I hear that a lot, but assertions are not all that convincing. Is there a specific comment I’ve made that you would like to contest?
If you truly believe that @Don_Ruggero’s definitive responses to you are “assertions,” then there is no meaningful conversation I can have with you.
But by the time of the CCC’s publication in the 1990s, the death penalty was inadmissable in almost every situation. It is hardly a 180 degree reversal to the new CCC 2267…
I clearly do not consider his responses dispositive, and have cited a number of serious rebuttals to his position that I think make a much more convincing argument. I am prepared to debate the point with anyone who is willing to debate it, but if I’m wrong then someone should be able to attack my arguments with more than “I’m right, you’re wrong, discussion is not allowed.”
That is beautifully said, @billsherman.
No, they really do not make a more convincing argument. Sorry. To me it seems more like a morbid attachment to a brutal practice that is not needed in the modern era.
Exactly…
The key question here seems to be “What makes the death penalty inadmissible?” That it was a prudential judgment (in 1997) and not an intrinsic evil seems clearly demonstrated in that there were in fact cases in which its use was seen as acceptable, however rare. The church has always recognized that there could be situations where the death penalty was legitimately held to be unwise and harmful. The 1997 version was not a rupture with the past when seen in that light.
You should recognize that the “old” version only dates back to 1997. Even the 1992 edition didn’t have the restriction it contained, and that pretty much every catechism (I’ve seen about six) going back to the Catechism of St. Thomas in the 1200’s accepted the moral legitimacy of capital punishment.
I absolutely do have a duty to submit to the authority of the Magisterium. I do not, however, have any obligation to assent to your understanding of the situation.
Pope Francis changed the catechism in 2018, precisely 300 years after the apparitions of Our Lady of Laus, that began with Saint Maurice.
So which is more immoral executing a criminal or enslaving him? Shouldn’t we be just as outraged that criminals were enslaved or exiled, where they were cut off from things like Sacraments, and social welfare? Those people back then were apparently very immoral. We shouldn’t look to them as guides.
If I’ve got the post number correct this is #349.Emeraldlady:
I have agreed with this several times and addressed the concept of a just punishment quite specifically in post #349. Let me know if you take exception to anything I said there. I addressed it again in #389 in the context of comments from Pope Leo XIII.
So which is it? Is the punishment of execution for murder fixed outside the common good and can never change. Or are all punishments including execution, determined by the State as the caretaker of the common good?
From the 1610s until early in the American Revolution in 1776. England transported its convicts and political prisoners, as well as prisoners of war from Scotland, Ireland, to its overseas colonies in the Americas.adgloriam:
So which is more immoral executing a criminal (…)?
I don’t know you. I don’t know if you would lie to me. I don’t know if you have knowledge, I can’t check you out. However Warren H. Carroll I know wouldn’t lie, has knowledge and I can check him out. He said that one of the reasons he converted was that there was never a change to a dogma, development yes change no. He was a leading historian. His history series is terrific. The notes and documentation is a book unto themselves. Your assurances mean nothing compared to his well documented history that they have never changed.
Any change is not in the fundamentals of the doctrine that capital punishment serves. The change only reflects the practice of capital punishment as doing more harm than good today, rather than serving the dignity of man. The Church is not instituting this change since this has been happening in States across the world for more than a century now. The Church is correcting the false assertions by US Catholics that capital punishment was a ‘divine command’ and a default sentence. That was never taught by the Church in its history.billsherman:
I don’t know you. I don’t know if you would lie to me. I don’t know if you have knowledge, I can’t check you out. However Warren H. Carroll I know wouldn’t lie, has knowledge and I can check him out. He said that one of the reasons he converted was that there was never a change to a dogma, development yes change no. He was a leading historian. His history series is terrific. The notes and documentation is a book unto themselves. Your assurances mean nothing compared to his well documented history that they have never changed.
Would you please document That US Catholic asserted that capital punishment was a divine command and a default sentence. Never have I seen such a claim. What has been asserted as stated in the Catholic Encyclopedia- The infliction of capital punishment is not contrary to the teaching of the