It is first of all contrary to the 1992 version of the catechism and it is contrary to the Traditional teaching because nowhere has the church ever included that caveat against the use of capital punishment. You will often find defense and retribution mentioned together (the citation from Bellarmine in the previous post is just such an example) but you will not find any example of retribution being limited by the need for defense. It has always been recognized that defense - along with rehabilitation and deterrence - are valid objectives of punishment but they have always been secondary.
You cannot, nor will anyone else, provide a single statement in 2000 years of church history to support the claim made in 2267.
Ender
Here is Avery Dulles’ response to Judge Scalia:
At one point John Paul II says that the death penalty should be used only
“when it would not be possible otherwise to defend society.” (IOW, Dulles is addressing the claim that the first part of 2267 is contrary to traditional Catholic doctrine) Does this mean mere physical defense against the criminal himself? If so, capital punishment could not be warranted by other goals upheld in the tradition: deterrence of other potential offenders, the potential conversion of the convict, and especially expiation or retribution. But this narrow interpretation would run up against many biblical testimonies. St. Paul clearly teaches that the magistrate does not bear the sword in vain, but is God’s minister “to execute wrath on him that doeth evil” (Romans 13:4, KJV). I agree with Justice Scalia’s exegesis of this passage.
If the Pope were opposing the biblical and traditional doctrine, Catholics would be confronted by a painful dilemma: either to dissent from past teaching or to dissent from the Pope. Many might decide, with Justice Scalia, that the former had more solid warrants.
Like Justice Scalia, I doubt that the older tradition is reversible, but even if it were, I contend any ecclesiastical authority reversing it would have to propose the new doctrine with great emphasis and show why the older position is no longer tenable. In fact, however, the
Pope says nothing against the traditional doctrine. (Why would the Pope say something one minute in 2266 and the next contradict it in 2267?) In EV §56 he approvingly quotes the Catechism of the Catholic Church as saying that the primary purpose of the punishment that society inflicts is “to redress the disorder caused by the offense” (CCC §2266). In clarifying the meaning of “redress” the Catechism mentions the expiatory value of punishment.
The Pope goes on to say that society must impose adequate punishment to redress the violation of rights. Punishment, he says, is not adequate unless, among other things, it defends public order. Public order, according to the Catechism, ought not to be construed in a positivist or naturalist manner as mere physical protection but as including conformity with objective justice (CCC §2109). It is at least plausible to think, with Professor Steven Long, that when the Pope speaks of the protection of society as grounds for using the death penalty, he may have more in mind than mere physical defense against the individual criminal. To vindicate the order of justice and to sustain the moral health of society and the security of innocent persons against potential criminals it may be appropriate to punish certain crimes by death. (In saying “may be” I leave open the possibility that under certain circumstances it may not be.)
In my interpretation of the Pope I am consciously using what Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger and others have called a
“hermeneutics of continuity.” My desire is to be faithful both to the past and to the present teaching of the Magisterium. Catholic doctrine unquestionably develops, but every authentic development, as Cardinal Newman showed, must grow out of the past and confirm it. To contradict a doctrine is in no way to develop it.
