If you mean by ‘personal judgement’, the Magisteriums ‘prudential judgement’ that the death penalty is morally inadmissible today, then we are in agreement.Emeraldlady:
Good, then nothing has changed, and what we are dealing with in the new version of 2267 is a personal judgment that capital punishment is harmful in today’s societies. That has been my position all along.
Yes. Morally inadmissible.
There is ambiguity in your term “protects the state.” If all you mean by it is what provides protection against future crimes then in no way can that be right. Even, however, if you mean whatever is in the best overall interest of the state, I’m not sure that is acceptable either, not unless justice is at the top of that list.
Ah, I have trouble with that concept as well.
A prudential judgment can tell us that something is unwise, but not usually that it is immoral. Otherwise this would not be true:
Taking the life of a person is immoral. We already have the command.
Not exactly. There are times when taking a person’s life is justifiable and therefore not immoral. The church has always taught this.
We have a right to use methods we know will be lethal. What we don’t have is permission to intend a person’s death as an objective, and end. As long as defense is the end, we are justified in doing what we must do to achieve that end.
Do not assume from my comments that I am unconcerned with the fate of others or with the hardships they endure. In fact it is best not to assume anything at all about my feelings. Take my words exactly as I present them and deal only with what I say, not with what you think might be inferred from my comments. I try to shape my arguments carefully, which means I’m saying a lot less than people assume.
I don’t. I remember our conversations. If I had to put our differences in a nutshell I would say you are more of retribution and I am more of restoration.
I can’t disagree with this. I will point out, however, that the church teaches that retribution (retributive justice) is the primary objective of punishment, and that while rehabilitation is an important objective, it is but a secondary one.
You welly exemplify here some of the objective critique I just made of your intellectual approach.
I dont understand, he is the Pope.
.We agree on this.
This is an uncharitable judgment you are not free to make. You may fault the accuracy of my arguments as you are able, but you may not impugn my motives for making them. You are in fact required to give me the benefit of the doubt. Disagree with my statements all you like, but don’t judge my motives as being less valid than anyone else’s.
Did you forget that myself and other prudent readers here will always google your quotes knowing that your have routinely cherry picked them out of their context?Emeraldlady:
A prudential judgment can tell us that something is unwise, but not usually that it is immoral. Otherwise this would not be true:
Any Catholic is entitled to question the hierarchy’s prudential judgments about anything, as long as it is done in good faith and good taste. (Msgr George A. Kelly, founder of Fellowship of Catholic Scholars)
May not exactly apply
I developed a nack to write unique google hits, but gave it up short afterwards. (Nowadays I hide behind commonalities
)Yet again your insult is misplaced. Neither you nor anyone else, for all the times this charge is carelessly made, has ever found a single instance where the meaning of my citation is changed by the context of the entire article, and this is no exception.
Any Catholic is entitled to question the hierarchy’s prudential judgments about anything, as long as it is done in good faith and good taste.
They have issued a prudential judgment that it is unwise, and have implied that it is immoral.
Everyone may legitimately have an opinion on whether the use of capital punishment is a good or bad idea. It is up to the State, which has responsibility for the maintenance of the common good, to make that determination.
I would say that it isn’t so much that the Church is deciding on capital punishment since it has remained silent on the matter until recently even though there has been a continuing abolition of it from legal jurisdictions around the world for more than a century. The Church is speaking now to endorse abolition as a movement of the Holy Spirit and a sign of “a growing moral sensitivity”. (EV) As is the Church’s role, she is defending Catholic teaching against the false interpretation coming out of some quarters of the US Catholic community, that abolition is against Catholic teaching and a deficiency of justice. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Magisterium might have to go to the lengths of declaring that position to be ‘anathema’ eventually.
Agreed, but Francis has created a new moral principle as well to use when prudentially judging these societal conditions.
Well, it’s new! the Church in the past has never affirmed this as the only legitimate reason for the death penalty.
The church’s hierarchy is indeed pushing for the elimination of capital punishment, but it’s doubtful this is due to a growth in moral sensitivity.
Not even a pope can simply create new moral principles, as if morality was nothing more than the individual claims of the temporary Bishops of Rome.
This is truly preposterous. I understand that the impetus behind this “moral principle” is to limit the death penalty, but as it is stated it does much more. First it repudiates what the catechism says in 2266 about the primary objective of punishment, which is clearly not protection. Second it would eliminate the justification for any punishment that was unnecessary for protection, but understand what that would mean. Suppose a man’s wife is murdered, and the man finds and kills the murderer. According to this “lesser penalty” theory there would be no justification for punishing him. He was no threat to society before the incident and he is no more of a threat to it after. On what grounds do we punish him?
Perfected by your deeper comprehension of morality?