2267 "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.’ [John Paul II, Evangelium Vitae 56).
First, PJPII has no clue as to reality.
Secondly, the Catechism and EV are, hereby, using the secular standard of penal security as a means to outweigh justice, balance, redress, reformation, expiation and prior Church teachings. 2267 cannot stand.
This is such a poorly considered prudential judgement as to negate its “prudential” moniker.
Let’s look at “the means at the State’s disposal”.
All villages, towns, cities, states, territories, countries and broad government unions have widely varying degrees of police protections and prison security. Murderers escape, harm and murder in prison and are given such leeway as to murder and/or harm, again, because of “mercy” to the murderer, leniency and irresponsibility to murderers, who are released or otherwise given the opportunity to cause catastrophic losses to the innocent when such innocents are harmed and murdered by unjust aggressors. (4)
Incarcerated prisoners plan murders, escapes and all types of criminal activity, using proxies or cell phones in directing free world criminal activities. All of this is well known by all, with the apparent exception of the authors of the Catechism. (4)
Some countries are so idiotic, reckless and callous as to allow terrorists to sign pledges that they will not harm again and then they are released, bound only by their word, a worthless pledge resulting in more innocent blood. (4)
It has always been so.
The Catechism, as does EV, avoids the many realities whereby the unjust aggressor has too many opportunities to harm again. Do the authors of the Catechism have no grasp of reality? (4) Apparently not.
The only known method of rendering a criminal “unable to inflict harm” is execution. “Unable to inflict harm” (2265) has the same meaning as “impossible to do harm”.
In addition, there exists the clear conflict between (1) this unprecedented and unjustified restriction on the death penalty and (2) “Preserving the common good requires rendering the unjust aggressor unable to inflict harm” found earlier in this same Catechism.
Which is it? Is the Church going to require “rendering the unjust aggressor unable to inflict harm” or is the Church going to require that we do everything but render the unjust aggressor unable to inflict harm?
Has a prudential judgement ever been placed in a Catechism, before? If not, the current one would seem to make the reasons clear and would denounce any possible repeat of that error.
- a) Anwar al Awlaki, a spiritual leader at two mosques where three 9/11 hijackers worshipped, a native-born U.S. citizen who left the United States in 2002, was arrested in 2006 with a small group of suspected al-Qaida militants in the capital San’a. He was released more than a year later after signing a pledge he will not break the law or leave the country. He is now missing and encourages violence against Americans from his website, Awlaki used his site to declare support for the Somali terrorist group, al-Shabaab and celebrated the acts of US Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, who murdered 13 and wounding 29 in a shooting spree. al Awlaki called upon other Muslim’s to duplicate those acts. “Radical imam praises alleged Fort Hood shooter”, Associated Press, 11/9/09, 6:19 pm ET http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091109/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_fort_hood_muslims
b) 16 al Quaeda Escape in Jailbreak in Iraq
theage.com.au/world/alqaeda-members-in-jailbreak-20090924-g4no.html
c) 23 escape from Yemen prison, 13 are al Quaeda
globalsecurity.org/security/profiles/massive_jailbreak_in_yemen.htm
d) Hell in the heart of paradise
“The Bali bombers were allowed to preach to the prison population, radicalising scores of impressionable young Muslims, as well as fund and organise subsequent attacks from their cells.”
Published: 4:40PM Monday November 23, 2009 Source: AAP
tvnz.co.nz/travel-news/hell-in-heart-paradise-3174543
e) Repeat sex offender,“cripple” serving life, overpowers guards, escapes
blog.taragana.com/law/2009/11/30/authorities-sex-offender-pulls-gun-on-texas-guards-during-prison-transfer-search-ongoing-17934/
f) Governor commutes 108 year sentence: Offender later murders 4 policemen, while on bond for two child rapes
google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5if_tdQrE5B6tvgSYXBtfmfMOLEwwD9CACTHG0
g) Officials “embarrassed” by Texas death row inmate escape, Houston Chronicle, November 06, 2005
policeone.com/corrections/articles/120563-Officials-embarrassed-by-Texas-death-row-inmate-escape/
“. . . Thompson claimed he had an appointment with his lawyer and was taken to a meeting room. However, the visitor was not Thompson’s attorney.” “After the visitor left, Thompson removed his handcuffs and his bright orange prison jumpsuit and got out of a prisoner’s booth that should have been locked. He then left wearing a dark blue shirt, khaki pants and white tennis shoes, carrying a fake identification badge and claiming to work for the Texas Attorney General’s office.” “This was 100 percent human error; that’s the most frustrating thing about it.” “There were multiple failures.” Trial jurors and victim’s relatives were terrified.
h) the Holy See could find these types of cases every day seemingly forever, if it cared to look. It seems likely that hundreds or thousands of innocents die, everyday, because of the irresponsibility of prison systems allowing unjust aggressors to harm and murder, again, in contradiction of the willful ignorance within EV and 2267.