Catholic Arguments For and Against the Death Penalty

[Ender]

He [Amerio] was found to be on the wrong side of history by being embraced by the SSPX and essentially shunned by the institutional church.

Then again, maybe not.Thus Caritas in Veritate, a 2009 encyclical dedicated to Charity and Truth, explores ideas and concepts that were at the very heart of Amerio’s theological and philosophical career.
But again, yours was an attack on the man, not on his arguments.

Ender

 

[dudleysharp]

You misunderstand Sir, and you REFUSE to answer THE most important question.

This is NOT a doctrinal issue. You are free to disagree and not be labeled a heretic.

But you are also REQUIRED to RESPECT the prudential Judgemenr of the Church.

Now stop posting blog links no one cares about and answer THE question.

How is it respectful of our Popes and Bishops to advocate a position they have explicitly taught against?

If you respect the prudential judgement of the church you would;

1. keep your opinion to yourself or
2. advocate and support their call to action.

You would definitely not try to outside Catholics that they are wrong.

Please respond.

Huh?

You were the one who said it was doctrine:

Originally Posted by Jon S View Post
And the truth comes our that you reject the church’s doctrine…

Why do you act this way? It is not responsible or truthful.

The links go the facts which support my claims. If you don’t care about confirmible evidence, facts and truth, why are you in this discussion?

As noted, canon lawyers and Catholic scholars have publically found errors within this recent teaching.

It would be unfaithful of them not to speak out. My guess it that it reflects their love for the Church.

Folks correct because they care. They only fail to correct if they don’t care.

If you think I or they have made factual errors, please point them out.

Fundamental.

 

[Ender]

Well then maybe the argument should be for more strict life sentences in cases of murder. Suggesting that the DP is needed because we don’t keep people in jail long enough, is silly. It’s much simpler to just say we should keep them in jail longer then, lol. You’re acting as though the only options are DP or release after a few years, and I don’t understand why you are doing that.

You have misinterpreted my comments. The assertion has been made that incarceration is sufficient to protect society. "Today, in fact, given the means at the State’s disposal to effectively repress crime…"
I have asked someone to explain what this means by defining what constitutes the effective repression of crime (and especially of murder). If society is protected, as is alleged, from repeat murders then how many repeat murders should we expect to see? One a decade? One a year? A hundred a year? If you cannot even define what the term “effective repression” means it is impossible to claim that you have achieved it.

Whatever is necessary to keep society safe from dangerous people, is licit.

No, this cannot be. Whatever is licit is whatever is just, not whatever is necessary.

The reason why the Popes of our Church are against the DP is because they do not believe it is necessary to keep society safe anymore. If life in prison is what it takes to keep the public safe, I have no idea why the popes would be against it. They never spoke out against it, so I have no reason to believe they would be against it.

Is it your position then that LWOP should be the default sentence in murder cases and that the last three popes would support this?

Ender

 

[Jon_S_1]

*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)
Ender

That’s not what’s happening here.

Please go speak and question your bishop on it.

But trying to convince Catholics the bishops are wrong or the catechism is poorly written is just wrong.

Perhaps the catechism is poorly written regarding the divinity of Christ?

 

[Jon_S_1]

As Pope Benedict, when Ratzinger

Pope Benedict established any Catholic can disagree with the Church’s prudential judgement and remain a Catholic in good standing, a position which can only occur if the Church recognizes that there are credible differences with regard to biblical, theological, traditional, philosophical, rational and/or factual issues, which She does.

Again, no one said your a heretic, but I stand firm that you are very disrespectful of the prudential judgements of the church. M

You are treading in dangerous waters though regarding rejecting doctrine when you say the "catechism is poorly written ". The Catechism is our doctrine, saying it is poorly written is very close to calling into question our doctrines.

Please explain how it is respectful of the church’s judgement to advocate a position contrary to their repeated teachings.

Again feel free to question your bishop directly, but it is wrong for you to publicly declare as right a position on morals contrary to their teaching.

 

[Ender]

The church has repeatedly condemned capital punishment. From the popes to countless bishops.

No, the last three popes and numerous bishops have condemned its use as unnecessary in today’s society. This is a prudential objection, not a doctrinal one. Given that the church even today recognizes that its use may be licit (at least theoretically) it can hardly be true that they would allow what they have condemned.

Ender

 

[Jon_S_1]

No, the last three popes and numerous bishops have condemned its use as unnecessary in today’s society. This is a prudential objection, not a doctrinal one. Given that the church even today recognizes that its use may be licit (at least theoretically) it can hardly be true that they would allow what they have condemned.

Ender

So why are you advocating it’s expansion as opposed to respecting their judgement???

 

[LongingSoul]

Again, you premise is wrong and, therefore, your conclusions are wrong.

You write:

“Using the gammit of crime figures is not relevant to whether the death penalty has an effect unless you are suggesting that criminals should be executed upon conviction.”

I have, repeatedly presented that innocents are better protected with the death penalty and therefore, more innocents are put at risk without it (1) and there has been no rebuttal based upon the facts.

Obviously it is a truism that living murderers are, infinitely, more likely to harm and murder again, than are executed ones and, as addittonally, detailed, countless murderers do harm and murder, again, in prison, after escape, after improper release, after intended release and after we fail to confine them, at all.

Also, the evidence that the death penalty deters some (1) overwhelms any proof that the death penalty deters none (1) and the evidence that death is feared more than life and life is preferred over death, is also overwhelming and we know that which is preferred more deters less and that which is feared more deters more (1).

How many death row prisoners have escaped or been released and re-offended? If you are presenting the dire statistics of mainstream crims who are released and reoffend all within the system that threatens capital punishment… you should get figures from countries that don’t have the DP in order to demonstrate that fear of the DP makes the US figures much less than elsewhere.

EV points to the fact that we have the capability of permanently securing death row types with an extreme certainty. Maximum security facilities like the death row facility can just as easily house these types for the term of their natural life. EV is absolutely spot on in saying that we are very capable of containing death row types without the need to kill them.

We can all agree what is achievable, but when dealing with sacrificing or saving additional innocent lives, one would think it most responsible to deal in reality, with the full understanding of the many errors within human affairs, to do otherwise is foolish, particularly, as the Church well knows, that She allowed, for decades, for priest pedophiles to harm again and again, just as the criminal justice system does and has done, since the beginning of history, allowing unjust aggressors to harm, over and over, again, as I detailed.

Knowing that, it is astounding that both St PJPII and CCC could think, much less, assert, that such circumstances are “are very rare, if not practically non-existent.”, when the obvious facts are to the contrary.

If you are suggesting that executing all prisoners would resolve the range of problems that exist in the penal justice system I’m sure you are right. Hey it works well in Iran. They resolve the problem of rapists by executing the female victim. Problem solved. Can’t rape someone who doesn’t exist.

1. The Death Penalty: Do Innocents Matter? A Review of All Innocence Issues
   prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-death-penalty-do-innocents-matter.html

Dudleysharp. You do realise that all your ‘fact check’ links are actually just your own blog entries? We aren’t so dumb we don’t read who the author of these ‘official facts’ are. If you want to present a ‘fact’… link to an official Church or government site… not just your own blogs and letters of which there are zillions around the interwebz I note.

 

[Ender]

One fork in the road is pretty clean and direct, only God has the right to take a life.

This is contrary to what the church has universally taught.Q. 1276. Under what circumstances may human life be lawfully taken?
A. Human life may be lawfully taken:
1. In self-defense…
2. In a just war…
3. By the lawful execution of a criminal… (Baltimore Catechism)

We are no longer bound by the harsh Old Testament Law (John 1:16-17, Romans 8:1-3, 1 Corinthians 9:20-21).

The explanation of why capital punishment is justified is not part of OT Law, it is part of God’s covenant with Noah, and we are perpetually bound by it.

The arguments FOR the DEATH penalty, is not such a clean path. The falsely accused, the mistakes, unreliable and biased testimony, the legal suppression of evidence, denying the guilty time to repent and turn from sin. The caveats listed in the CCC like anything are open to interpretation, mitigating or ASSUMED circumstances. There is room for doubt and error.

These are are practical reasons for opposing capital punishment, and while they may or may not be accurate, they are not relevant to a discussion on whether its use is moral.

Ender

 

[dudleysharp]

How many death row prisoners have escaped or been released and re-offended? If you are presenting the dire statistics of mainstream crims who are released and reoffend all within the system that threatens capital punishment… you should get figures from countries that don’t have the DP in order to demonstrate that fear of the DP makes the US figures much less than elsewhere.

EV points to the fact that we have the capability of permanently securing death row types with an extreme certainty. Maximum security facilities like the death row facility can just as easily house these types for the term of their natural life. EV is absolutely spot on in saying that we are very capable of containing death row types without the need to kill them.

SNIP .

If you can rebut my factual or rational conclusions, do so. That’s how it works.

I have presented the huge problems within criminal justice, and how injust aggressors are allowed tro harm, again, repeatedly, as well as the many escapes, etc.

What more can you want?

Maybe you didn’t read any of it?

Here’s one of the many I provided:

See STATE PROTECTION about halfway down, then FOOTNOTE 4 from

The Catechism and the Death Penalty
prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2013/06/the-catechism-death-penalty.html

As I have already detailed, yes, EV and CCC say we have the “capability”. The problem is that both CCC and EV completely avoided what we actually do, the reality, which I detailed.

And, as the capability issue was the foundation in EV and CCC and which was asserted as a Church teaching, which it was not, as detailed, with comfirmible citations, that error goes to the original error with EV and brought into CCC. Basing a new teaching on error is not a good thing and does away with your position.

“The most reasonable conclusion to draw from this discussion is that, once again, the Catechism is simply wrong from an historical point of view. Traditional Catholic teaching did not contain the restriction enunciated by Pope John Paul II” ." (7)

“The realm of human affairs is a messy one, full of at least apparent inconsistency and incoherence, and the recent teaching of the Catholic Church on capital punishment—vitiated, as I intend to show, by errors of historical fact and interpretation—is no exception.”(7)

“Capital Punishment and the Law”, Ave Maria Law Review, 2007 (30 pp), by Kevin L. Flannery S.J., Consultor of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (since 2002) and Ordinary Professor of Ancient Philosophy at the Pontifical Gregorian University (Rome); and Mary Ann Remick Senior Visiting Fellow at the Notre Dame Center for Ethics andCulture (University of Notre Dame)
legacy.avemarialaw.edu/lr/assets/articles/V5i2.flannery.copyright.pdf

 

[Jon_S_1]

If you can rebut my factual or rational conclusions, do so. That’s how it works.

I have presented the huge problems within criminal justice, and how injust aggressors are allowed tro harm, again, repeatedly, as well as the many escapes, etc.

What more can you want?

Maybe you didn’t read any of it?

As I have already detailed, yes, EV and CCC say we have the “capability”. The problem is that both CCC and EV completely avoided what we actually do, the reality, which I detailed.

And, as the capability issue was the foundation in EV and CCC and which was asserted as a Church teaching, which it was not, as detailed, with comfirmible citations, that error goes to the original error with EV and brought into CCC. Basing a new teaching on error is not a good thing and does away with your position.

Your blog and opinions here continue to reinforce that you are anything but Catholic in your position. I suggest a sit down with your bishop. You can explain to him why you reject the church and her teaching/judgements.

 

[Ender]

1 says the “just use of executions”, so when it is just and when it is not will vary and often that will come down to prudential judgment…

This is true, and I think most people would accept this assertion. It is important to recognize, however, that this places certain limits on the type of argument that can be made against capital punishment. If the issue is prudential then no argument that opposes capital punishment for doctrinal reasons is acceptable. The problem in these debates is that even though many people understand the disagreement to be prudential they use arguments that suggest their opposition is also doctrinal. It is this latter point that has been the target of most of my comments.

…since it would be unjust to do something to harm the common good.

Do you not allow a distinction between choices that are unjust and those that are simply in error?

The use of the death penalty ultimately comes down to weather or not in a particular instance it best serves the common good. If not, then it would be unjust to use it.

If I believe an execution best serves the common good and you believe the opposite, one of us is wrong but neither of us has acted unjustly. Errors are not sins.

Ender

 

[Jon_S_1]

This is true, and I think most people would accept this assertion. It is important to recognize, however, that this places certain limits on the type of argument that can be made against capital punishment. If the issue is prudential then no argument that opposes capital punishment for doctrinal reasons is acceptable. The problem in these debates is that even though many people understand the disagreement to be prudential they use arguments that suggest their opposition is also doctrinal. It is this latter point that has been the target of most of my comments.
Do you not allow a distinction between choices that are unjust and those that are simply in error?
If I believe an execution best serves the common good and you believe the opposite, one of us is wrong but neither of us has acted unjustly. Errors are not sins.

Ender

I now think you are mixed up. Errors are unjust.

If I kill you because I thought you were attacking me, but you were just giving a hug, that is both a tragedy and an unjust taking of life.

Why you feel that you are capable of advocating positions the church has deemed “cruel and unnecessary” in her prudential judgement is beyond comprehension.

 

[Ender]

And the truth comes our that you reject the church’s doctrine…

Not at all; he just has a different understanding of what that doctrine is. *In coming to this prudential conclusion, the magisterium is not changing the doctrine of the Church. The doctrine remains what it has been: that the State, in principle, has the right to impose the death penalty on persons convicted of very serious crimes. *(Cardinal Dulles)
Ender

 

[LokisMom]

LM:

Public policy claims should be challenged. Most everyone agrees with that.

I fact checked, using confirmible claims. Can you or did you counter them? No.

That’s how it works. My guess it that you didn’t even read them.

Exactly, your friend has no confirmible facts. How many death penalty cases has your friend evaluated the costs of and how many life cases did they evaluate the costs of?

LIkely none, or you would present them.

My guess is you have no clue, either way. Do you?

There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is a proof against all argument, and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance – that principle is condemnation before investigation. (unconfirmed) Herbert Spencer (1820-1903).

Once again, we’ll just have to agree to disagree on whether or not DP is more expensive than life in prison.

Once again, this doesn’t matter because the OP asked for Catholic arguments for/against the morality of the DP. I don’t know if you are using money as an argument, but I am not, and I have said that from my very first post on the money issue.

 

[LokisMom]

I hope this is helpful. I didn’t see the question within #90.

My early evaluation of EV (2). I would add much more, today.

According to the Church, this recent change is a prudential judgement, which, as Pope Benedict established any Catholic can disagree with the Church’s prudential judgement and remain a Catholic in good standing, a position which can only occur if the Church recognizes that there are credible differences with regard to biblical, theological, traditional, philosophical, rational and/or factual issues, which She does.

This is somewhat of a disaster for a CCC, wherein a prudential judgement should never occur, as CCC are to clarify teachings, not confuse them, with allowable differences of opinion, which has never occurred before.

As a canon lawyer observes, after 6 years of review, after the initial 1997 amendements to the death penalty teachings:

“Catholic teaching on capital punishment is in a state of dangerous ambiguity. The discussion of the death penalty in the Catechism of the Catholic Church is so difficult to interpret that conscientious members of the faithful scarcely know what their Church obliges them to believe.” “The Purpose of Punishment (in the Catholic tradition)”, by Canon Lawyer R. Michael Dunningan, J.D., J.C.L., CHRISTIFIDELIS, Vol.21,No.4, Sept 14, 2003

And what was the Catholic scholarship response to this first paragraph (CCC 2267), of this revised teaching, after 10 years of consideration?

“The most reasonable conclusion to draw from this discussion is that, once again, the Catechism is simply wrong from an historical point of view. Traditional Catholic teaching did not contain the restriction enunciated by Pope John Paul II” ." (1)

“The realm of human affairs is a messy one, full of at least apparent inconsistency and incoherence, and the recent teaching of the Catholic Church on capital punishment—vitiated, as I intend to show, by errors of historical fact and interpretation—is no exception.”(1)

What we have is an error, inexplicably, transferred from Pope John Paul II’s Evangelium Vitae into the Catechism, with no effort at fact checking within either document, the only rational explanation for the error.

Both EV and CCC further an error which, if, previously, found, would have prevented that error from entering the CCC and the language would have remained, as in the original, 1992-1993 I believe. See Flannery (1).

Additional problems, here, as detailed:
The Catechism and the Death Penalty
prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2013/0…h-penalty.html

1. “Capital Punishment and the Law”, Ave Maria Law Review, 2007 (30 pp), by Kevin L. Flannery S.J., Consultor of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (since 2002) and Ordinary Professor of Ancient Philosophy at the Pontifical Gregorian University (Rome); and Mary Ann Remick Senior Visiting Fellow at the Notre Dame Center for Ethics andCulture (University of Notre Dame)
2. EV
   homicidesurvivors.candothathosting.com/2007/07/23/pope-john-paul-ii-his-death-penalty-errors/

It was a yes or no question. So, I still need a simple clarification… is this a yes or a no? (it sounds like a yes but I just want to make it perfectly clear)

 

[LokisMom]

For DudleySharp:

To clarify, are you saying that Pope John Paul II, Pope Benedict, and Pope Francis are all going against church teaching by believing that the death penalty is no longer necessary to keep society safe and thus being against it?

 

[dudleysharp]

For DudleySharp:

answered in #215

 

[dudleysharp]

Once again, we’ll just have to agree to disagree on whether or not DP is more expensive than life in prison.

Once again, this doesn’t matter because the OP asked for Catholic arguments for/against the morality of the DP. I don’t know if you are using money as an argument, but I am not, and I have said that from my very first post on the money issue.

My point was only your lack of fact checking which still stands.

 

[Jon_S_1]

answered in #215

His answer is our Popes, Bishops, Entire Magesterium, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the Second Vatican Council, the USCCB, and a number of other authoritative shepherds are

IN ERROR

As such I must sadly say…heresy