Church Teaching on Death Penalty

[MiserereMeiDei]

This is based on Aquinas principle of ‘double effect’. Self defense. It is permitted to ‘repel force with moderation’ to defend life. That defense is no longer weighed up as reasonable as the death penalty since our system is better able to protect life without going to the extent of killing the criminal.

That’s not double effect. That is a ranking system. Double effect is an unintended consequence like a hysterectomy to remove a cancer that results in sterility as a byproduct. Yours is a description of the intended consequence of violating the inviolable dignity of the human being, i.e. execution, to effect civil peace, or say, killing a fetus to end a pregnancy.

How do we know how able a society must be for this to be in effect? Is there an objective measure of how many prisoners must escape or be recidivists before the death penalty is an option again? You mentioned the absolute chaos of civil war, treason and terrorism, but where did you get these caveats? Are these the only caveats?

Was it acceptable to violate the inviolable dignity of man in 1980, before the Church learned that man’s dignity was inviolable, even though it always had to have been inviolable since the nature of man does not change? Is the inviolability of man’s dignity the same in Honduras, Sudan, South Africa and the DRC as it is in the USA?

Presumably God, if not the Church strangely enough, always knew how “inviolable” was the dignity of man when He supposedly violated the inviolable dignity of man by instituting the death penalty without such monumental stipulations as utter chaos and civil strife taking place, or a commensurate stipulation that when such and such conditions are met the death penalty would need to be shelved until those conditions were no longer extant. But nope, God just up and said he who sheds man’s blood, by the hand of man shall his blood be shed with nary a thought about the inviolable dignity of man.

Might as well tell me they just discovered that God says I need to obey the UN because that’s the only way to stave off inclement weather.

 

[Ender]

The implication being that God, who instituted the death penalty for murder (among many other crimes), did not understand the inviolability of human dignity when declaring that death was an appropriate punishment for certain crimes.

A strikingly similar position was expressed in L’Osservatore Romano in 1977:

In light of the word of God, and thus of faith, life-all human life-is sacred and untouchable. No matter how heinous the crimes . . . [the criminal] does not lose his fundamental right to life…

This is how Cardinal Dulles responded in 2001:

To warrant this radical revision—one might almost say reversal—of the Catholic tradition, Father Concetti and others explain that the Church from biblical times until our own day has failed to perceive the true significance of the image of God in man, which implies that even the terrestrial life of each individual person is sacred and inviolable. In past centuries, it is alleged, Jews and Christians failed to think through the consequences of this revealed doctrine. They were caught up in a barbaric culture of violence and in an absolutist theory of political power, both handed down from the ancient world. But in our day, a new recognition of the dignity and inalienable rights of the human person has dawned. Those who recognize the signs of the times will move beyond the outmoded doctrines that the State has a divinely delegated power to kill and that criminals forfeit their fundamental human rights. The teaching on capital punishment must today undergo a dramatic development corresponding to these new insights.

This abolitionist position has a tempting simplicity. But it is not really new. It has been held by sectarian Christians at least since the Middle Ages. Many pacifist groups, such as the Waldensians, the Quakers, the Hutterites, and the Mennonites, have shared this point of view. But, like pacifism itself, this absolutist interpretation of the right to life found no echo at the time among Catholic theologians, who accepted the death penalty as consonant with Scripture, tradition, and the natural law.

Any of this sound familiar?

 

[MiserereMeiDei]

Any of this sound familiar?

Eerily so. I find it odd that they would create a situation in which criminals should have reason to feel safer than the innocent and apparently feel morally superior for doing so.

That snippet from L’Osservatore Romano is absolute madness.

 

[Ender]

I find it odd that they would create a situation in which criminals should have reason to feel safer than the innocent and apparently feel morally superior for doing so.

Regarding the criminal we have reinterpreted Gn 9:6 from “Your life is forfeit because the life of your victim was sacred” to “Your life is protected because your life is sacred.”

 

[MiserereMeiDei]

a crusade of words in order to diminish the authority of the Magisterium to teach on the dp.

That’s quite the accusation. One might even say rash judgement. You appear quite prone to applying sinister motives to people. You should watch that.

who’ve expressed a life long love of the dp and danes to interfere in the natural movement personified by Sr Helen, to abolish the dp in the US

Seriously? A Supreme Court Justice of the United states and United States citizen deigned to interfere in the “natural movement…to abolish the dp in the US”. How dare he?!?

The United States is, for better or for worse, a democratic republic with a constitutionally guaranteed right to free speech. He has the legal right and felt the moral obligation to oppose this movement. Is his opposition somehow less natural? Does his opposition preclude his right as a citizen to speak against it?

Am I precluded from the right to voice my disagreement with you as well? I certainly haven’t anathematized you and I haven’t seen anyone else do so either. This sounds like hyperbolic ravings. You, in fact, are the one making veiled accusations against your opposition, not the other way around.

So if a ideological faction doesn’t want to get pushback for an ideology that is clearly not Catholic, don’t make grandious claims that aren’t supported by the Magisterium

Except that support of the death penalty isn’t anti-Catholic. The magisterium has plenty to say in support of the death penalty. More, in fact, than it does against it. Much more. Yet you are the one throwing around implications that anyone who disagrees with you is in rebellion to the magesterium when nothing could be further from the truth.

And what grandiose claim are you talking about? The one that states that the death penalty is a just punishment for murder and that the state has a prudential right to employ it? You yourself make recourse to the possibility of its use later in the thread. Good grief.

 

[MiserereMeiDei]

And the life of your victim, less so.

 

[OneSheep]

Funny how God didn’t know that.

Correction: use of the death penalty in the modern world, where dangerous people can be safely kept away from society, is no longer worth the devaluation of human life involved in the killing of a person by a society.

Are you thinking that putting a person to death does not devalue human life?

 

[OneSheep]

My statement:

Punishment is for the individual being punished.

That statement is contradicted by the catechism which states that: “The primary scope of the penalty is to redress the disorder caused by the offense.”

There is not contradiction at all. The “disorder” is within the offender. Punishment is for the sinner, to correct the disorder (the lack of awareness, lack of conscience, lack of discipline, etc.) within the sinner.

What does exist, however, is a contradiction between the use of the death penalty in the modern world and the underlying purpose of all order, punishment, and justice, which is grounded in the Love of God for every single person, and the whole of humanity.

What does the putting of a person to death have to do with the love of God for that person?

Given that virtually all of the Fathers and Doctors of the Church acknowledged the legitimacy of capital punishment

While your statement is unsupported, all those “Fathers and Doctors” were not aware of centuries of unfolding revelation. The Church exists in the present, not in the past. Denial of unfolding revelation is a denial of the action of the Holy Spirit.

What the Holy Spirit has revealed since Aquinas is that it is unconscionable to endorse taking joy in the punishment of someone else, especially involving suffering and death.

 

[Mrboast]

Correction: use of the death penalty in the modern world, where dangerous people can be safely kept away from society, is no longer worth the devaluation of human life involved in the killing of a person by a society.

You know, I keep hearing this but it is manifestly untrue. A simple google search shows me that, as of December 2018, over the previous two years, 19 prisoners were murdered in Alabama alone.

If 19 prison homicides in Alabama over the course of 24 months, the number is likely well into the THOUSANDS globally over the course of just a few years.

A second search shows a scholarly study that notes from 1999-2008 there were 28 federal prison guards murdered on the job and many more physically assaulted.

Now given that it’s obvious that capital punishment means fewer innocents will be harmed or killed, the anti-capital punishment position then must be (and tell me if I am wrong): Yes, the murder and physical harm to future innocents is an unfortunate consequence of abolishing the death penalty, but it is worth the cost so as to not harm the dignity of the murderer…and because in the long run abolition will actually teach society to value human life to a greater degree and thereby create an effect that will ultimately reduce violent crime?

Although it may not sound like it, I am genuinely interested in conversion on this matter if my stubborn intellect could get out of the way…that’s why an intellectual conversion is key. And sorry for all the edits - I just figured out the quote function after many tries and I try to make sure I remove everything that might be taken as offensive.

 

[MiserereMeiDei]

use of the death penalty in the modern world, where dangerous people can be safely kept away from society,

Except they murder in prison as well. They escape. They are released and murder again. In fact the pope has also said life imprisonment is also wrong since it denies them the “right to hope.”

is no longer worth the devaluation of human life involved in the killing of a person by a society.

Are you thinking that putting a person to death does not devalue human life?

I’m thinking it shows the value of the innocent life taken by the well measured response. I think it highlights the value of life of both the victim and the murderer and retains the murderers dignity without belittling the victim’s. I also know God was right to institute that penalty because God is the Truth.

 

[Ender]

The “disorder” is within the offender. Punishment is for the sinner, to correct the disorder (the lack of awareness, lack of conscience, lack of discipline, etc.) within the sinner.

It is the social, juridical order that has been disturbed that must be restored.

[Punishment] is a weight placed to restore balance in the disturbed juridical order, and not aimed immediately at the fault as such. (Pius XII)

Retribution is civil society’s imposition of a just penalty upon an offender who has violated the order of justice. (John J. Conley, S.J.)

Properly speaking, retribution is a restoration of the order of justice that was disturbed by the criminal’s behavior. (Christopher Kaczor, Loyola Marymount Univ.)

What does the putting of a person to death have to do with the love of God for that person?

The same could be asked of imprisoning someone for life, or even decades. In any event:

Any punishment which aims at correcting the one who does wrong is in fact a form of mercy (Augustine)

While your statement is unsupported, all those “Fathers and Doctors” were not aware of centuries of unfolding revelation.

It is the nearly unanimous opinion of the Fathers and Doctors of the Church that the death penalty is morally licit, and the teaching of past popes (and numerous catechisms) that this penalty is essentially just (and even that its validity is not subject to cultural variation). (Steven A. Long, Univ of St. Thomas)

The Church exists in the present, not in the past.

This is one of those arguments I’ve referred to before as being harmful to the church. Your assertion is a cavalier dismissal of Sacred Tradition.

Sacred tradition and Sacred Scripture form one sacred deposit of the word of God, committed to the Church. (Dei Verbum #10)

Denial of unfolding revelation is a denial of the action of the Holy Spirit.

You assume that whatever comes from the Vatican represents unfolding revelation. That’s a bad assumption.

“For the Holy Spirit was not promised to the Successors of Peter that by His revelation they might disclose new doctrine, but that by His help they might guard the revelation transmitted through the apostles and the deposit of faith, and might faithfully set it forth.” (1st Vatican Council)

 

[Ender]

You know, I keep hearing this but it is manifestly untrue. A simple google search shows me that, as of December 2018, over the previous two years, 19 prisoners were murdered in Alabama alone.

One of the unappreciated aspects of Francis’ change to the catechism last year is that it demolished virtually all of the arguments that had been used against capital punishment, and especially the one that allowed its use “when this is the only practicable way to defend the lives of human beings effectively against the aggressor.”

The point here is that it doesn’t matter whether dangerous criminals can be safely incarcerated or not. The argument against the death penalty now is that “the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person”.

Safeguarding society, which from 1997 to 2018 (a very short-lived creation) was seen as punishment’s primary objective, has now become irrelevant as regards the death penalty. Since that argument was always wrong anyway it’s no loss, and I suspect the road we’re on now will end just as abruptly. That’s the problem with defending a bad argument: at some point it will inevitably collapse.

 

[Emeraldlady]

How do we know how able a society must be for this to be in effect? Is there an objective measure of how many prisoners must escape or be recidivists before the death penalty is an option again? You mentioned the absolute chaos of civil war, treason and terrorism, but where did you get these caveats? Are these the only caveats?

Societies around the globe have shared the “growing moral awareness” that has lead to the abolition of the death penalty. It’s not a numbers game, it is natural discomfort that comes from realisation/revelation. It’s only been a problem in the US that a faction claiming Catholic authority have interfered with the dialogue to prevent abolition. That is why the Church has only had to officially address in more recent times, the legitimacy of abolition for the common good.

Was it acceptable to violate the inviolable dignity of man in 1980, before the Church learned that man’s dignity was inviolable, even though it always had to have been inviolable since the nature of man does not change? Is the inviolability of man’s dignity the same in Honduras, Sudan, South Africa and the DRC as it is in the USA?

Of course. The Church’s guidance is universal. As I said, it is the false claim that capital punishment is a divine right and can never be morally wrong that has prompted the Church to correct it at this time.

Presumably God, if not the Church strangely enough, always knew how “inviolable” was the dignity of man when He supposedly violated the inviolable dignity of man by instituting the death penalty without such monumental stipulations as utter chaos and civil strife taking place, or a commensurate stipulation that when such and such conditions are met the death penalty would need to be shelved until those conditions were no longer extant. But nope, God just up and said he who sheds man’s blood, by the hand of man shall his blood be shed with nary a thought about the inviolable dignity of man.

I simply don’t believe you don’t get the principle of revelation.

 

[Mrboast]

Safeguarding society, which from 1997 to 2018 (a very short-lived creation) was seen as punishment’s primary objective, has now become irrelevant as regards the death penalty. Since that argument was always wrong anyway it’s no loss, and I suspect the road we’re on now will end just as abruptly. That’s the problem with defending a bad argument: at some point it will inevitably collapse.

Yes, the primary justification for capital punishment must be presented, but sometimes one has debate another on his or her home court if you will. If someone wants the foundation of the debate to be the dignity of the murderer or human dignity in general, well I think it’s important to remind them that abolishing the death penalty means an increase in the number of innocents that will be harmed and killed in the future. It mystifies me the extent to which they still don’t care.

 

[Elf01]

Yes, the primary justification for capital punishment must be presented, but sometimes one has debate another on his or her home court if you will. If someone wants the foundation of the debate to be the dignity of the murderer or human dignity in general, well I think it’s important to remind them that abolishing the death penalty means an increase in the number of innocents that will be harmed and killed in the future. It mystifies me the extent to which they still don’t care.

If someone on death row can be stopped from killing before their execution somebody serving life can also be prevented from killing again. And regardless of the legality of the death penalty every effort to keep others safe should be made.

 

[Emeraldlady]

Emeraldlady:

a crusade of words in order to diminish the authority of the Magisterium to teach on the dp.

That’s quite the accusation. One might even say rash judgement. You appear quite prone to applying sinister motives to people. You should watch that.

lol

Seriously? A Supreme Court Justice of the United states and United States citizen deigned to interfere in the “natural movement…to abolish the dp in the US”. How dare he?!?

The United States is, for better or for worse, a democratic republic with a constitutionally guaranteed right to free speech. He has the legal right and felt the moral obligation to oppose this movement. Is his opposition somehow less natural? Does his opposition preclude his right as a citizen to speak against it?

Am I precluded from the right to voice my disagreement with you as well? I certainly haven’t anathematized you and I haven’t seen anyone else do so either. This sounds like hyperbolic ravings. You, in fact, are the one making veiled accusations against your opposition, not the other way around.

Why do you keep trying to make this personal? The Judge can say whatever he likes but when he speaks as a Catholic authority the Church has every right and duty to correct his (and other well known Catholic commentators) erroneous statements for the sake of the faithful.

Except that support of the death penalty isn’t anti-Catholic. The magisterium has plenty to say in support of the death penalty. More, in fact, than it does against it. Much more. Yet you are the one throwing around implications that anyone who disagrees with you is in rebellion to the magesterium when nothing could be further from the truth.

And what grandiose claim are you talking about? The one that states that the death penalty is a just punishment for murder and that the state has a prudential right to employ it? You yourself make recourse to the possibility of its use later in the thread. Good grief.

The claim that the death penalty can never be immoral or morally forbidden. That it is a divine law and use is not subject to moral accountability. The Church needed to counter that false assertion.

 

[MiserereMeiDei]

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

I hope you weren’t being intentionally dishonest. That was a reference to you implying anyone who disagrees with you is in rebellion for “an ideology that is clearly not Catholic…[whose claims] aren’t supported by the magesterium.” No one has declared you anathema. No one has called you anti-Catholic. No one has said you don’t have the right to oppose the death penalty. No one has called you anything except perhaps wrong or misguided.

I don’t feel you are an honest interlocutor and I’m no longer going to engage with you.

 

[OneSheep]

and because in the long run abolition will actually teach society to value human life to a greater degree and thereby create an effect that will ultimately reduce violent crime?

Well, this is part of the argument. Since violent crime has many causes, though, it is hard to say what the overall effect will be. For sure, the notion that someone “deserves” death, which is a notion supported by absence of forgiveness, will be kept away from endorsement by society.

Murderers believe that their victims “deserve to die”, and surely hope to avoid the mindset altogether. All people “deserve” to be treated mercifully, according to our Father known through Jesus Christ.

Except they murder in prison as well. They escape

While it is probably most likely that a murderer be the prisoner that will murder again, other inmates are also quite capable. Indeed, every single one of us is capable of murder when our consciences and sight are compromised. Killing a murderer to stop him from murdering again is essentially the same of killing any person we fear will commit the crime.

retains the murderers dignity

Please explain how killing a murderer retains his dignity. In addition: what does killing a murderer have to do with the purpose of punishment, which is to help redress the disorder within the murderer himself, which is to purposefully carry out God’s love, and to demonstrate His forgiveness and mercy?

belittling the victim’s

Please explain how executing a murderer would change any dignity of the victim. All humans have infinite value.

I also know God was right to institute that penalty because God is the Truth.

It was right to institute it when it was instituted. Now, in the modern age, it is right to remove it. The conscience of society has changed, it is now more aware.

 

[OneSheep]

Any punishment which aims at correcting the one who does wrong is in fact a form of mercy (Augustine)

The death penalty does not correct the one who does wrong.

The same could be asked of imprisoning someone for life, or even decades.

Yes, it can. So, we go back to the question:

What does the putting of a person to death have to do with the love of God for that person?

t is the nearly unanimous opinion of the Fathers and Doctors of the Church that the death penalty is morally licit…

He is entitled to his opinion, but what you quoted does not change what I said: All those “Fathers and Doctors” of the Church were not aware of centuries of unfolding revelation. It appears that the same can be said of Steven Long, who does not speak for the Catholic Church today.

You assume that whatever comes from the Vatican represents unfolding revelation. That’s a bad assumption.

The opposite would be a worse assumption, especially since all modern popes have been against the death penalty.

The death penalty does not demonstrate God’s forgiveness.

 

[TrueRomanCatholic]

I cannot find myself able to accept this “new” teaching of Pope Francis

If you don’t accept, then Mother Church expects you to obey