Capital punishment is justified

[Usagi]

Please describe a case in which self-defense, capital punishment, and/or just war doctrine overlap or are easily confused. I am honestly curious, because they seem distinct to me. Certainly they are similar in all covering cases in which someone might take another person’s life and be morally and legally permitted to do so, but the conditions for each are rather different.

 

[1Lord1Faith]

There is a coup on a despotic dictatorship such as Iraq or Libya. Jails and courts are destroyed or not functioning. A fledgling government is set up in various locales. A soldier who is loyal, to his own death, to the despot is captured. He is a know killer of women and children. Those loyal to the despotic regime will try to free him. There is no secure place to hold him.

This is a common scenario in wars and fallen States. It’s probably taking place somewhere in the world as we speak. Is capital punishment by the fledgling local government permitted?

 

[JimR-OCDS]

It’s not how it is used today, but rather at least in various states in the USA, capital punishment is the sentence given at the time of sentencing in the states that still use CP.

However, what I’m suggesting is according to a study done by a commission Mitt Romney put together, back when he was governor in MA.

The only time CP could be used is when a person kills a cop or kills when doing time in prison for a previous murder conviction.

However, to end all CP is a recipe to making prison guards and staff fair game.

We can not use solitary confinement nor stop providing medical care, food, water and sufficient exercise and certainly we can not use surgery to alter their person as those are viewed as inhumane.

Jim

 

[Evan]

Trying again, my copy pastes were not working

So, from Steve Long’s article in First Things (cited above)

First, it is an absolute norm of Catholic doctrinal interpretation that magisterial documents be read in a collegial fashion. It is assumed that the document belongs to the Church and that the entirety of the Church’s prior teaching and tradition enters into its proper understanding. For this reason alone, the recent statement cannot be a doctrinal “break” or “rupture.” The word for doctrinal breaks is heresy . The Church has taught for two millennia that the death penalty is essentially valid. This is taught in Sacred Scripture, and has been affirmed by popes, numerous catechisms, the consensus of the Fathers of the Church, and the teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas. If this teaching is erroneous, then the whole of the ordinary universal magisterium of the Church—especially its moral magisterium—is merely a contingent effect of ecclesial will. The nihilistic voluntarism of such a view is incompatible with Catholic faith.

and further down

A third reason why the recently inserted matter does not constitute a break with the prior tradition is that nothing in the Catechism is elevated in authority merely by being included in the Catechism . In this instance, the authority of the insertion arises from the traditional teaching of the essential legitimacy of the penalty and the qualifying, prudential admonitions of Pope John Paul II in Evangelium Vitae. Indeed, John Paul II refused ever to teach that the death penalty is essentially evil, offering only prudential grounds for its restricted use. In the list of intrinsically evil acts in Evangelium Vitae, the death penalty is not to be found. If, as Cardinal Ladaria suggests in his August 1, 2018, letter to the bishops announcing the addition to the Catechism , the new teaching is a development of John Paul II’s actual magisterial teaching—“following the footsteps of the teaching of John Paul II” (cf. paragraph 7)—it must be a prudential development; otherwise, it would contradict, not develop, this teaching. The stronger rhetoric regarding the application of the penalty cannot remove this teaching from the realm of prudential admonition susceptible to falsification.

I believe we should not be using it save to promote the dignity of life- i.e. when the offender has shown an extreme disregard for the dignity of human life. But even there, I would leave the implementation up to the state.

 

[AlNg]

I am genuinely asking here, is it not possible for someone to know more than the Pope?

I would say yes, it is. Take for example, the proof of the Poincare conjecture. Or the proof of Fermat’s Last Theorem. I doubt that the present Pope would know either of those proofs.

 

[AlNg]

We haven’t had capital punishment for more than half a century .

It isn’t necessary .

Is solitary confinement necessary? Is a sentence of life in prison necessary?

 

[cardinalsrule]

Neither do I.

 

[thistle]

No. There is room for legitimate disagreement. As Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI said that a member of the Church can legitimately find that the death penalty is in a few cases admissible.

That was PRIOR to Pope Francis’ comments on the death penalty now being inadmissible. You are bound by the latest development of that teaching. You cannot ignore it and say well I am sticking to the old one.

 

[Mboo]

sin is first of all a fault against reason. It is forbidden to submit to anyone whether he be a Pope, or an angel, as long as the perception of what he says is evidently against reason or against Faith! it’s just common sense …

 

[cathapolo]

Solange Hertz wrote a good article on this some time ago showing how Capital punishment and it’s use is clearly the teaching of the Church, contrary to what the present Pope has stated.

http://www.catholicapologetics.info/morality/deathpenalty/death.htm

 

[IWantGod]

I think the Holy Father is mistaken is his call for a universal end to capital punishment. There are instances when it is justified. The following should be considered:

1. Knowing that his, or her, life is soon to end would be a strong motivation for repentance. A life sentence without the possibility of parole is not. In fact,
2. The type of person who find themselves on death row would likely be motivated in just the opposite direction–to continue doing acts of mayhem and violence in prison. I guess, though, they could put him, or her, in permanent solitary; basically, in a cage. How humane is that?
3. The pope is assuming that other countries have our level of keeping monsters locked-up. I remember reading about drug cartel jefes who managed to escape from Mexican jails.
4. The prison population might be none to safe from such monsters–whose humanity has been severely compromised. The pope also seems to assuming that his influence in the outside world ends with incarceration.
   I agree that it should be extremely rare, but doable. We would have to have absolute (or a close to it as is humanly possible) certainty that he, or she, is guilty. Also, the crime would have to be heinous–like the rape and murder of a child, or the slaughter of scores of people.

Capital punishment might be justified under some circumstances, but revenge killings are not.

 

[IWantGod]

I disagree. If it’s not a de fide statement, I can disagree with him.

Sure, but why do you want to kill people? Everybody knows that prison is basically the dustbin of the world. It’s already bad enough. Why kill them as opposed to giving them life in prison?

 

[Mboo]

Sure, but why do you want to kill people? Everybody knows that prison is basically the dustbin of the world. It’s already bad enough. Why kill them as opposed to giving them life in prison?

The secular judge, or the judicial system that inflicts a death sentence on a criminal, acts as an instrument of divine justice. If one finds that the capital punishment inadmissible as punishment, the possibility to punish a sinner of the Hell will be more than inadmissible logically.
Killing a criminal can be a just punishment, to give him an opportunity to atone for his sins in this life.
Let someone live as long as possible is not necessarily good for that person. It is not the length of life that increases the chances of conversion, but the imminence of certain death. By living as long as possible, we increase the debts we owe to God.

 

[IWantGod]

acts as an instrument of divine justice.

Are they really? When the government legalized abortion, were they acting as an instrument of God’s divine justice then?

That line isn’t going to work on me.

 

[Mboo]

Are they really? When the government legalized abortion, were they acting as an instrument of God’s divine justice then?

it is St. Paul and the Catechism of the Trentine Council who say that capital punishment is an instrument of divine justice. And that the judge who condemns a criminal acts according to God and with merit

 

[IWantGod]

it is St. Paul and the Catechism of the Trentine Council who say that capital punishment is an instrument of divine justice. And that the judge who condemns a criminal acts according to God and with merit

That doesn’t mean that i can just condemn people to death no matter the circumstances. We don’t live in the time of st. Paul. What was necessary then isn’t necessary now.

Christian legalism is not what God wants.

 

[Ender]

Here is anther scholarly article showing even the new CCC is a prudential stsement. Magisterial Irresponsibility by Steven A. Long | Articles | First Things

This is an excellent article that makes several serious points, such as this one:

The Church has taught for two millennia that the death penalty is essentially valid. This is taught in Sacred Scripture, and has been affirmed by popes, numerous catechisms, the consensus of the Fathers of the Church, and the teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas. If this teaching is erroneous, then the whole of the ordinary universal magisterium of the Church—especially its moral magisterium—is merely a contingent effect of ecclesial will.

If we come to believe that truth is whatever the current pope says it is we will have abandoned any reason to believe the church in fact teaches truth. If a thing that was true yesterday is held to be false today, why should we not believe the church may not discover other errors in the future? Why would we accept the harder teachings - like her opposition to contraception - when a future pope may abrogate them as well?

In this case, it is dangerous to understand this new teaching as anything other than prudential.

 

[Mboo]

That doesn’t mean that i can just condemn people to death no matter the circumstances.

that’s the job of the judge, if he done his job bad, he will give an account to God… But one must know that to condemn a person to death can be a just punishment, it is the notion of punishment by death that seems to be contrary to human dignity by someones. Whoever does not admit the justice of the death penalty, can not accept the justice of Hell, for me it is obvious …

 

[IWantGod]

The Church has taught for two millennia that the death penalty is essentially valid.

But to say that something is essentially valid, is not the same thing as saying that it is valid at all times, in every context, or circumstance. It’s essentially valid only in the sense that it is not intrinsically evil, in much the same way that killing in self-defense isn’t necessarily evil.

To suggest otherwise would be to distort the teaching of the church, and clearly the Pope is not stating a heretical view.

 

[Ender]

Are they really? When the government legalized abortion, were they acting as an instrument of God’s divine justice then?

That line isn’t going to work on me.

It is, however, what the church teaches.

“Princes and Governors that have public authority, put malefactors to death, not as masters of men’s lives, but as ministers of God, as St. Paul saith.” (Catechism of St. Bellarmine)

" And thus that which is lawful to God is lawful for His ministers when they act by His mandate. It is evident that God who is the Author of laws, has every right to inflict death on account of sin. For “the wages of sin is death.”[9] Neither does His minister sin in inflicting that punishment. The sense, therefore, of “Thou shalt not kill” is that one shall not kill by one’s own authority. (Catechism of St. Thomas)

(CCC 1899) The authority required by the moral order derives from God: "Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore he who resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment."