Catholism's stand on capitol punishment

[Brendan]

If I accept that commandment, how can I condemn someone if Jesus doesn’t?. I would never place myself above Him.

And that would include sending someone to their execution.

To us personally, no, but Christ Himself gave that right to the State. Look what the Holy Spirit said through Paul

Romans 13

The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and he will commend you. For he is God’s servant to do you good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing. He is God’s servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer

First of all, we see that the authority of the State is established by God.

If we do good, we have nothing to fear. If we do wrong, the State bears the sword as God’s servant, as an agent to bring punishment on the wrong doer.

And this IS the self same Gospel that Christ preached, as the Spirit who inspires Paul speaks with the same voice Christ does.

 

[Ender]

You could have endless arguments over NT vs. OT scripture. Which takes precedence? The old covenant or the new covenant?

I don’t think Jesus was confused at all; in fact, I think He was very clear on this.

You can choose to go with the old rule if you wish but as for me, I will go with the new.

The issue is not which testament takes precedence over the other, nor, more significantly, does it have anything to do with our personal interpretation of scripture; it has to do with the Church’s interpretation. Regarding Gen 9:6, the Council of Trent took the requirement stated therein at face value and the Church has never repudiated her understanding of this command.

The murderer is the worst enemy of his species, and consequently of nature. To the utmost of his power he destroys the universal work of God by the destruction of man, since God declares that He created all things for man’s sake. Nay, as it is forbidden in Genesis to take human life, because God created man to his own image and likeness, he who makes away with God’s image offers great injury to God, and almost seems to lay violent hands on God Himself !

This comment directly refers to Gen 9:6. As I said in an earlier post, the Church’s position on capital punishment for her first 1995 years was radically different from what JPII wrote in Evangelium Vitae and I don’t think that his prudential opinion on this issue suffices to reverse everything the Church teaches about justice and punishment.

Ender

 

[Antrim]

I could never sentence any one to death if I were on a jury. I firmly beleive that I would be held accountable for it when I die.
The fifth commandment says thou shalt not kill so I fell I would be breaking the fifth commandment.
Bear in mind unless I am wrong it is the prosacuter who seeks the death peanalty and sometimes the victims family want it. The Prosecuter does not need to do that
There is no reason why they can not be kept in a Cell for the rest of their lives.
The Death penalty is not a deterent.

There was a catholic Governer who would not sign any death warrants while he was in office because he was Pro Life.

Antrim

 

[Brendan]

I could never sentence any one to death if I were on a jury. I firmly beleive that I would be held accountable for it when I die.
The fifth commandment says thou shalt not kill so I fell I would be breaking the fifth commandment.

Antrim,

Go back and look at post 24. It shows the Church’s teachings on the Death Penalty specifically in regards to the 5th Commandment.

Our personal feelings on matter are meaningless, it’s the Church’s teachings on who to interpret the Commandments that we will be held accountable to,

 

[Eddie_Mac]

Capital Punishment
2266 The State’s effort to contain the spread of behaviors injurious to human rights and the fundamental rules of civil coexistence corresponds to the requirement of watching over the common good. Legitimate public authority has the right and duty to inflict penalties commensurate with the gravity of the crime. The primary scope of the penalty is to redress the disorder caused by the offense. When his punishment is voluntarily accepted by the offender, it takes on the value of expiation. Moreover, punishment, in addition to preserving public order and the safety of persons, has a medicinal scope: as far as possible it should contribute to the correction of the offender.[67]

2267 The traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude, presupposing full ascertainment of the identity and responsibility of the offender, recourse to the death penalty, when this is the **only **practicable way to defend the lives of human beings effectively against the aggressor.

"If, instead, bloodless means are sufficient to defend against the aggressor and to protect the safety of persons, public authority should 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.

"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.’ **

My bolding.

So basically, Church teaching is against it.

Other prisoners and the prison guards must be considered as individual humans that must be protected from those dangerous killers who have no conscience. The total of society must be considered when justice is meted out to criminals, not just those who live in their sterile protected alarmed world with police protection only minutes away from their gated communities.

Allowing psycopaths and sociopaths who have multiple victims to continue to prey on others and further influence those who are easily persuaded into the darker side of crime is in itself evil.

I consider the word rare as relative in this statement from the Church. There is no such thing as a rare case where the death penalty should be used given the current state of society.

I have two cousins who are prison guards in the Texas prison system because their farms do not provide enough income to support their families. Both have suffered injury at the hands of nonviolent criminals. They do not work in a death row prison.

Walk a mile in their shoes when you start spouting about justice aand the proper use of punishment because no one should suffer because justice was not properly carried out.

Eddie Mac

 

[Eddie_Mac]

The issue is not which testament takes precedence over the other, nor, more significantly, does it have anything to do with our personal interpretation of scripture; it has to do with the Church’s interpretation. Regarding Gen 9:6, the Council of Trent took the requirement stated therein at face value and the Church has never repudiated her understanding of this command.

The murderer is the worst enemy of his species, and consequently of nature. To the utmost of his power he destroys the universal work of God by the destruction of man, since God declares that He created all things for man’s sake. Nay, as it is forbidden in Genesis to take human life, because God created man to his own image and likeness, he who makes away with God’s image offers great injury to God, and almost seems to lay violent hands on God Himself !

This comment directly refers to Gen 9:6. As I said in an earlier post, the Church’s position on capital punishment for her first 1995 years was radically different from what JPII wrote in Evangelium Vitae and I don’t think that his prudential opinion on this issue suffices to reverse everything the Church teaches about justice and punishment.

Ender

Excellent post.

I have long understood that Church teachings, the sort of which we are bound to believe and support, cannot and will not change. Also, they are aften clarified as Church wisdom matures.

This is not the case with capital punishment. If anyone in the church states emphatically that the church opposes the death penalty, that is their opinion, their personal opinion.

Eddie Mac

 

[querying]

I dont think a catholic on a Jury in a death penalty case can sentence a person to death.
because I think it is considered revenge.
Revenge is mine says the Lord therefore no one but Our Lord is allowed to take it.

When a person is executed that is murder.

Antrim

This is not the teaching of the Church.

 

[querying]

If you limit your research to documents from JPII’s encyclical Evangelium Vitae and later you will have one view of the Church’s position but if you go back to everything written before then you will come away with the opposite position. I have a bucket load of references from popes, councils, and doctors of the Church going back to Pope St. Innocent I that have a completely different understanding of capital punishment. If you’re interested let me know and I’ll send you the file.

Ender

Hi,

Could I have the references for these, please?..

Thank you!

 

[Antrim]

I decided that I needed to get the actual stand of the Catholic church on this issue.
I asked the Deacon at our church whom I know very well.
He said only God can take life.
THe Church DOES NOT CONDONE THE DAETH PENALTY.
God has given us a free will.
I said that if I were on a jury in a death penalty case I would not sentence the person to death and he said neither would I.
I said the Fifth Commandment comes straight from God and he said that is right.
This is all in Canon law.

Antrim

 

[Timothysis]

I decided that I needed to get the actual stand of the Catholic church on this issue.
I asked the Deacon at our church whom I know very well.
He said only God can take life.
THe Church DOES NOT CONDONE THE DAETH PENALTY.
God has given us a free will.
I said that if I were on a jury in a death penalty case I would not sentence the person to death and he said neither would I.
I said the Fifth Commandment comes straight from God and he said that is right.
This is all in Canon law.

Antrim

Your deacon needs to learn what the Church truly teaches. If only God can take a life, does that mean that all men and women who fight in legitimate wars are murderers and, therefore, destined for hell without repentance? What about law enforcement officers who have to kill in the line of duty? What about the person who kills an intruder who is breaking into their house while the wife and kiddies are in bed?

While the Church technically does not CONDONE the death penalty, it does allow its rightful place in the criminal justice system. I don’t understand why you find this so difficult to understand. Further, if you look at the definition of the words ‘murder,’ and ‘kill,’ you will see that there is a totally different definition for each.

While you may not “agree” with it, the Church has always said and continues to say that the death penalty is a viable option in certain cases. I, myself, am not crazy about the death penalty but it is patently untrue to say that the Church does not allow it, no matter what your deacon says.

 

[Harrison]

I decided that I needed to get the actual stand of the Catholic church on this issue.
I asked the Deacon at our church whom I know very well.
He said only God can take life.
THe Church DOES NOT CONDONE THE DAETH PENALTY.
God has given us a free will.
I said that if I were on a jury in a death penalty case I would not sentence the person to death and he said neither would I.
I said the Fifth Commandment comes straight from God and he said that is right.
This is all in Canon law.

Antrim

Please read all of the thread. Your were not given correct information from the Deacon at your Parish. The Church does allow use of the death penalty.

 

[pnewton]

I said the Fifth Commandment comes straight from God and he said that is right.
This is all in Canon law.

Th Fifth Commandment did not,repeat, did not apply to the death penalty. In fact, just the opposite. When it was given it had the death penalty built into it as punishment for its breaking.

Also, nothing on this topic is a matter of Canon Law.

 

[querying]

I decided that I needed to get the actual stand of the Catholic church on this issue.
I asked the Deacon at our church whom I know very well.
He said only God can take life.
THe Church DOES NOT CONDONE THE DAETH PENALTY.
God has given us a free will.
I said that if I were on a jury in a death penalty case I would not sentence the person to death and he said neither would I.
I said the Fifth Commandment comes straight from God and he said that is right.
This is all in Canon law.

Antrim

This is not the teaching of the Church.

Nor is it the teaching of the Church that missing mass without a good reason is not a mortal sin, like a priest once told me it wasn’t.

Magisterium trumps dissident/ mistaken priests always.

 

[Brendan]

I said the Fifth Commandment comes straight from God and he said that is right.
This is all in Canon law.

Antrim

Antrim,

Here is what the Council of Trent said on the 5th Commandment

Execution Of Criminals

Another kind of lawful slaying belongs to the civil authorities, to whom is entrusted power of life and death, by the legal and judicious exercise of which they punish the guilty and protect the innocent. The just use of this power, far from involving the crime of murder, is an act of paramount obedience to this Commandment which prohibits murder. The end of the Commandment is the preservation and security of human life. Now the punishments inflicted by the civil authority, which is the legitimate avenger of crime, naturally tend to this end, since they give security to life by repressing outrage and violence. Hence these words of David: In the morning I put to death all the wicked of the land, that I might cut off all the workers of iniquity from the city of the Lord.

Note the bolded part.

Now given a choice between listening to the determinations of the Council of the Church, and a parish deacon, I know which one Church Law deems to be a higher authority.

Here too is St. Augustine on the subject

The same divine authority that forbids the killing of a human being establishes certain exceptions, as when God authorizes killing by a general law or when He gives an explicit commission to an individual for a limited time. The agent who executes the killing does not commit homicide; he is an instrument as is the sword with which he cuts. Therefore, it is in no way contrary to the commandment, ‘Thou shalt not kill’ to wage war at God’s bidding, or for the representatives of public authority to put criminals to death, according to the law, that is, the will of the most just reason.

(The City of God, Book 1, chapter 21)

Again, note the bolded part.

Is your parish deacon a greater authority on the Moral Law than a Saint and Doctor of the Church.

 

[kristie_m]

Antrim,

Here is what the Council of Trent said on the 5th Commandment

Note the bolded part.

Now given a choice between listening to the determinations of the Council of the Church, and a parish deacon, I know which one Church Law deems to be a higher authority.

Here too is St. Augustine on the subject

(The City of God, Book 1, chapter 21)

Again, note the bolded part.

Is your parish deacon a greater authority on the Moral Law than a Saint and Doctor of the Church.

Which, of course, just to be contrary, I must refute with these quotes:

“Do not take away anyone’s life. Leave the possibility of repentance.” --St. Augustine

“It is not lawful to kill even the guilty.” --St. Cyprian

“A Christian just and wise ought not to save his own life by the death of another.” –St. Ambrose



Just for the record, you’re right. What the Deacon had to say does not accurately reflect what is in the Catechism. That said, I personally agree with him 100% on his views on the matter.

 

[Antrim]

Tim dont get confused with self defence and murder.
War is self defence so is the case of a Police officer in the line of duty. They are not commiting a sin because in all these cases they are defending their own lives.
I remember a dear parish priest say to me one time I talk but nobody listens and that is exactly what is happening here.
The fifth Commandment was given to us by God and it should not be broken just like none of the others should be broken.
The Catholic church is not going to tell you that you can break a commandment that is why it does not condone the Death Peanalty.
It cant.
What about the innocent people who have been executed because an overzealous prosacuter wanted it and he /she was wrong.

Antrim

 

[Antrim]

Thanks Kristie

Antrim

 

[pnewton]

I remember a dear parish priest say to me one time I talk but nobody listens and that is exactly what is happening here.
The fifth Commandment was given to us by God and it should not be broken just like none of the others should be broken.

Why should anyone listen to this? You have not responded to explain the obvious contradiction that a violation of this commandment was met with death.

Exodus 20:13 “You shall not kill.” and yet a few verses latter

Exodus 21:12 "Whoever strikes a man a mortal blow must be put to death. "

So, is the Bible full of contradiction, is God schitzophrenic, or are you wrong in your interpretation of this verse as a prohibition against the death penalty? Any other possibilities I missed?

 

[estesbob]

I decided that I needed to get the actual stand of the Catholic church on this issue.
I asked the Deacon at our church whom I know very well.
He said only God can take life.
THe Church DOES NOT CONDONE THE DAETH PENALTY.
God has given us a free will.
I said that if I were on a jury in a death penalty case I would not sentence the person to death and he said neither would I.
I said the Fifth Commandment comes straight from God and he said that is right.
This is all in Canon law.

Antrim

Your Deacon is wrong. Whther or not he knows Canon Law is irelevant as it appears he does not know the Cathecism.

 

[estesbob]

Tim dont get confused with self defence and murder.
War is self defence so is the case of a Police officer in the line of duty. They are not commiting a sin because in all these cases they are defending their own lives.
I remember a dear parish priest say to me one time I talk but nobody listens and that is exactly what is happening here.
The fifth Commandment was given to us by God and it should not be broken just like none of the others should be broken.
The Catholic church is not going to tell you that you can break a commandment that is why it does not condone the Death Peanalty.
It cant.
What about the innocent people who have been executed because an overzealous prosacuter wanted it and he /she was wrong.

Antrim

Thats not what the Church teaches.