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Ender
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The comment of Romano Amerio against the argument that execution denies someone the chance of repenting of his sin.
"The most irreligious aspect of this argument against capital punishment is that it denies its expiatory value which, from a religious point of view, is of the highest importance because it can include a final consent to give up the greatest of all worldly goods. This fits exactly with St. Thomas’s opinion that as well as canceling out any debt that the criminal owes to civil society, capital punishment can cancel all punishment due in the life to come.
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MCH1
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Huh, very interesting.
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Ender
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The DPIC is an advocacy group, so discretion is advised when reading their information. It’s a little like going to NARAL to get a perspective on abortion. That said, I’m sure that capital cases are expensive, but that is mainly due to the processes states have instituted - it is an inefficiency politicians have built into the systems. The DPIC used the examples of New York and California (among others) to imply that they represent the norm, and perhaps they do, but what they didn’t address were the states where such costs are much lower. Virginia, for example, is quite efficient in its process, and its costs are significantly less than the states mentioned. There is no intrinsic reason why capital punishment cases of their nature cost what they do.
This is an argument for efficiently applying the punishment, not for abandoning it.
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Ender
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If by this you mean retribution - retributive justice - is the primary objective of punishment then I agree with you.
Here’s the problem: what is the basis for asserting this?
Is the protection of society from a particular individual the primary objective of punishment? If you say it is you disagree with what the church teaches on this point (see 2266), but if you say it is not then how do you explain why the extent of the punishment should be determined by a secondary objective?
First, basing the use of capital punishment on whether it is necessary for protection is not a development, but an innovation, and, as you apply it, conflicts with the existing doctrines on punishment. Second, the idea that only recently has society had the ability to safely imprison people for life is not supported by the evidence. Life sentences have existed for centuries.
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Vouthon
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Chapter XII does not contradict the document’s later condemnation of the death penalty.
I have already paid due attention to how the church teaches that, where recourse to non-violent means is not to possible to defend human lives against a violent offender, there is no sin in the state sentencing them to death. As such his statement that both “can perhaps be exercised without fault” is very telling. Note the word perhaps, not the definitive can be exercised.
And no, in the chapter we were discussing (XXV) the pontiff was not addressing the issue of the Khan’s violent suppression of an insurrection against his rule. That question was dealt with separately in Ch. XVII. And then you proceeded to state something which is demonstrably false on the basis of the evidence presented to the reader in the actual text, namely:
In terms of the “venerable laws”, nowhere does he advocate capital punishment. At every opportunity, he attempts to curtail it.
What Pope Nicholas I contended is clear: while the secular laws may prescribe capital punishment, the pope argues that those guilty and liable for death should be spared: "You should save from death not only the innocent but also criminals, because Christ has saved you from the death of the soul” (quoted by Compagnoni, p. 47).
Thus the New Catholic Encyclopedia states in Volume 3 page 86: “In the mid-ninth century Pope Nicholas I, in a letter to the recently-converted Bulgars, actually recommended abolition of capital punishment as the Christian ideal”. The pope even states according to the translation by Paul .A.B Clarke that the Bulgars must: “avoid every occasion of taking life”.
Remember what St. Thomas Aquinas commended in Summa Theologica, 11; 65-2; 66-6. “If a man is a danger to the community, threatening it with disintegration by some wrongdoing of his, then his execution for the healing and preservation of the common good” is acceptable but if a non-violent method can be used instead to protect the common good, then his life should be spared. Capital punishment can be justified if and only if the person has posed and will continue to pose a serious threat to society.
I have already paid due attention to how the church teaches that, where recourse to non-violent means is not to possible to defend human lives against a violent offender, there is no sin in the state sentencing them to death. As such his statement that both “can perhaps be exercised without fault” is very telling. Note the word perhaps, not the definitive can be exercised.
And no, in the chapter we were discussing (XXV) the pontiff was not addressing the issue of the Khan’s violent suppression of an insurrection against his rule. That question was dealt with separately in Ch. XVII. And then you proceeded to state something which is demonstrably false on the basis of the evidence presented to the reader in the actual text, namely:
Did you not read on?
He argued that the Khan should have spared the lives of all the rebels, even the guilty.
In terms of the “venerable laws”, nowhere does he advocate capital punishment. At every opportunity, he attempts to curtail it.
What Pope Nicholas I contended is clear: while the secular laws may prescribe capital punishment, the pope argues that those guilty and liable for death should be spared: "You should save from death not only the innocent but also criminals, because Christ has saved you from the death of the soul” (quoted by Compagnoni, p. 47).
Thus the New Catholic Encyclopedia states in Volume 3 page 86: “In the mid-ninth century Pope Nicholas I, in a letter to the recently-converted Bulgars, actually recommended abolition of capital punishment as the Christian ideal”. The pope even states according to the translation by Paul .A.B Clarke that the Bulgars must: “avoid every occasion of taking life”.
Remember what St. Thomas Aquinas commended in Summa Theologica, 11; 65-2; 66-6. “If a man is a danger to the community, threatening it with disintegration by some wrongdoing of his, then his execution for the healing and preservation of the common good” is acceptable but if a non-violent method can be used instead to protect the common good, then his life should be spared. Capital punishment can be justified if and only if the person has posed and will continue to pose a serious threat to society.
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Spyridon
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One is not truly pro life so long as they support death.
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godisgood77
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The teaching of St Pope John Paull II and the Church… I don’t know where the difficultly is for you on this point.
No, as I clearly stated the primary objective remains punishment of the crime… I can not see where your difficulty is with this point.
Not true, punishment remains the primary reason for capital punishment. Adding smart, good and moral governing principles to its application is not an innovation, it is a development and a legitimate one at that. This development in no way alters the essential essence of the original teaching and deepens the Church’s teaching on it. No brainer brother
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Maximilian75
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In America, certainly, but there can be extenuating circumstances that make things not-too-simple…
This was said upthread, but…
If you’re stranded on a desert island due to a plane crash and one of your fellow survivors is homidical, what do you do? you can’t fully imprision him, so, based on what I know, Catholically, one could kill himout of necessity.
This was said upthread, but…
If you’re stranded on a desert island due to a plane crash and one of your fellow survivors is homidical, what do you do? you can’t fully imprision him, so, based on what I know, Catholically, one could kill himout of necessity.
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Vouthon
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No, that would be justice.
But depriving someone of their life is a punishment that should only be undertaken if it is absolutely necessary, to which end the common good becomes the decisive limiting factor. Mercy triumphs over judgement.
Only if a person continues to represent a threat to society is it proportionate to execute them. If non-violent methods are at hand, they should be adopted given the sanctity of human life. In this regard, St. John Paul II singles out Genesis 4:15 as a sign that even the life of a murderer is sacred and worthy of protection from death. As he writes in Evangelium Vitae, 9:
Pope Benedict XVI in his 2012 Post-Synodal Exhortation, Ecclesia in Medio Oriente, n. 26 also cites Genesis 9:6 as evidence that God forbids the killing of even those who commit murder:
In the modern context, the circumstances in which capital punishment would be necessary are practically non-existent, according to St. JPII.
It bears mentioning that Pius XII, in his Feb. 5, 1955 Address to the Italian Association of Catholic Jurists, cites Rom 13:4, but he does not see it as directly endorsing capital punishment. Instead, he says that this text and other sources “do not refer to the concrete contents of individual juridical prescriptions or rules of actions, but to the essential foundation itself of penal power and its immanent finality".
In 1976 the Pontifical Commission for Justice and Peace issued a statement, The Church & the Death Penalty, which notes: “The existence of capital punishment in the Old Testament does not of itself justify it for today. None of the passages (Exodus 21:21ff; Ex 22:19, Lv 20:10) usually cited demand that capital punishment be used today. A fortiori, the New Testament does not prescribe it” (Origins, Dec. 9, 1976 Vol. 6:25, 389–391).
This is the exact same argument employed by Pope St. Nicholas the Great in A.D. 866:
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Vouthon
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@Ender in furtherance of the preceding, its worth noting something St. Thomas Aquinas says in Summa Theologica 11, 11, 64, 4
I would have more sympathy with your argument if the Church had a divinely revealed positive legal system to propose for society, like Islamic sharia law, where capital punishment was recognised.
I’m curious to know what your assessment would be of the Council of Elvira (ca. 300–303) which required a Christian magistrate “to keep away from the Church during the year of his service as a joint magistrate (duumvir) because he might have to carry out capital sentences” (canon 56). The Canons of the Synod of Rome under Pope Damasus I (r. 366–384) likewise stated that civil servants “who have sentenced to death, given unjust judgments, and carried out judicial torture cannot be immune from sin” (Cap. V, n. 13; PL, 13, 1181f). The Apostolic Consitutions (ca. 215–380) stipulated that “a military man in authority must not execute men; if he is ordered he must not carry it out” (16, 9)
Romans 13:4, oft referenced by death penalty advocates, is not even directly applicable to the question of “the contents of individual juridical prescriptions” like capital punishment but rather the “essential foundation itself of penal power”. So support for capital punishment really has no grounding in the New Testament.
I would have more sympathy with your argument if the Church had a divinely revealed positive legal system to propose for society, like Islamic sharia law, where capital punishment was recognised.
I’m curious to know what your assessment would be of the Council of Elvira (ca. 300–303) which required a Christian magistrate “to keep away from the Church during the year of his service as a joint magistrate (duumvir) because he might have to carry out capital sentences” (canon 56). The Canons of the Synod of Rome under Pope Damasus I (r. 366–384) likewise stated that civil servants “who have sentenced to death, given unjust judgments, and carried out judicial torture cannot be immune from sin” (Cap. V, n. 13; PL, 13, 1181f). The Apostolic Consitutions (ca. 215–380) stipulated that “a military man in authority must not execute men; if he is ordered he must not carry it out” (16, 9)
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Crocus
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Yikes, not true, unless you’re phrasing it awkwardly.
You can’t kill him because you judge him to be homicidal. If he positively threatens your life, then you may defend yourself and others, which may result in his death, however killing him must not be the primary goal.
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Maximilian75
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Awkward phrasing, yes.
‘If he has killed/shown intention of doing as such’ would be a better phrasing.
‘If he has killed/shown intention of doing as such’ would be a better phrasing.
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Crocus
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IMO still not allowed, as you are not allowed to be executioner of that act (has killed). He must be in the act of imminent threat (more than shown intention).
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Ender
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Yes, this was very carelessly stated. I made some assumptions too. The children were innocent of the sins of the fathers so killing them was a grave sin, and Nicholas was explicit in condemning this action. That the Khan should have “spared their lives for the love of God” is a very different consideration for the fathers.
But, you and I will disagree on how this document should be understood, so let’s look at the complications your interpretation causes. The fathers were clearly guilty of treason in starting an armed rebellion, so was Nicholas saying that they shouldn’t have been executed because capital punishment is always wrong? You have rejected that position because the church teaches that “where recourse to non-violent means is not to possible to defend human lives against a violent offender, there is no sin in the state sentencing them to death.”
What then is the basis for Nicholas’ opposition? Either he is calling all capital punishment sinful or he is acknowledging that the Bulgars had the ability to safely incarcerate their prisoners. The first possibility conflicts with what the church teaches today, and the second recognizes that “safe incarceration” existed 1000 years ago.
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Ender
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Even if you accept that capital punishment is immoral if prisoners may be safely imprisoned it is still undeniably a prudential judgment that we have achieved such a capability. One can legitimaterly support the use of the death penalty on that point alone.
The primary purpose of punishment is not punishment for the sake of punishment. The church has addressed this: ‘The primary purpose of the punishment which society inflicts is “to redress the disorder caused by the offence”.’ (JPII, Evangelium vitae)
Unless the prime function of punishment is understood there can be no reasonable debate about what satisfies that obligation.
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Ender
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This is a really interesting question. The catechism, as it is being interpreted, allows a felon to be executed if he represents a danger to others. What is missing from that interpretation is any consideration of desert: does he deserve to die because of his crime? If the question of what the person deserves is ignored in punishing a criminal, why can it not also be ignored in this case as well? After all, if the primary concern is with public safety then what secondary consideration can override the primary one? Justice cannot be secondary when executing one person but primary when executing someone else.
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godisgood77
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Yes, no one is saying that a Catholic can’t support the death penalty. However, as Catholics we are obliged to only support it when other means of punishment are available…so, as you say, if prisoners may be safely imprisoned or safely rehabilitated or some other option, the Church teaches that capital punishment is not an option… undeniably so.
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Vouthon
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Naturally, executing innocents is qualitatively more heinous than executing the guilty because the innocent don’t merit punishment in the first place but that doesn’t imply, in any way, that the guilty have any less right to life.
Nicholas was clearly of the mind, rightly or wrongly, that the Bulgar authorities under the Khanate had proportionate and effective non-lethal means of appropriately punishing the rebels for having committed treason (satisfying the demands of justice) and protecting the state, as a whole, from future threats of revolutionary aggression. Hence why he pleaded that all their lives be spared, and not merely the innocent children. Note he didn’t deny that they should be punished for their collective crime, only that the punishment used shouldn’t lead to their deaths.
In most medieval societies, I believe that this capability would have been exceedingly unlikely to exist. See:
Capital punishment - Wikipedia
But that doesn’t change the moral being outlined here: where non-lethal means can be used to satisfy both justice and protection of the common good, Catholics are obligated (yes, obligated ) to employ them over lethal means (i.e. capital punishment).
Nicholas was rightly telling the Khan that the Christian ideal is abolition of the death penalty, sparing the lives of the guilty from bodily death unless there is no alternative. The moral doctrine here is that the non-lethal means are more in keeping with the demands of Christian charity, because we believe that one should avoid any taking of human life where possible.
In other words, irrespective of the specific contours of the Bulgar case, Pope Nicholas established a moral truth here.
(continued…)
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Vouthon
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@Ender
Now, a prudential judgement naturally comes in here and St. Pope John Paul II has explained that situations where non-lethal means would not prove sufficient today are “practically non-existent”. If so, then to permit capital punishment under these circumstances is unjustified, unnecessary and disproportionate. Thus, whereas it is not sinful to impose the death penalty where it is the only means of defending the common good in the face of continued aggression from the offender, it would be today for that reason because human life is precious and must only be taken away when it is absolutely necessary.
If the common good can be upheld without executing the offender, then justice can be served by means of non-lethal sentencing in the context of maxim security incarceration.
Now, a prudential judgement naturally comes in here and St. Pope John Paul II has explained that situations where non-lethal means would not prove sufficient today are “practically non-existent”. If so, then to permit capital punishment under these circumstances is unjustified, unnecessary and disproportionate. Thus, whereas it is not sinful to impose the death penalty where it is the only means of defending the common good in the face of continued aggression from the offender, it would be today for that reason because human life is precious and must only be taken away when it is absolutely necessary.
If the common good can be upheld without executing the offender, then justice can be served by means of non-lethal sentencing in the context of maxim security incarceration.
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