me. What do you think happens to you if Jesus holds you bound to your sins when you stand before Him on judgement day?

Please visit Throwing Stones

**NAB MAT 16:13 **

Jesus replied, “Blest are you, Simon son of John! No mere man has revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father. I for my part declare to you, you are ‘Rock,’ and on this rock I will build my church, and the jaws of death shall not prevail against it. I will entrust to you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you declare bound on earth shall be bound in heaven; whatever you declare loosed on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” Then he strictly ordered his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.**NAB REV 1:16 **

A sharp, two-edged sword came out of his mouth, and his face shone like the sun at its brightest. When I caught sight of him I fell down at his feet as though dead, he touched me with his right hand and said: “There is nothing to fear. I am the First and the Last and the One who lives. Once I was dead but now I live-- forever and ever. I hold the keys of death and the nether world.”

NAB ISA 11:4

The Rule of Immanuel

He shall strike the ruthless with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall slay the wicked.​

**NAB JOH 20:20 **

At the sight of the Lord the disciples rejoiced. “Peace be with you,” he said again. “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” Then he breathed on them and said: “Recieve the Holy Spirit. If you forgive men’s sins, they are forgiven them; if you hold them bound, they are held bound.” NAB MAT 5:22

What I say to you is: everyone who grows angry with his brother shall be liable to judgement; any man who uses abusive language toward his brother shall be** answerable to the Sanhedrin,** and if he holds him in contempt he risks the fires of Gehenna. **NAB MAT 18:17 **

“If he ignores them, refer it to the church . If he ignores even the church, then treat him as you would a Gentile or a tax collector. I assure you, whatever you declare bound on earth shall be held bound in heaven, and whatever you declare loosed on earth shall be held loosed in heaven.”

 

[Brendan]

From then Cardinal Ratzinger’s 2004 Letter to the US Bishops.

Not all moral issues have the same moral weight as abortion and euthanasia … There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not however with regard to abortion and euthanasia,”

Pope Benedict seems to thing that there might be legitmate diversity of opinion on the subject.

 

[tbbeer]

My husband was murdered in 1982. For years, all I wanted from the world was revenge on the man who killed my husband. At that time, there was no death penalty in Kansas, so that was not an option. That did not, however, stop me from campaigning for it. I told the courts, wrote to my senators, wrote to the governor and talked to every person who would listen. Fortunately for me, no one listened to my foolishness at that time (although Kansas did later reinstate the penalty).

The greatest peace I ever felt in my life was the day that God gave me the gift of forgiveness. The weight of the world was lifted once I let go and forgave that man and thought of him as another human being who sinned. The best thing was to pray for his conversion. It took years.

On 9/11, I felt those feelings creeping back - although I didn’t know anyone who lost their life in 9/11, I was angry and wanted the terrorists to die. It was evil creeping into my heart and was a true source of suffering for me for quite some time. I don’t tell you these things because I am proud of them - it’s just the way it was. Wishing death on another is simply being vengeful. It’s anger. It’s wanting to hurt someone for what they have done. I wish that I was a good enough person to not feel this way ever, but the truth is that I have been there and done that and I can’t promise that I won’t ever feel that way again - but that doesn’t make it right.

-Tina in KC

 

[Fortiterinre]

Brendan:

From then Cardinal Ratzinger’s 2004 Letter to the US Bishops.

"Not all moral issues have the same moral weight as abortion and euthanasia … There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not however with regard to abortion and euthanasia,”

Pope Benedict seems to thing that there might be legitmate diversity of opinion on the subject.

Thank you, Brendan, I think this is possibly the single best use of a quotation I have ever seen on these forums!

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

DaveBj:

Sigh. Here we go again.

“Thou shalt not kill” (which is actually a prohibition against taking innocent life) is Ex. 20:13. Get your Bible out, and read the next two chapters (the 21st and 22nd)–just those two chapters–and notice how many times the death penalty is mentioned in just those two chapters.

Heck yeah, a Catholic can support the death penalty. It was never repealed in the New Testament.

DaveBj

• Num 31:7 And they warred against the Midianites, as the LORD commanded Moses; and they slew all the males.
• Num 31:8 And they slew the kings of Midian, beside the rest of them that were slain; [namely], Evi, and Rekem, and Zur, and Hur, and Reba, five kings of Midian: Balaam also the son of Beor they slew with the sword.
• Jos 8:21 And when Joshua and all Israel saw that the ambush had taken the city, and that the smoke of the city ascended, then they turned again, and slew the men of Ai.
• Jos 9:26 And so did he unto them, and delivered them out of the hand of the children of Israel, that they slew them not.
• Jos 10:10 And the LORD discomfited them before Israel, and slew them with a great slaughter at Gibeon, and chased them along the way that goeth up to Bethhoron, and smote them to Azekah, and unto Makkedah.
• Jos 10:11 And it came to pass, as they fled from before Israel, [and] were in the going down to Bethhoron, that the LORD cast down great stones from heaven upon them unto Azekah, and they died: [they were] more which died with hailstones than [they] whom the children of Israel slew with the sword.
• Jos 10:26 And afterward Joshua smote them, and slew them, and hanged them on five trees: and they were hanging upon the trees until the evening.
• Jos 11:17 [Even] from the mount Halak, that goeth up to Seir, even unto Baalgad in the valley of Lebanon under mount Hermon: and all their kings he took, and smote them, and slew them.

[continued…]

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

…continued & ended]

• Jdg 1:4 And Judah went up; and the LORD delivered the Canaanites and the Perizzites into their hand: and they slew of them in Bezek ten thousand men.
• Jdg 1:5 And they found Adonibezek in Bezek: and they fought against him, and they slew the Canaanites and the Perizzites.
• Jdg 1:10 And Judah went against the Canaanites that dwelt in Hebron: (now the name of Hebron before [was] Kirjatharba; and they slew Sheshai, and Ahiman, and Talmai.
• Jdg 1:17 And Judah went with Simeon his brother, and they slew the Canaanites that inhabited Zephath, and utterly destroyed it. And the name of the city was called Hormah.
• Jdg 3:29 And they slew of Moab at that time about ten thousand men, all lusty, and all men of valour; and there escaped not a man.
• Jdg 3:31 And after him was Shamgar the son of Anath, which slew of the Philistines six hundred men with an ox goad: and he also delivered Israel.
• Jdg 7:25 And they took two princes of the Midianites, Oreb and Zeeb; and they slew Oreb upon the rock Oreb, and Zeeb they slew at the winepress of Zeeb, and pursued Midian, and brought the heads of Oreb and Zeeb to Gideon on the other side Jordan.
• Jdg 8:17 And he beat down the tower of Penuel, and slew the men of the city.
• Jdg 8:18 Then said he unto Zebah and Zalmunna, What manner of men [were they] whom ye slew at Tabor? And they answered, As thou [art], so [were] they; each one resembled the children of a king.
• Jdg 8:21 Then Zebah and Zalmunna said, Rise thou, and fall upon us: for as the man [is, so is] his strength. And Gideon arose, and slew Zebah and Zalmunna, and took away the ornaments that [were] on their camels’ necks.
• Jdg 9:44 And Abimelech, and the company that [was] with him, rushed forward, and stood in the entering of the gate of the city: and the two [other] companies ran upon all [the people] that [were] in the fields, and slew them.
• Jdg 12:6 Then said they unto him, Say now Shibboleth: and he said Sibboleth: for he could not frame to pronounce [it] right. Then they took him, and slew him at the passages of Jordan: and there fell at that time of the Ephraimites forty and two thousand.
• Jdg 14:19 And the Spirit of the LORD came upon him, and he went down to Ashkelon, and slew thirty men of them, and took their spoil, and gave change of garments unto them which expounded the riddle. And his anger was kindled, and he went up to his father’s house.
• Jdg 15:15 And he found a new jawbone of a donkey, and put forth his hand, and took it, and slew a thousand men therewith.
• Jdg 16:30 And Samson said, Let me die with the Philistines. And he bowed himself with [all his] might; and the house fell upon the lords, and upon all the people that [were] therein. So the dead which he slew at his death were more than [they] which he slew in his life.
• Jdg 20:45 And they turned and fled toward the wilderness unto the rock of Rimmon: and they gleaned of them in the highways five thousand men; and pursued hard after them unto Gidom, and slew two thousand men of them.
• 1Sa 11:11 And it was [so] on the morrow, that Saul put the people in three companies; and they came into the midst of the host in the morning watch, and slew the Ammonites until the heat of the day: and it came to pass, that they which remained were scattered, so that two of them were not left together.
• 1Sa 14:13 And Jonathan climbed up upon his hands and upon his feet, and his armourbearer after him: and they fell before Jonathan; and his armourbearer slew after him.

=========

…& that is two pages out of eight here: see also: slew; hanged, burnt, stoned, smote, slaughter, etc.

Stoned - blueletterbible.org/tmp_dir/words/s/1126057174-7733.html

Moses presided over the death of 3000 Israelites, for worshipping the golden calf, just after receiving the Commandments.

And there is this:

John 8:5 Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be **stoned… **##

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

dts:

Several good links below. One observation to consider is that in the USSCB legal brief arguing against the death penalty (Roper case) they adopt legal rationales that actually undermine the pro-life cause (ie. abortion, eugenics etc. . . ).

Another interesting observation. Evangelicals are among the most pro-life segment of the population. Yet, they are also among the most pro-death penalty. The argument that you can’t be pro-death penalty while being pro-life is simply fallacious. It is also contrary to church history until the 20th century.

The Catholic Church lacks authority to rule that the death penalty is unlawful as a matter of principal. Scripture/Tradition cannot contradict Scripture/Tradition. However, the church should be clearly outlining prudential principles to guide proper application of the penalty in modern society. Unfortunately, this distinction is not being made in many of the Catholic anti-death penalty publications. Additionally, the prudential role is being taught as if it is an absolute. By definition, prudence reserves a role to public authorities in determining when or whether to apply the death penalty.

Sadly, much of the stuff coming out of the USCCB in legal filings and otherwise is just leftist propaganda.

Karl Keating of Catholic Answers on the Catechism (summarizes the Christifidelis paper linked below)
catholic.com/newsletters/kke_040302.asp

Christifidelis - The Purposes of Punishment
st-joseph-foundation.org/newsletter/lead.php?document=2003/21-4

Christ’s Atonement and Civil Justice
alliancealert.org/criminal/christ_atonement_tuomala.pdf

---

Other Worthy resources:

Capital Punishment: The Case for Justice (highly recommended)
J. Budziszewski
firstthings.com/ftissues…udziszewski.htm

Catholicism and Capital Punishment (highly recommended)
Avery Cardinal Dulles
firstthings.com/ftissues…les/dulles.html

God’s Justice and Ours (highly recommended)
firstthings.com/ftissues…les/scalia.html
Justice Scalia of the Supreme Court of the United States discusses the role of religious beliefs in judicial decisions. This article is adapted from remarks given at a conference sponsored by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life at the University of Chicago Divinity School.

Commentary on “God’s Justice and Ours” (highly recommended)
firstthings.com/ftissues…0/exchange.html
Commentators include Cardinal Avery Dulles, Judge Bork, Professor Steve Long, with a response by Justice Scalia.

The U.S. Supreme Court Decision in Roper v. Simmons, No. 03-633 (U.S. March 1, 2005) (juvenile death penalty violates evolving standards of decency)
a257.g.akamaitech.net/7/257/…4pdf/03-633.pdf

The USCCB Brief in Roper:
abanet.org/crimjust/juvj…s/religious.pdf

USCCB PR (bishops applaud Roper decision and use of ‘evolving standards of decency’):
usccb.org/comm/archives/2005/05-047.shtml

The Church had no qualms about the use of torture, and did nothing to make various methods of exercution any less severe - so why is there a problem now ? If it was alright for those executed on charges of conspiring against Leo X to have boiling oil poured into their wounds and their flesh torn off with red-hot pincers, and if it was alright for him to condemn the proposition that “it is against the Will of the Holy Spirit to burn heretics” - why is executing murderers so problematic ?

The Church’s sudden conversion from the use of the DP is not convincing. ##

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Mt19:26:

That doesn’t make it right. Many Catholics support contraception. That are Catholics but are going against the Church’s teaching. Maybe a better question is can you be a good Catholic that is faithful to the teachings of the Church and support the death penalty?

Catholics like:

• St.Luis IX who requested the setting up of the Inquisition in France
• Leo X who taught that it was wrong to think that “to burn heretics is against the Will of the Holy Spirit”
• St. Pius V who was a very zealous Inquisitor
• St. Thomas Aquinas & St. Alphonsus Liguori, both of whom defended the DP
• Bl. Pius IX who inflicted the DP several times

• presumably ?

If the Church thought the DP was wrong, why have about a dozen Inquisitors been canonised or beatified ?

One assumes that all the above count as “faithful Catholics”. ##

 

[Fortiterinre]

Gottle of Geer:

The Church’s sudden conversion from the use of the DP is not convincing. ##

Again to repeat, “The Church” as such has not converted toward or away from forbidding the death penalty. Recent teachings have emphasized that the demands of Christian charity are very, very high for those who would use this punishment, but there is no blanket prohibition against capital punishment because capital punishment is not immoral in itself. It may be exercised prudently or imprudently, and “the Church” cannot make individual prudential judgments for nations. Moreover, church leaders may teach in a highly personal way that either gains adherence or turns others off, but the actual content of the teaching is NOT that the death penalty is forbidden.

 

[Steven_Merten]

I think where the problem comes in is that Church leaders disproportionatly spend more time dealing with their political opinions on world events than on what is damning the Flocks souls to hell.

War and capital punishment do not damn souls to hell. Fornication, divorce, papal bindings on contraception as mortal sin, are all severely threatening hundreds of millions of Christians souls with eternal damnation. Probubly 70 - 90% of the body of the Church is in jeapardy of eternal death over these sins. Even one soul going to hell is infinitly more death than the combine loss of physical life cut short from all the wars and capital punishment in the whole of human history. Yet shepards of the Church divert so much of their world mass media access and time to war and capital punishment, which do not cause eternal damnation, and away from the focus on sins which are putting a large percentage of the Flock, they are responsible for, in danger of eternal damnation.

What is Jesus to say when a Pope stands before Jesus in heaven on judgement day?

Where Is The Flock I Left With YOU?

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Fortiterinre:

Again to repeat, “The Church” as such has not converted toward or away from forbidding the death penalty. Recent teachings have emphasized that the demands of Christian charity are very, very high for those who would use this punishment, but there is no blanket prohibition against capital punishment because capital punishment is not immoral in itself. It may be exercised prudently or imprudently, and “the Church” cannot make individual prudential judgments for nations. Moreover, church leaders may teach in a highly personal way that either gains adherence or turns others off, but the actual content of the teaching is NOT that the death penalty is forbidden.

Other posters seem to think it is - those who point out that the pope’s words included a prudential judgement (something therefore which is not a doctrinal judgement) can come in for a lot of flak at times.​

I agree with you on the prudential character of the words of the CCC - others might not.

Particular prudential judgements cannot be universally valid, because they are framed in order to meet particular circumstances: what may be applicable to one US state, may not be applicable to another - and that is a difference of application within one single country.

Where the Church has undergone an evolution, is in the attitudes of the bishops to what is acceptable punishment - 700 years ago, the hanging, castration, disembowelling and beheading of living traitors was not problematic; 250 years ago, regicides were ripped apart by wild horses. The first example is from England, and the second, from France. So why are the bishops so squeamish all of a sudden ? If burning heretics alive and fully conscious was not a problem - why is a mild if final penalty such as hanging or shooting a problem today ? This does need to be explained. ##

 

[Steven_Merten]

I would rather be shot, burned at the stake or put in the electric chair than have Jesus bind me to sin on judgement day due to His sworn oath to Apostolic Successors.

I am told that most Church encyclicals, dogmas and cannons have/had anathemas enforcing them. Some people say that Pope John Paul II abolished spiritual death anathemas when he redesigned the CCC in 1984. We are disscussing this on the thread: Did JP2 abolish anathema spiritual death Church punishments?

AnathemaIn passing this sentence, the pontiff is vested in amice, stole, and a violet cope, wearing his mitre, and assisted by twelve priests clad in their surplices and holding lighted candles. He takes his seat in front of the altar or in some other suitable place, amid pronounces the formula of anathema which ends with these words: “Wherefore in the name of God the All-powerful, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, of the Blessed Peter, Prince of the Apostles, and of all the saints, in virtue of the power which has been given us of binding and loosing in Heaven and on earth, we deprive N-- himself and all his accomplices and all his abettors of the Communion of the Body and Blood of Our Lord, we separate him from the society of all Christians, we exclude him from the bosom of our Holy Mother the Church in Heaven and on earth, we declare him excommunicated and anathematized and we judge him condemned to eternal fire with Satan and his angels and all the reprobate, so long as he will not burst the fetters of the demon, do penance and satisfy the Church; we deliver him to Satan to mortify his body, that his soul may be saved on the day of judgment.”
He who dares to despise our decision, let him be stricken with anathema maranatha, i.e. may he be damned at the coming of the Lord, may he have his place with Judas Iscariot, he and his companions.

Quoted from New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia. newadvent.org/cathen/01455e.htm

CANON I.-If any one denieth, that, in the sacrament of the most holy Eucharist, are contained truly, really, and substantially, the body and blood together with the soul and divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ, and consequently the whole Christ; but saith that He is only therein as in a sign, or in figure, or virtue; **let him be anathema.**NAB MAT 16:13

Jesus replied, “Blest are you, Simon son of John! No mere man has revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father. I for my part declare to you, you are ‘Rock,’ and on this rock I will build my church, and the jaws of death shall not prevail against it. I will entrust to you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you declare bound on earth shall be bound in heaven; whatever you declare loosed on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”

 

[Fortiterinre]

Here I will quote the section of Evangelium Vitae (Paragraph 56) that Paragraph 2267 of the CCC references:

"This is the context in which to place the problem of the death penalty. On this matter there is a growing tendency, both in the Church and in civil society, to demand that it be applied in a very limited way or even that it be abolished completely. The problem must be viewed in the context of a system of penal justice ever more in line with human dignity and thus, in the end, with God’s plan for man and society. The primary purpose of the punishment which society inflicts is “to redress the disorder caused by the offence”.[46] Public authority must redress the violation of personal and social rights by imposing on the offender an adequate punishment for the crime, as a condition for the offender to regain the exercise of his or her freedom. In this way authority also fulfils the purpose of defending public order and ensuring people’s safety, while at the same time offering the offender an incentive and help to change his or her behaviour and be rehabilitated.[47]

It is clear that, for these purposes to be achieved, the nature and extent of the punishment must be carefully evaluated and decided upon, and ought not go to the extreme of executing the offender except in cases of absolute necessity: in other words, when it would not be possible otherwise to defend society. Today however, as a result of steady improvements in the organization of the penal system, such cases are very rare, if not practically non-existent."

SO…
The turn against capital punishment is a trend, a “tendency” in both the Church and civil society, people reading the signs of the times and reacting to them. Note that the prime tendency is to seek the DP to be applied in a “very limited way” or *possibly *abolished.

If an authority decides it needs a death penalty, it can only legitimately use it against those it has determined it cannot otherwise contain, and the authority is admitting that this inability is a problem in its penal system, not an ideal state of operations. Some faithful Catholics could argue that since no society seems to live up to this precept, that lack is in itself a reason to oppose the DP. Perfectly reasonable, but again, not required by the Church.

The purpose for Christians to review capital punishment is to move ever TOWARD God’s vision for humanity, our final end and purpose. Only the authority can decide what is “possible” or a “necessity” for its penal system, but even a penal system should move toward rather than away from God’s vision.

It goes without saying that the common good is not served and we are far, far from God’s vision when an authority engages in gruesome executions. To say that “the Church” was “okay” or “fine” with this is to define the entire Church by the limitations and worldviews of bishops from a darker age. The Church must read the signs of the times in every age, and obviously there was a lot less light in some ages.

Certainly some of today’s Church leaders, Catholic and otherwise, seem to have adopted a present-day worldview that some think smacks of political correctness. My point is that even this PC worldview does not change the actual content of Church teaching, and it certainly does not create philosophical impossibilities in which an individual prudential judgment is seen as fixed and therefore not a judgment at all. JPII was obviously very opposed to the death penalty, but please do him the courtesy of remembering that he was a brilliant philosopher who never forgot the principle of non-contradiction.

 

[pnewton]

Fortiterinre:

If an authority decides it needs a death penalty, it can only legitimately use it against those it has determined it cannot otherwise contain, and the authority is admitting that this inability is a problem in its penal system, not an ideal state of operations.

Excellent post. I am ambivalent on the topic because I believe there are those that meet the above critereia, although I would include the judiciary along with the penal system.

 

[Friar_David_O.Carm]

Thou Shalt Not Kill.

That seems pretty straightforward.

It would be if that was the commandment. I know that is how it is translated in English today, but the commandment is really Thou Shalt Not Murder, not Kill.

I suggest that you read the Catechism.

2267 Assuming that the guilty party’s identity and responsibility have been fully determined, the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.
If, however, non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people’s safety from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and are more in conformity to the dignity of the human person.

Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an offense incapable of doing harm - without definitely taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself - the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity “are very rare, if not practically non-existent.”