Capital punishment and protection from error

[Swiss_Guy]

Prudential judgments do not require our assent.
“Prudential”… refers to the application of Catholic doctrine to changing concrete circumstances. Since the Christian revelation tells us nothing about the particulars of contemporary society, the Pope and the bishops have to rely on their personal judgment as qualified spiritual leaders in making practical applications. Their prudential judgment, while it is to be respected, is not a matter of binding Catholic doctrine. To differ from such a judgment, therefore, is not to dissent from Church teaching. (Cardinal Dulles)
Ender

The thing I don’t get about this, is the CCC says:

1806 Prudence is the virtue that disposes practical reason to discern our true good in every circumstance and to choose the right means of achieving it; “the prudent man looks where he is going.” “Keep sane and sober for your prayers.” Prudence is “right reason in action,” writes St. Thomas Aquinas, following Aristotle. It is not to be confused with timidity or fear, nor with duplicity or dissimulation. It is called auriga virtutum (the charioteer of the virtues); it guides the other virtues by setting rule and measure. It is prudence that immediately guides the judgment of conscience. The prudent man determines and directs his conduct in accordance with this judgment.** With the help of this virtue we apply moral principles to particular cases without error and overcome doubts about the good to achieve and the evil to avoid.**

Why wouldn’t shouldn’t a Catholic trust the pope’s opinion that capital punishment shouldn’t be used? Also, St. Paul used prudence when writing to Corinth about eating meat sacrificed to idols. I don’t think that was just disregarded by the Corinthians. After all, it was the Apostle Paul. Since the bishops are the successors of the Apostles, then why would it be much different?

God bless.

 

[Ender]

Why omit “or human”? It obfuscates matters when you write on one and omit the other.

Explain where I omitted something; I don’t know what this refers to.

“Mercy is conditional on safeguarding justice.”
I suspect the writer would agree that if the perpetrator can be assured to never harm another person then justice is safeguarded and mercy can be afforded.

Not at all. Justice in punishment is about retribution; applying the appropriate punishment for the crime. Even if we could be absolutely positive that the criminal would never commit another crime justice still demands he be punished for the crime he already committed.

You are misrepresenting the punishment of life imprisonment. It is certainly not clement. It is an ongoing punishment.

If you’re going to argue that not using capital punishment is an example of mercy then you have to admit that life in prison is a lesser punishment. If you won’t admit that then there is no argument to be made that the current teaching is emphasizing mercy.

Ender

 

[triumphguy]

You know Ender I would be more open to the arguments of capital punishment advocates if they were to agree that until the ratio of well dressed, well educated, middleclass and adequately defended criminals being executed for capital crimes reaches the same rate of execution of the poor, disadvantaged, under-represented criminals that execution of said underclass should not continue.

In other words a moratorium on the executing of the poor and weak, until as many rich and haughty are executed.

Because, otherwise I will not believe that capital punishment proponents are being entirely honest about what it is they support: Execution for all equally, or something more insidious.

In other-words whilst the gross unfairness of the system continues the moral arguments FOR capital punishment are terminally weakened.

 

[M-Dent]

In other words a moratorium on the executing of the poor and weak, until as many rich and haughty are executed.

Because, otherwise I will not believe that capital punishment proponents are being entirely honest about what it is they support: Execution for all equally, or something more insidious. .

Becareful the motives you accuse people of.

 

[sw85]

In other words a moratorium on the executing of the poor and weak, until as many rich and haughty are executed.

Because, otherwise I will not believe that capital punishment proponents are being entirely honest about what it is they support: Execution for all equally, or something more insidious

(A) What M-Dent said.

(B) “Rich and haughty”?

(C) Poor people commit more violent crime than rich people, so it follows more of them are going to be executed. Do you perhaps mean “relative to their respective rates of violent crime” rather than the implied “relative to their representation in the population”?

 

[Ender]

On the authority of the Episcopal Conference (of which they seem to have quite a lot when they speak as one)

And when have they spoken as one on capital punishment? Regarding their 1980 document, which I believe was their first statement opposing capital punishment: “The statement was adopted by a vote of 145 to 31, with 41 bishops abstaining, the highest number of abstentions ever recorded.” (Dulles) It is obviously a statement of opinion, and not even a unanimous opinion at that.

Ender

 

[Ender]

Why wouldn’t shouldn’t a Catholic trust the pope’s opinion that capital punishment shouldn’t be used?

That’s a fair question but you should note that most of the comments on this topic are about the morality of capital punishment; there is very little said about why it is or is not helpful. As long as people insist there is a moral as opposed to practical argument against capital punishment these debates will continue … or at least I will continue to participate in them.

Here is Dulles with a reasoned explanation of JPII’s opposition to capital punishment:*Retribution by the State can only be a symbolic anticipation of God’s perfect justice. *For the symbolism to be authentic, the society must believe in the existence of a transcendent order of justice, which the State has an obligation to protect. This has been true in the past, but in our day the State is generally viewed simply as an instrument of the will of the governed. In this modern perspective, the death penalty expresses not the divine judgment on objective evil but rather the collective anger of the group. The retributive goal of punishment is misconstrued as a self-assertive act of vengeance.
If the claim is to be made that we should just accept JPII’s prudential opinion then some argument like this one needs to be made and defended, but so far no one has chosen that approach. The preference is to argue that the death penalty is evil.

Ender

 

[Lujack]

(A) What M-Dent said.

(B) “Rich and haughty”?

(C) Poor people commit more violent crime than rich people, so it follows more of them are going to be executed. Do you perhaps mean “relative to their respective rates of violent crime” rather than the implied “relative to their representation in the population”?

I think he means (and I mean) that it is rather a disgrace that when two people have committed the same crime, you can pretty much determine which one is going to be executed and which one is not going to be executed if you tell me the race and socio-economic background.

 

[Ender]

You know Ender I would be more open to the arguments of capital punishment advocates if they were to agree that until the ratio of well dressed, well educated, middleclass and adequately defended criminals being executed for capital crimes reaches the same rate of execution of the poor, disadvantaged, under-represented criminals that execution of said underclass should not continue.

In other words a moratorium on the executing of the poor and weak, until as many rich and haughty are executed.

If you want to argue that more people should be executed than are currently condemned I don’t have a problem with that position, but I am much less concerned about whether all who deserve it are executed than I am about whether all who are executed deserved it. It is a problem if only half of the people who deserve execution are condemned to it but it hardly seems like a reasonable solution to suggest that because we sentence some incorrectly it would be better to sentence them all incorrectly. Why is it better to get them all wrong than to get only some of them wrong?

Because, otherwise I will not believe that capital punishment proponents are being entirely honest about what it is they support: Execution for all equally, or something more insidious.

My arguments have to do with what the Church teaches about capital punishment and have nothing whatever to do with the practical nature of its application. That is, I distinguish between moral arguments and prudential ones and rarely discuss the latter. You might be right that our system is totally flawed and we should never execute anyone but that would have no bearing at all on any of my arguments. As for being dishonest and insidious, it is tedious to be called that because it is so irrelevant to whether my arguments are valid. The question is whether I am right or wrong, not whether I am good or bad.

In other-words whilst the gross unfairness of the system continues the moral arguments FOR capital punishment are terminally weakened.

No, moral arguments are unaffected by practical considerations. If it helps we can consider what would be appropriate in a system of perfect justice. If capital punishment is inappropriate in a perfect system it is certainly inappropriate in an imperfect one. The reverse, however, is not true.

Ender

 

[SonCatcher]

Explain where I omitted something; I don’t know what this refers to.
Not at all. Justice in punishment is about retribution; applying the appropriate punishment for the crime. Even if we could be absolutely positive that the criminal would never commit another crime justice still demands he be punished for the crime he already committed.
If you’re going to argue that not using capital punishment is an example of mercy then you have to admit that life in prison is a lesser punishment. If you won’t admit that then there is no argument to be made that the current teaching is emphasizing mercy.

Ender

The quote you cited: “But in matters that are determined in accordance with Divine or human laws, it is not left to him to show mercy”

Your particular use: “It needs to be recognized that the punishment for murder is one of those matters “determined in accordance with Divine” laws…”

You are obfuscating the human element of the law and punishment. Every person is subject to divine punishment for violation of divine laws at the end of his life. The human laws are subject to human punishment. It so happens that murder is a violation of both. Humans and God set their own punishments, each independent of the other.

Life imprisonment is limited mercy over death. It is not truly “merciful” in its own right. The convict is still separated from his family, friends and all society until the end of his days. Is such limited mercy deserved? Not at all.

Neither is mercy deserved when any of us faces God.

 

[Ender]

You are obfuscating the human element of the law and punishment.

Not at all; I was pointing out that the penalty for murder is specified by divine law and not merely human law.

Life imprisonment is limited mercy over death. It is not truly “merciful” in its own right.

Either a life sentence is or is not a merciful punishment compared to death. I really don’t care which position you take but I would at least like you to settle on one or the other. You made the assertion that the current opposition to capital punishment was based on an emphasis toward mercy but if you’re not willing to concede that imprisonment is more merciful than execution then there is no basis for your claim.

The convict is still separated from his family, friends and all society until the end of his days. Is such limited mercy deserved? Not at all.

Neither is mercy deserved when any of us faces God.

Mercy may never be deserved but there are times when it is actually inappropriate to be given. The situations are different between the repentant sinner and the unrepentant one.

Ender

 

[SonCatcher]

Not at all; I was pointing out that the penalty for murder is specified by divine law and not merely human law.

Divine punishment occurs after this life. It it not at the hands of temporal humans.

Mercy may never be deserved but there are times when it is actually inappropriate to be given. The situations are different between the repentant sinner and the unrepentant one.

Ender

Then why deny extended opportunity for a sinner to repent?

 

[triumphguy]

(A) What M-Dent said.

(B) “Rich and haughty”?

(C) Poor people commit more violent crime than rich people, so it follows more of them are going to be executed. Do you perhaps mean “relative to their respective rates of violent crime” rather than the implied “relative to their representation in the population”?

A. I wasn’t labelling anyone: but that being said there are glaring demographic discrepancies in the execution debate. And these need to be addressed since we are Catholics.

Our job as Catholics is not to defend the status quo, but to challenge it where it needs challenging. Arguing for, or even against capital punishment without addressing the underlying causes is one dimensional.

B. Yeah - Rich and haughty: I was kinda echoing the prophet Amos

C. Both. More are executed and more are executed as a proportion of their demographic.

 

[JReducation]

Hello all,

I’ve been thinking about the death penalty recently and genuinely wrestling with the issue.

On the one hand, until fairly recently, the teachings of the Church seem to have been pretty consistently pro-death penalty, authorizing the state to execute criminals not merely out of necessity but out of simple justice. This support extends at least as far back as the Council of Trent and probably further; Pius XII seemed to echo this position. The historical Church has, moreover, produced pretty sound exegesis and theological exposition to support this position.

On the other hand, the present magisterium is nearly entirely opposed to it, including seemingly all the American bishops, and the Catechism contains qualifications apparently absent and seemingly in opposition to prior teachings on the topic.

I am struggling specifically to reconcile these two facts with the Church’s protection from error by the Holy Spirit. I want to be a good Catholic, but to do that I need to know clearly what is expected of me with respect to this issue and frankly no two Catholic sources are giving me the same answer.

So is there a “hermeneutic of continuity” by which we can reconcile what the Church presently teaches with what it has historically taught, and more importantly with the fact of the Church’s protection from error?

Regards,

sw85

The response is really quite simple. There is no rupture with what has been taught in the past. The State continues to have the right to execute those who are a danger to society.

What has changed are the times and circumstances. Today, we have better methods of restraining criminals than they had in the past. There is one difference. that raises the question, “How often is the death penalty necessary?”

Today, we have many more states involved in the issue. Once upon a time, the Church was speaking to Catholic Europe. That’s not the case today. At that time, the bishops and abbots had a lot of influence over the courts and the monarchs. They could regulate so as to prevent abuse. That is no longer the case

Today, we have nations that execute people who have dissenting political opinions, who commit adultery, who are caught in homosexual acts, who convert to Christianity and other such situations for which people were not executed and for whom the death penalty is a grave injustice. These people are not a thread to innocent citizens. You get into the issue of disproportionality.

We also have legal systems that are broken. There is no guarantee of real justice. It seems that those who have money also have influence. People who have committed heinous crimes are out on parole in a short time, without necessarily undergoing a conversion. This raises the question whether or not execution has become the easy way of dealing with crime rather than fix the legal system. If that’s the case, which in many countries, including our own, it is, that raises serious questions about the moral right to execute.

As Bl.John Paul and Pope Benedict have said, the situations in which it is necessary to execute in order to protect the innocent are very rare to non-existent in some places. One such example to which the Vatican opposed was the execution of Hussein. Once the man was in captivity, was it truly necessary to execute him.

The Church also looks at the issue of justice. She has always taught that the state has the right to punish as a form of justice. Such punishment includes the death penalty. She has never said that it has to be used at all. There is a difference between “can do” and “must do”.

Bl. John Paul, in Evangelium Vitae explains this very clearly. Everyone should read the first three chapters. It’s exactly on this question. He explains that the issue is that all life, including the life of the criminal is God’s life. He also points to the many places in scripture where capital punishment is not applied in hope of a conversion. He builds up a very solid case for the importance of letting someone live in the hope that there is a conversion. We certainly know that this is true. The Franciscans have has several saintly friars who were convicted or murder or homicide. They have incredible conversion stories.

 

[JReducation]

The right of the state to execute is not a dogma. There is a hierarchy of doctrines. Those that are revealed by God through scripture, sacred tradition, and the Magisterium cannot be touched. Those that are revealed to us through natural law cannot be touched. Then, there are other teachings of the Church that are not eternally binding, because they are contingent on a particular context. If the context changes, the rule has to change. This is one of them. The rights of the state, the rights of the innocent and justice are not being changed. Those are facts. How those rights are exercised, for what reasons, and how often can be called into question. If the answers are different from the past, then a change is necessary. What is changing is not that which is unchangeable. What is changing is that which the Church has the authority to change.

Even though the Council of Trent repeated this point on the death penalty. This is not a revealed dogma. It does not bind any pope. Popes are never bound by previous popes or by councils. They are bound by Revelation and Natural Law. The pope is the Living Law. St. Boniface argued and defended this during the early years of the Church and to this day, this has been the faith of the Church. The pope can change laws, make new ones, abrogate others and restate some if he feels that it serves the interest and meets the needs of the Church. It’s interesting. He has the moral obligation to listen to those whom he authorizes to speak to him. He does not have the moral obligation to take their advice. The same applies to the faithful (all of us). He has the obligation to listen, but no obligation to satisfy us.

This whole question is one of rights and duties. The rights and duties of the state are not in question. But how the state exercises them is in question and it should be. Look at the abuses that exist around the world. Imagine if the Church made a blanket statement that the state always has the right to execute. Then what protection would an Arab have when he converts from Islam to Christianity? In Saudi Arabia, apostasy is a crime. The state is exercising its right to punish the criminal. The Church has to speak in objective statements that are broad. She cannot sit there and go through every possible scenario and say, “You can execute here, but you can’t execute there.” That would be humanly impossible and a blanket statement would justify any government killing anyone for violating the law, even if the law is unjust. The statement does not get into the area of just laws.

The Holy Spirit continues to aid the Church on this question. She has not defected on the issue of rights and duties. She’s talking about the execution of those rights. When is it appropriate? Do we really have to do this? What happened to all of our know how? Why can’t we use it to protect the innocent? Etc, etc.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, FFV

 

[triumphguy]

If you want to argue that more people should be executed than are currently condemned I don’t have a problem with that position, but I am much less concerned about whether all who deserve it are executed than I am about whether all who are executed deserved it. It is a problem if only half of the people who deserve execution are condemned to it but it hardly seems like a reasonable solution to suggest that because we sentence some incorrectly it would be better to sentence them all incorrectly. Why is it better to get them all wrong than to get only some of them wrong?

**Not what I’m saying. I’m saying that if one is willing to support the death penality, then levelling the playing field would certainly make that support more equitable.

I’m not arguing the morality of the death penalty at this point. I’m arguing on the basis of equality. **

My arguments have to do with what the Church teaches about capital punishment and have nothing whatever to do with the practical nature of its application. That is, I distinguish between moral arguments and prudential ones and rarely discuss the latter. You might be right that our system is totally flawed and we should never execute anyone but that would have no bearing at all on any of my arguments. As for being dishonest and insidious, it is tedious to be called that because it is so irrelevant to whether my arguments are valid. The question is whether I am right or wrong, not whether I am good or bad.

Again: I believe that the demographics of the death penalty need to be considered because they do bear on the morality of the the death penalty. Otherwise more people are going to be executed because of their demographic than because of their actions. And to be executed based on demographics is intrinsically immoral.

No, moral arguments are unaffected by practical considerations. If it helps we can consider what would be appropriate in a system of perfect justice. If capital punishment is inappropriate in a perfect system it is certainly inappropriate in an imperfect one. The reverse, however, is not true.

I disagree: the legal defence of necessity exists in law precisely because practical considerations have come into play. Ditto: just war, self defence etc. And various Church documents use these practical considerations while discussing the death penalty.

Ender

You might say that a legal defence is not morality, but law is based on what you might call the sensus fidelium of the common person, which of course in Christian societies is based on natural law.

And I think that because of these and other practicalities, that when we are urged to use our “prudential judgment” we ought to follow John Paul II and Pope Benedict on this matter.

 

[M-Dent]

The response is really quite simple. There is no rupture with what has been taught in the past. The State continues to have the right to execute those who are a danger to society. .

Those who work in prison systems may have experience that can demonstrate some are still a grave danger to society. A cellphone is all some need to take a life.

The right of the state to execute is most certainly revealed doctrine from God, Scripture, and Sacred Tradition. But we can appeal the state to exercise mercy. Even if they have the authority from God to execute in some circumstances - the States is not obliged to do so in every circumstance.

Plus, in the state many societies are in (i.e., culture of death…little quality faith formation…) I don’t trust their judgment for the death penalty.

 

[Ender]

Divine punishment occurs after this life. It it not at the hands of temporal humans.

I wasn’t speaking of divine punishment; I was noting that the punishment for murder has been specified by divine law.

Then why deny extended opportunity for a sinner to repent?

None of us is denied that opportunity.

Ender

 

[SonCatcher]

I wasn’t speaking of divine punishment; I was noting that the punishment for murder has been specified by divine law.

Punishment for violations against divine law will be carried out in Eternity. This temporal plane is the place for human punishment.

None of us is denied that opportunity.

Ender

An executed person has less time to experience remorse. Therefore, he has less time for repentance. There is no opportunity for repentance in Eternity.

 

[Ender]

The right of the state to execute is not a dogma… If the context changes, the rule has to change. This is one of them.

The rights of the state, the rights of the innocent and justice are not being changed.

So which position are you taking - is the right of the state to employ capital punishment changed or not?

Even though the Council of Trent repeated this point on the death penalty. This is not a revealed dogma.

What are you referring to when you say “this point”?

Popes are never bound by previous popes or by councils. They are bound by Revelation and Natural Law. The pope is the Living Law.

So if papal teachings don’t outlive the men who expressed them should we consider ourselves bound by what JPII said? You go way too far in trying to dismiss 2000 years of Church teaching on this subject. If five previous catechisms disagree with the current one - are we to ignore them? If a half dozen prior popes have taken the opposite position should we reject them all? If a common position was taken by virtually all of the Fathers and Doctors of the Church is the proper response really “So what”?

The pope can change laws, make new ones, abrogate others and restate some if he feels that it serves the interest and meets the needs of the Church.

We are not speaking of laws here but of moral truth, which is not determined by the opinion of popes. Either execution is a just punishment for murder or it is not. The answer to that question is not something they may change, make, abrogate or restate.

Ender