Catholic Arguments For and Against the Death Penalty

[Jon_S_1]

Unnecessary, Jon S? Is YOUR opinion an absolute social law?
No, we do NOT believe in killing all criminals. We do believe however in executing legally all murderers, after careful review of ALL evidence.
And please stop equating abortion - murder - with the death penalty - legal retribution.

No, but I believe this man’s is:

“A sign of hope is the increasing recognition that the dignity of human life must never be taken away, even in the case of someone who has done great evil. Modern society has the means of protecting itself, without definitively denying criminals the chance to reform. I renew the appeal I made most recently at Christmas for a consensus to end the death penalty, which is both cruel and unnecessary.” (Homily at the Papal Mass in the Trans World Dome, St. Louis, Missouri, January 27, 1999).

But here we are talking to a “catholic” who wants to expand the death penalty.

Smh

 

[accitenor]

That is also ONE opinion, though holier than yours.
And you still have NOT addressed my point about volunteering to pay for all those years of incarceration.
:banghead:

 

[Jon_S_1]

That is also ONE opinion, though holier than yours.
And you still have NOT addressed my point about volunteering to pay for all those years of incarceration.
:banghead:

Prove to me it costs more?

Countless countries pay for it.

It’s a non issue.

Regardless what is the dollar value of human life.

When does a life become so expensive we extinguish it. (ELDERLY WATCH OUT!)

 

[Jon_S_1]

That is also ONE opinion, though holier than yours.
And you still have NOT addressed my point about volunteering to pay for all those years of incarceration.
:banghead:

Wow…the popes and bishops are just opinions to be dismissed whimsically as if they never said it…

You I hope realize he doesn’t need to make an ex cathedra statement for you to “humbly submit” to.

We are told to obey the church and even if we can’t understand or we disagree, we are to respect what they say.

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

How then is it respectful, to try and advocate a position contrary to their teaching??

 

[esieffe]

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

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 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.

This potential for error and not allowing, to the very last minute for hidden evidence to emerge or in the case of the guilty, time to repent and find God, make the implementation and risks of the death penalty unacceptable.

 

[esieffe]

New Testament Death Penalty Support Overwhelming

For more than 2000 years, there has been Catholic/Christian New Testament support for the death penalty, from Popes, Saints, Doctors and Fathers of the Church, church leadership, biblical scholars and theologians that, in breadth and depth, overwhelms any teachings to the contrary, particularly those wrongly dependent upon secular concerns such as defense of society and the poor standards of criminal justice systems in protecting the innocent.

New Testament Death Penalty Support Overwhelming
prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2014/01/new-testament-death-penalty-support.html

Dudley Sharp was a military man: Dudley Crawford Sharp (March 16, 1905 – May 17, 1987) was Secretary of the Air Force from December 11, 1959 until January 20, 1961, under president Dwight D. Eisenhower.

He has no theological credentials that I can find. There is no “overwhelming” NT support for the DEATH penalty on this site, it is just a blog. Opinions. Christ is love, Christ talked a great deal about love. How can you equate lethal injections, firing squads, gas chambers, electric chairs, hangings, and beheadings, especially when there is a mistake, with love?

 

[esieffe]

Well done, fellows! Since yesterday I have read dozens of beautiful explanations and quotes defending both the use of the death penalty and the possible solution of a life sentence.
However, the proponents of the latter failed to pledge their fortunes and savings to cover the cost to society of so many years of incarceration for those criminals and want to impose the expense on the public.
Is that fair?
Since the recidivism rate is so high, AND since those criminals DO hurt others in prison or teach others evil, AND since it costs more to house them for 50 or so years…why keep them alive?

With all due respect, the legal appeals process that are automatic in DP make executions vastly more expense then life incarceration. This fact is all over the internet, and is present in every DP argument ever made. Just check, I am completely shocked you are not already aware of this.

In some cash strapped states and counties, the DP is not even considered due to the expensive nature of the legal process. Much much cheaper to keep them alive than to execute, at least in the United States, and yet even with all these protections, too many innocent people have been executed. One is too many.

 

[LokisMom]

Not that money should be a reason to kill anyone, but for those of you saying life in prison is more expensive than the death penalty, you might wanna take a look at this:

deathpenalty.org/article.php?id=42

 

[LokisMom]

With all due respect, the legal appeals process that are automatic in DP make executions vastly more expense then life incarceration. This fact is all over the internet, and is present in every DP argument ever made. Just check, I am completely shocked you are not already aware of this.

In some cash strapped states and counties, the DP is not even considered due to the expensive nature of the legal process. Much much cheaper to keep them alive than to execute, at least in the United States, and yet even with all these protections, too many innocent people have been executed. One is too many.

This is very true. I didn’t realize how many innocent people get convicted of murder (including people on death row) until I started watching crime documentaries. At least as long as they are alive, there is the chance that they will be found innocent and be released at some point.

 

[CrossofChrist]

Hopefully you noted that that was not from a Vatican II document. Clever sneaky Ender at it again.

That is written in 2007 and is the personal opinion of Amerio.

Amerio died in 1997.

I think he is very insightful with some of his commentary on the death penalty, and some think (I haven’t read him, but he is undoubtedly orthodox. Ratzinger is also very positive overall about the future and isn’t very neoscholastic, so I’m not sure I would agree with this assessment since I would assume Amerio is very neoscholastic in his thinking…/end of rambling.) that his work is very much in line with Pope Benedict XVI’s.

Here is some of what he (Amerio) said:

*The legitimacy of capital punishment is usually grounded on two propositions. First: society has a right to defend itself…The growing tendency to mitigate punishments of all sorts is in part the product of the Gospel spirit of clemency and mercy, which has always been at odds down the centuries with savage judicial customs. With a certain degree of confusion that we need not go into here, the Church has always drawn back from blood…

From St. Augustine to St. Thomas Aquinas to Taperelli d’Azeglio, the traditional teaching is that the decision as to the necessity and legitimacy of capital punishment depends on historical circumstances, that is, on the urgency of the need to hold society together in the face of the disruptive behavior of individuals who attack the common good.*

Seems very much like what CCC 2267 is saying.

 

[accitenor]

That is precisely why I mentioned the excessive appeals and expenses, which in MOST cases are wasted while the attorneys make money and the condemned get ulcers!
It’s only one of my three points listed.

 

[CrossofChrist]

LS:

1,2,6 & 8 call for mandatory executions.

You may disagree, but the language is clear.

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, since it would be unjust to do something to harm the common good. 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. 2 doesn’t, it just shows that they don’t have a right to life like everyone else and therefore it can be just to execute them. 6 must be read in the context the Church has it, not in isolation. It would be a mistake to say that all murderers must be executed. How a punishment affects the common good must be weighed. I’ve already covered 8.

Perhaps a way of seeing this is comparing it to going to war. A person may legitimately come to the conclusion that this particular war would be unjust to fight, and therefore would be “incompatible with the Gospel”. So bishops (I have in mind the American and French) might think that the application of the death penalty in today’s society wouldn’t be conducive to promoting the common good, and therefore would be against the death penalty. Anyway, back to the war analogy, another person might see the same war and come to the conclusion that it would be a just war to fight, and so that same war would be seen based on their prudential judgment as compatible with the Gospel.

:twocents:

 

[CrossofChrist]

Perhaps a way of seeing this is comparing it to going to war. A person may legitimately come to the conclusion that this particular war would be unjust to fight, and therefore would be “incompatible with the Gospel”. So bishops (I have in mind the American and French) might think that the application of the death penalty in today’s society wouldn’t be conducive to promoting the common good, and therefore would be against the death penalty. Anyway, back to the war analogy, another person might see the same war and come to the conclusion that it would be a just war to fight, and so that same war would be seen based on their prudential judgment as compatible with the Gospel.

:twocents:

That could also help us understand Pope St. John Paul II’s quotes. BTW, for those interested in what he said on the war in Iraq: “No to war! War is not always inevitable. It is always a defeat for humanity.”

I think the above approach can help us understand why the Pope would say that capital punishment is “cruel and unnecessary” and an “unworthy punishment”, and how that doesn’t necessarily contradict statements that say the death penalty is morally defensible in all ages. Something being per se defensible doesn’t mean it is defensible in a given historical circumstance, such as our modern age. But again, that comes down to prudence. And maybe also important is Cardinal Ratzinger’s comment that “if a Catholic were to be at odds with the Holy Father on the application of capital punishment or on the decision to wage war, he would not for that reason be considered unworthy to present himself to receive Holy Communion.”

I’ll side with the Church’s prudence on this. I don’t trust myself that much.

 

[on_the_hill]

With all due respect, the legal appeals process that are automatic in DP make executions vastly more expense then life incarceration. This fact is all over the internet, and is present in every DP argument ever made. Just check, I am completely shocked you are not already aware of this.

In some cash strapped states and counties, the DP is not even considered due to the expensive nature of the legal process. Much much cheaper to keep them alive than to execute, at least in the United States, and yet even with all these protections, too many innocent people have been executed. One is too many.

Capital punishment is more expensive because opponents have made it more expensive, which, in turn, is used as an argument to abolish it.

From my perspective, investing lots and lots and lots of money to keep a convicted killer alive devalues the innocent life of his victim.

 

[LongingSoul]

That could also help us understand Pope St. John Paul II’s quotes. BTW, for those interested in what he said on the war in Iraq: “No to war! War is not always inevitable. It is always a defeat for humanity.”

I think the above approach can help us understand why the Pope would say that capital punishment is “cruel and unnecessary” and an “unworthy punishment”, and how that doesn’t necessarily contradict statements that say the death penalty is morally defensible in all ages. Something being per se defensible doesn’t mean it is defensible in a given historical circumstance, such as our modern age. But again, that comes down to prudence. And maybe also important is Cardinal Ratzinger’s comment that “if a Catholic were to be at odds with the Holy Father on the application of capital punishment or on the decision to wage war, he would not for that reason be considered unworthy to present himself to receive Holy Communion.”

I think that the problem some are having in understanding comes from not starting from our natural and thoroughly infused state of Christianity. We are baptised into the life of Christ and everything we do, say, feel, think… is through the lens of Christs life, death and resurrection. The Church has always dealt with a death penalty as an arm of the 5th Commandment “Thou shalt not kill” not the other way around as some are doing… dealing with the 5th commandment through the ‘divine command’ “eye for eye, life for life”.

Preserving life should always be our ultimate ideal as human life is created in the image of God. However, we are permitted to ***resort ***to an action which results in the death of another if there is no other possible solution in defending our own lives or in defending the lives of many according to our commission.

This is something revealed by reason since we can see the same principle at work in communities that existed prior to and apart from the communities of Gods people.

Pope Benedict in specifically addressing the ***application ***of the death penalty as with war, allows for those opinions and arguments that see the death penalty as an overall positive in dealing with crime in their community, but on principle it is better that the ideal is to preserve life at all times if possible.

Some argue that the death penalty is the default because it satisfies a need of Gods. That abolishing it leaves us with a lesser version of justice because we are too primitive and ungodly to claim the right to it. The reality is that it is a true occasion for rejoicing to find that we have reached a stage of being able to let it slip from use by the advances in technology in penal justice and also a stronger sense of brotherhood and friendship that unites every person everywhere regardless of their colour, creed or even sin.

 

[dudleysharp]

For the last century around the first world especially, there has been a growing distaste for the death penalty precisely because it is not reflective of the proper unity and civility that people recognise as beneficial to their common life. Statistics are just so minimally helpful in expressing the true vision shared by the collective heart. The crime figures which more often than not are overrepresented by certain sections of society that struggle to take an equal place as a rule…tell a story of more than just the act of the crime. Societies understand that if they fail to address this side of things… true justice is not served at all. The growing appreciation of mans equality and true dignity, makes these issues more clear and demanding. It is in this light, that it can clearly be seen that recourse to execution is not redressing the disorder and that there is a community demand to be sparing with death to promote the value of the life of human beings. That is justice being served and the disorder being redressed within the context of the common good.

The problem is that is not what was being discussed.

It was by the error within EV and CCC, the false statement that:

" "Today, in fact, given the means at the State’s disposal to effectively repress crime by rendering inoffensive the one who has committed it, without depriving him definitively of the possibility of redeeming himself, cases of absolute necessity for suppression of the offender ‘today … are very rare, if not practically non-existent.’

The death penalty spares more innocent lives and neither the EV nor the CCC came remotely close to reality with their " very rare, if not practically non-existent."

If their premise is wrong, their conclusion is wrong, which they both are, therefore the change in teaching is based upon a falsehood, which it provably is.

Reality matters. The CCC, as EV, simply and sadly, made a huge error of fact, which was easily found by the most bascic of fact checking.

As I detailed and as no one rebutted:

The reality is that it is “very rare, if not practically non-existent.’” for the State “to effectively repress crime by rendering inoffensive the one who has committed it.”

One of so many sad realities that I, previously, presented, that EV and CCC, somehow, missed:

The following suggests that some 200,000 innocents were murdered buy those criminals the US released from custody, just since 1973, which does not include the staggering numbers of additional innocents harmed by non lethal violent crimes, such as rape and robbery.

“Of these (repeat offender state) prisoners, (imprisoned in 1991), 45% had committed their latest crimes while free on probation or parole.”

“When “supervised” on the streets, they inflicted at least 218,000 violent crimes, including 13,200 murders and 11,600 rapes (more than half of the rapes against children).”

This is just from a review of state (and no federal) prisoners for one year - 1991! . . .

 

[LongingSoul]

The problem is that is not what was being discussed.

It was by the error within EV and CCC, the false statement that:

" "Today, in fact, given the means at the State’s disposal to effectively repress crime by rendering inoffensive the one who has committed it, without depriving him definitively of the possibility of redeeming himself, cases of absolute necessity for suppression of the offender ‘today … are very rare, if not practically non-existent.’

The death penalty spares more innocent lives and neither the EV nor the CCC came remotely close to reality with their " very rare, if not practically non-existent."

If their premise is wrong, their conclusion is wrong, which they both are, therefore the change in teaching is based upon a falsehood, which it provably is.

Reality matters. The CCC, as EV, simply and sadly, made a huge error of fact, which was easily found by the most bascic of fact checking.

As I detailed and as no one rebutted:

The reality is that it is “very rare, if not practically non-existent.’” for the State “to effectively repress crime by rendering inoffensive the one who has committed it.”

One of so many sad realities that I, previously, presented, that EV and CCC, somehow, missed:

The following suggests that some 200,000 innocents were murdered buy those criminals the US released from custody, just since 1973, which does not include the staggering numbers of additional innocents harmed by non lethal violent crimes, such as rape and robbery.

“Of these (repeat offender state) prisoners, (imprisoned in 1991), 45% had committed their latest crimes while free on probation or parole.”

“When “supervised” on the streets, they inflicted at least 218,000 violent crimes, including 13,200 murders and 11,600 rapes (more than half of the rapes against children).”

This is just from a review of state (and no federal) prisoners for one year - 1991! . . .

Using the gammit of crime figures is not relevant to whether the death penalty has an effect unless you are suggesting that all criminals should be executed upon conviction. If the State is capable of securing the type of ‘irredeemable’ offender that exists on death row for long years… they are capable of successfully replacing that with a ‘never to be released’ lockup. Realistically, how many of those *on death row *have escaped and perpetrated crime again? That is what is being addressed by EV. The capability of permanently securing these particularly depraved examples is achievable.

One of the ‘lifers’ from the State I live in died in prison not long back aged 82. He had been incarcerated for 54 years. It is achievable.

 

[dudleysharp]

Not that money should be a reason to kill anyone, but for those of you saying life in prison is more expensive than the death penalty, you might wanna take a look at this:

deathpenalty.org/article.php?id=42

Please fact check the studies:

Saving Costs with The Death Penalty
prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2013/02/death-penalty-cost-saving-money.html

 

[Jon_S_1]

The problem is that is not what was being discussed.

It was by the error within EV and CCC, the false statement that:

" "Today, in fact, given the means at the State’s disposal to effectively repress crime by rendering inoffensive the one who has committed it, without depriving him definitively of the possibility of redeeming himself, cases of absolute necessity for suppression of the offender ‘today … are very rare, if not practically non-existent.’

The death penalty spares more innocent lives and neither the EV nor the CCC came remotely close to reality with their " very rare, if not practically non-existent."

If their premise is wrong, their conclusion is wrong, which they both are, therefore the change in teaching is based upon a falsehood, which it provably is.

Reality matters. The CCC, as EV, simply and sadly, made a huge error of fact, which was easily found by the most bascic of fact checking.

As I detailed and as no one rebutted:

The reality is that it is “very rare, if not practically non-existent.’” for the State “to effectively repress crime by rendering inoffensive the one who has committed it.”

One of so many sad realities that I, previously, presented, that EV and CCC, somehow, missed:

The following suggests that some 200,000 innocents were murdered buy those criminals the US released from custody, just since 1973, which does not include the staggering numbers of additional innocents harmed by non lethal violent crimes, such as rape and robbery.

“Of these (repeat offender state) prisoners, (imprisoned in 1991), 45% had committed their latest crimes while free on probation or parole.”

“When “supervised” on the streets, they inflicted at least 218,000 violent crimes, including 13,200 murders and 11,600 rapes (more than half of the rapes against children).”

This is just from a review of state (and no federal) prisoners for one year - 1991! . . .

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

 

[LongingSoul]

Please fact check the studies:

Saving Costs with The Death Penalty
prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2013/02/death-penalty-cost-saving-money.html

As Loki(name removed by moderator) says, as a ‘cost saving’ measure, the death penalty couldn’t be justified as that could be said of many groups of people whose lives are such that they can’t contribute much to society but require a high degree of support to continue to live.

The other thing that discredits that line of argument is that all the countries who have abolished the death penalty have fairly seemlessly transitioned without the financial burden.

And thirdly, the purpose of moving to towards an unconditional prolife mentality with regards punishment… is to combat the pervading culture of death that tolerates and promotes measures such as abortion, euthanasia, suicide and contraception in society. The taxdollar burden in supporting those antilife practices isn’t acceptable. Especially to Catholics.