Except you are not correct. The Church does not say its wrong and it does not decide if and what alternative is available. You are also not in a position to say if the authorities have a suitable alternative.The Church teaches that the cases where a punishment of death are virtually non-existent and to apply it when other just punishments exist is immoral… i’ll stick with the Church.
That doesn’t sound like cases where an alternative wouldn’t be available… remember the cases where th death penalty would be admissible, according to the Church, are virtually non-existent.As I said earlier I would extend the death penalty from murderers to rapists, pedophiles, and drug lords.
I also stick with the Church which says the death penalty is allowed!!i’ll stick with the Church
It is not the Church who determines if an alternative is available. It would be naive to simply think there are prisons so no need for the death penalty. It is not that simple.I support the death penalty too brother… I assume you have not read my previous posts.
The circumstances under which it can be applied is where it seems we differ…the cases where it can be applied a very, very narrow - virtually non-existent. As Catholics we can not support the death penalty if alternative exist… this is spelled out explicitly in the magisterium… I hope you will read what has been posted in the thread.
I’m grateful to the Church’s leadership and teaching on this subject. I pray that our civil authorities will follow the Church’s teaching on the morality (or lack thereof) of applying the death penalty when non-lethal alternatives exist.
As I said I stick to the Church which allows for use of the death penalty. I support it and as previously stated would extend it to cover all heinous crimes.I’ll stick with the Church…
@Ender I think this a good occasion to flag up something significant that I alluded to in the above: the traditional disparity between the standards expected from clerics and laypersons, by which means the laity were relegated to de facto second-class citizenship of the Church, complete with numerous concessions made to their weakness.
See:
Innocent Civilians: The Morality of Killing in War - C. McKeogh - Google Books
So, since the Big Conference Thing in the 60s, are Catholic laypeople not allowed to go hunting? Or join the military?The ban on clerical fighting was part of a general prohibition on the clerical use of weapons which extended to hunting as well as warfare. Clerics could not shed blood, either human or animal. The ban on clerical participation in war was not simply an implication of the advice to those who served God not to be concerned with the things of the world. Rather, it was the act of killing which was thought to sully (as the ban on clerical hunting clearly shows). The ban on clerical participation is an acknowledgement that the most Christian thing to do is forgo all killing.
The established reasoning was to be based on the idea of the two levels of Christian vocation put forward by Eusebius of Caesaria. Eusebius held that Christians of the higher level (the clergy and religious) were to aim at the highest Christian ideals; they were bound by the ‘counsels of perfection’…This differentiation between lay and clerical morality is not firmly grounded and there is certainly no biblical basis for it. It is odd to interpret Jesus’s command of non-resistance strictly for those Christians who desired to attain perfection (equated with clerics)…That something is not to be done by the most perfect Christians, because they are the most perfect Christians, is almost an acknowledgement that it ought not to be done by any Christian
My call is abiding by the Church teaching and not your private interpretation of that teaching.Your call if you’d like to ignore the magisterium.
The same applies to you. Catholics are FREE to support or not support the death penalty.You’re entitled to your own opinion but not your own facts
There would seem to be little doubt about this.The same applies to you. Catholics are FREE to support or not support the death penalty.
This true… I have not argued against that.Catholics are FREE to support or not support the death penalty
You are wrong. The Church does not define what is an available alternative. I am free to support the death penalty. Having a prison per se is not an alternative plus I have never heard of the death penalty being applied immediately. Those on death row have years or even decades before they are executed so they are not deprived of the chance to repent!Catholics are FREE to support or not support the death penalty
This true… I have not argued against that.
The Church does however provide teaching on the circumstances under which the penalty could be applied. I have argued and cited several magisterial teaching on that… the cases instances where the death penalty could be applied are practically non-existent for Catholics.
That means that advocating for the death penalty for entire categories of criminals (i.e murders, rapists, pedophiles, etc) would not be in accord with that Church’s teaching… any reasonable Catholic or person can see that
Boy… you are a stubborn one. Let’s try again…You are wrong.
I don’t think this is quite the slam dunk you perceive it to be. It seems you interpret this comment to be doctrinal, and therefore not subject to disagreement. That conclusion is not universally held by those who have studied this question.Here is Pope St John Paul II magisterial teaching on the subject… the bold part at the end really stumps your argument doesn’t it?..
In any event, the principle set forth in the new Catechism of the Catholic Church remains valid: “If bloodless means are sufficient to defend human lives against an aggressor and to protect public order and the safety of persons, public authority must limit itself to such means, because they better correspond to the concrete conditions of the common good and are more in conformity to the dignity of the human person”.48