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Rau
Guest
Why would you think that?
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Blue_Horizon
Guest
Agreed, though incarceration only tends to fail in third world countries.
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TheAmazingGrace
Guest
Don’t know why you would assume that.
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Ender
Guest
I would agree that they certainly appear to be so, which makes them all the more incomprehensible.
Is that submission owed to the 265 popes who preceded the current one or do we get to ignore them all because they are no longer in office?
Ender
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Ender
Guest
Nor did I cite Archbishop Chaput as someone who supported capital punishment. What I did was to cite his comment about the illegitimacy of ever holding that capital punishment could be considered intrinsically evil. The very fact that he personally opposes its use ought to make his statement even more credible, but perhaps I didn’t understand you: are you suggesting he didn’t mean what he said?
If you think I have misrepresented someone all you have to do is demonstrate what I got wrong. It is easy to assert that I have distorted what has been said; the trick come in trying to present evidence that I have actually done so. If you can show where my statements are in error, do so. If not, perhaps you should reconsider the appropriateness of your accusation.
Again, this is simply an unpleasant accusation with nothing at all to support it. You say I have done this in post after post and thread after thread so it should be a simple matter for someone of your background to find at least one example to support your accusation. So: find one. Take your best shot, but if you can’t find anything perhaps you would consider recanting charges you cannot substantiate.
Ender
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Ender
Guest
As with may things Pope Francis has said this statement could be interpreted in multiple ways. The one that makes the most sense to me is the one I gave, and it is based on what the church has taught about self defense and what the pope himself said about the differences between killing in self defense and killing as the end result of an execution. “Perhaps” capital punishment can be incorporated as an aspect of self defense, but until someone actually makes a reasonable argument for this position I see no reason to simply accept it as true with no justification whatever.
I already gave the link to the source document. Go back and read post #26.
Which past popes would that be? I am unaware that anyone has stated that capital punishment is simply a special case of self defense.
I can think of no excuse for these comments.
Ender
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Ender
Guest
Retribution - retributive justice - is in fact the primary objective of all punishment. This is what the catechism means when it says:
The primary scope of the penalty is to redress the disorder caused by the offense.(CCC 2266)
As for the severity of the punishment “usually” being proportional to the crime, this is the presumptive position the state is required to take.
Legitimate public authority has the right and duty to inflict penalties commensurate with the gravity of the crime.(CCC 2266)
These two points are all too often disregarded in this debate.
Ender
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Blue_Horizon
Guest
As is the microscoped comments of anyone, especially by persons with prior and unproven set rationales
.So what a true seeker of truth does, especially if he wishes to go against the actual face value of the quote, is look at the surrounding text then the whole corpus of work by the same author. This you have not done. And if you did so you would find no support for your contrary minority interpretation which only matches the “scholarly” (allegedly) corpus of Ender.
And given that you used this extreme interpretation of this quote of Francis to try and deny the even more obvious meaning in the CCC section I observed to you…your rhetorical obfuscations and tail-eating-snake endless circular argument illogicality becomes palpable.
So given your Pope Francis quote just backfired, how about providing a rebuttle that works this time… here’s the question again:
This is not how unbiased scholars approach allegedly “ambiguous” texts Ender.
Such need to “make sense” on one’s own preconceived terms is the opposite of “scholarship.” A true scholar must be prepared to walk in significant intellectual darkness and discipline at times rather than force a “has to” meaning of his own making on material he knows really does not support it.
This is a discipline you simply do not possess.
And you do not even seem to realise you do not possess such intellectual temperance.
This is why I opine your views are those of a “hack” no matter how well argued they appear to be or how intelligent you may think you are.
Such a person will never recognise a legitimate change that does not agree with his own possibly mistaken prejudices. You end up being the Pope rather than the real one - though you give external obeisance to some idealised Pope of your own fantasy/past and demonise (never explicitly of course) the one you “disagree with” (sorry, I meant “are confused by”).
Pileease spare us the “I am just so objective in my personal views re what the Church correctly teaches”.
You have no pastoral experience, you have no formal theological education, yet you speak like a Professor of Theology
.Your views, like everybody else here, can never be what the “church has taught”.
Are you able to have the humility to accept it is but your own fallible interpretation of what you personally believe the Church has taught.
And when a real professor of theology, and a long experienced priest to boot, critiques your view with a level of polite explicitness I have rarely experienced in 8 years of theology learning in lecture theatres or tutorial rooms … its still proud water off a duck’s back
.But then, that is the prerogative of Popes, self made or not, I suppose.
Well if it cannot then the CCC is in trouble isn’t it?
Noone is asking you to accept it, that clearly will never be possible for you.
But a number of us here simply tire of you publically saying it cannot be true and is essentially inconsistent with past Popes and Tradition…and this position cannot be validly held by Catholics today.
Thankyou, may I observe a professional scholar sources his quotes every time.
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Blue_Horizon
Guest
Why is that a problem exactly?
Will you only accept their legitimacy if you can personally understand how they are consistent with past teaching?
That is not a normal attitude of a faithful Catholic Ender, most would say that reaction is more aligned with intellectual hubris.
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Rau
Guest
Don - your post might advance the discussion if you demonstrated the validity of your charge rather than simply making an accusation. Where and how has Ender “misrepresented” (and “deliberately” so) the Bishops?
I regard those of your posts, which make unsubstantiated charges of improper conduct and motive against another poster, as deserving to be called out. They are close to character assassination. They are disgraceful.
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Don_Ruggero
Guest
How contemptible. Let us be quite clear. Monsignor Swetland is a Doctor of Theology and he is a Prelate of Honor of His Holiness. He is addressed Monsignor.
As for your request to me, no. I don’t entertain mere theatrical requests from the sort who would be evicted, for cause, from a theological lecture hall of the institutions where I taught.
Having read through actually too many of your posts, I invite readers to look at them for themselves, by a simple use of the search feature. They will find an excellent demonstration of “agenda posting.” They will also find that you have been answered repeatedly – and they can make their own determination concerning your behaviour. And then they can turn to the great minds of the Church on this issue, and know where the Successors of the Apostles are arrived concerning the inadmissibility of carrying out the death penalty in the 21st century. The day when it could be done has passed into history.
Such ploys of deceit as well as academic dishonesty that are to be found throughout your posts, which are moreover against the Church’s living Magisterium,.are nothing short of abominable.
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Don_Ruggero
Guest
It is a failure of that obsequium, which is mandated.
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Blue_Horizon
Guest
Here we go again with your over simplified, extreme black and white always and every-case interpretations of what is in fact a conditional and carefully nuanced statement by ABishop Chaput.
Lets replay what he actually said:
- He refers to the “death penalty” as not intrinsically evil. He immediately follows up with a qualification to this first statement.
- This following conditional statement then identifies that there exists a sub class of CPs that are legitimate. He does not name the details that make them legitimate. These acts are always legitimate if the unmentioned details/circumstances are present.
- Some logical corollaries flow from these paired sentences:
(a) There also exists a complementary sub group under the superset “death penalty” that are illegitimate if the above details/circumstances are not present. These would always be illegitimate. They appear to include some types of CP and also some types of the “Death Penalty” that may not be called CP. (I don’t know what those latter types might be but that is what his statements literally can mean).
(b) The sub-class of always illegitimate (intrinsically evil) DPs is clearly normative.
It is the legitimate ones that are considered the exception (“certain circumstances” meaning special, well defined circumstances).
Then your opinion that he is saying: “we can never hold that CP could be considered intrinsically evil” is deeply flawed.
Clearly he says that CP most of the time can be considered always wrong and normally is so.
Your “logic” fails because you are unable to accept there are some different easily recognisable and well defined sub-classes/groups under the catchall expression “Death Penalty.”
Here AB Chaput does not mention the “circumstances” … but all of us here likely know what they are without ever having read AB Chaput.
That is reasonable “bloodless means” (e.g. incarceration that works) are not available.
But you tell us … does AB Chaput identify the circumstances he speaks of above?
(I have never read his works).
It seems fairly clear to me that the Papacy is slowly evolving something new - a new moral precept/norm wrt the death penalty.
Just as was long ago done for “killings” (some are intrinsically evil (killing of the innocent)and some are not (self defence)).
Its not simply calling Christian Leaders to be more prudent (but the objective conclusion in any individual case will always be moot) when bloodless means are available.
It is slowly formulating/asserting a universal moral precept and if the conditions are met then the faithful are to accept that the action would be objectively evil no questioning possible sorry - just like contraception in Humanae Vitae in the 1960s.
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Ubenedictus
Guest
You were talking about “warehousing” people i had to ask if that is an argument against prison terms.
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NonTimendum
Guest
I do give thanks to God for the tragedies in my life and I pray that they pass without causing too much damage.
On this issue, as in many others, the Holy Father, sadly, is mistaken.
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Ubenedictus
Guest
I agree
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Ubenedictus
Guest
I have to ask, do you mean “the inadmissibility of carrying out the death penalty” in the west in the 21st century Or the inadmissibility of carrying out the death penalty in the 21st century all over the world?
I ask because many westerners assume that the conditions that exist in Europe and america ask exist every where, it doesn’t. Capital punishment may be inadmissible in today’s Europe doesn’t necessary make it inadmissible in many African countries.
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IWantGod
Guest
It depends what you mean by punishment. Prison systems are an act of self defense. If that fails then we have to resort to other means to protect the community, this could mean a death sentence. But there has to be a justified reason. Its not a decision to be taken lightly.
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Rau
Guest
The “defence” inherent in penal systems is broader than we think of “self-defence”. The punishment of effective confinement delivers a multi-faceted defence:
- it neutralises the criminal such that any proclivity to offend is nullified;
- it dissuades the criminal from re-offence when (if) freedom is regained;
- it may rehabilitate the criminal (arguably over and above defence);
- it dissuades others who might be inclined to act in the manner of a criminal;
So, when we refer to effective “bloodless alternatives” to CP - can we say that a secure prison system is always that? Or is that debatable? AFAIK - CP is not usually regarded as achieving greater deterrence.
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Don_Ruggero
Guest
I have never understood the English expression “feed the troll” as I have since encountering the phenomenon on the Catholic Answers Forum where posts, which grossly misrepresent the author being quoted, are trotted again and again across years with impunity.
When it concerns the Successors of the Apostles and the greatest minds of the theological community, both of which one has known and worked with over years on a given issue – seeing their words and thoughts simply twisted beyond all recognition by those who are not only not theologians but could not ever find themselves, professionally, in the presence of these theological minds, it is simply absurd to keep rehearsing the same admonition and repeat it in thread after thread – and across years – as though it has not been said before and not been heard before.
Rather, it becomes clear the purpose of such a pattern of behaviour is simply to obfuscate.
In such a case, those people who have not seen this pattern of behaviour, repeatedly demonstrated, deserve to be warned of the deceit. Indeed, being warned, they can see for themselves through the use of the forum’s search feature.
On the other hand, providing provision to repeat in yet another thread the false assertions that appear in other threads, when the objections were well and already repeatedly raised, merely have the effect, to use again the very handy English expression, “of feeding the troll.” A most useful idiom.
New readers may look back for themselves and assess for themselves the practice of this ploy concerning the reality that the death penalty is no longer morally admissible.
They can also see the context of the manifested behaviour.
It takes some time…but it is truly most illuminating and forever thereafter colours how one views the actuality for all future encounters.
There is no point to saying to someone “You must not distort this and here is a detailed explanation why” when, in fact, they have been doing it unabashedly and over vociferous objection since 2007…and the next thread proceeds anew, as if all begins ex nihilo.
That is, again, only a ploy – and it is a very bad one at that.
I trust the readers who will do their due diligence will be rewarded for the effort in their analysis…and that they are quite able of arriving at an accurate assessment of what is really and precisely going on by its employ.
The issue of the death penalty and whether it is morally admissible is a matter that is the province of
- Theologians and periti, in so far as they can counsel and assist the successors of the Apostles
- The Magisterium of the Church.
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