B
- Status
D
Desertsailor
Guest
Some people need a damn good killin’.
What greater mercy can a man have than to know the day and hour of his death.
What greater mercy can a man have than to know the day and hour of his death.
D
dudleysharp
Guest
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.”
This passage could hardly be more misleading.
The traditional teachings of the Church neither exclude recourse to the death penalty nor so restrict it as to make it, virtually, useless, as 2267 instructs. Much more often, biblical instruction and tradition insist on the death penalty being imposed, describes those many sins/crimes for which it shall be imposed and, otherwise, reviews the legitimacy of the death penalty.
The works of biblical scholars and theologians through today (2010) provide a foundation of death penalty support which, in breadth and depth, overwhelms the writings in conflict with that support. This is reinforced with both the word and deeds of God/Jesus/Holy Spirit in the New Testament (see paragraphs/references 1-4, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, 16, within Reference 2 and see also 5, below).
There is an obvious conflict between:
(a) the ill conceived “the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude . . . recourse to the death penalty, when this is the only practicable way to defend the lives of human beings effectively against the aggressor.” and
(b) the “common good” “requires” an unjust aggressor be rendered “unable to inflict harm”, which is in concert with “If anyone sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed.” “This teaching remains necessary for all time.”, both of which contradict (a).
The contention that the new limitation in (a) above is a product of evolving doctrine is in error. It is, instead, a doctrinal disaster which conflicts with well known teachings. (review all of Reference 2, starting with 1-4, therein and see also 5, below).
Such obvious conflicts shouldn’t exist within the Catechism and show how poorly considered and constructed this subject was.
2267: “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.”
Consider this newest recommendation:
(a) “If bloodless means are sufficient” in this eternal context:
(b) “If anyone sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed.” (1) “This teaching remains necessary for all time.” (2260)
and (a)'s obvious conflict with Genesis also has additional conflicts within into own document, just as one section above
(c) the “common good” “requires” an unjust aggressor be rendered “unable to inflict harm”.
The Catechism is stating that “The common good requires rendering the unjust aggressor unable to inflict harm” except that we should rarely, if ever, render an unjust aggressor unable to inflict harm. Of course, that doesn’t work.
This Catechism decides that an eternal biblical mandate should be overruled by a poorly considered dependence on current penal security. Astounding. The Church has knowingly done this.
Does the absence of death penalty better correspond with “the common good and with the dignity of the human person”?
In the first part of this Catechism, the document makes the opposite argument.
Commensurate punishments, by definition, better correspond to the common good and human dignity and the absence of a commensurate punishment injure both the common good as well as human dignity.
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).
The Catechism and EV are, hereby, using the secular standard of penal security as a means to outweigh justice, balance, redress, reformation and expiation. This cannot and should not be the standard.
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”.
contd
This passage could hardly be more misleading.
The traditional teachings of the Church neither exclude recourse to the death penalty nor so restrict it as to make it, virtually, useless, as 2267 instructs. Much more often, biblical instruction and tradition insist on the death penalty being imposed, describes those many sins/crimes for which it shall be imposed and, otherwise, reviews the legitimacy of the death penalty.
The works of biblical scholars and theologians through today (2010) provide a foundation of death penalty support which, in breadth and depth, overwhelms the writings in conflict with that support. This is reinforced with both the word and deeds of God/Jesus/Holy Spirit in the New Testament (see paragraphs/references 1-4, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, 16, within Reference 2 and see also 5, below).
There is an obvious conflict between:
(a) the ill conceived “the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude . . . recourse to the death penalty, when this is the only practicable way to defend the lives of human beings effectively against the aggressor.” and
(b) the “common good” “requires” an unjust aggressor be rendered “unable to inflict harm”, which is in concert with “If anyone sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed.” “This teaching remains necessary for all time.”, both of which contradict (a).
The contention that the new limitation in (a) above is a product of evolving doctrine is in error. It is, instead, a doctrinal disaster which conflicts with well known teachings. (review all of Reference 2, starting with 1-4, therein and see also 5, below).
Such obvious conflicts shouldn’t exist within the Catechism and show how poorly considered and constructed this subject was.
2267: “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.”
Consider this newest recommendation:
(a) “If bloodless means are sufficient” in this eternal context:
(b) “If anyone sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed.” (1) “This teaching remains necessary for all time.” (2260)
and (a)'s obvious conflict with Genesis also has additional conflicts within into own document, just as one section above
(c) the “common good” “requires” an unjust aggressor be rendered “unable to inflict harm”.
The Catechism is stating that “The common good requires rendering the unjust aggressor unable to inflict harm” except that we should rarely, if ever, render an unjust aggressor unable to inflict harm. Of course, that doesn’t work.
This Catechism decides that an eternal biblical mandate should be overruled by a poorly considered dependence on current penal security. Astounding. The Church has knowingly done this.
Does the absence of death penalty better correspond with “the common good and with the dignity of the human person”?
In the first part of this Catechism, the document makes the opposite argument.
Commensurate punishments, by definition, better correspond to the common good and human dignity and the absence of a commensurate punishment injure both the common good as well as human dignity.
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).
The Catechism and EV are, hereby, using the secular standard of penal security as a means to outweigh justice, balance, redress, reformation and expiation. This cannot and should not be the standard.
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”.
contd
D
dudleysharp
Guest
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.
Inexcusably absent from consideration, within the Catechism, is any specific discussion of harm to “innocent” murder victims and potential murder victims and the effects on their earthly and eternal lives when we give known murderers the opportunity, too often realized, to harm and murder, again.
It is as if the Church is unaware that executed murderers cannot harm, again, but that livings murderers can and do.
Why has the Church chosen to depend upon widely varying and error prone incarceration systems, when the reality is that so many innocents are caused further suffering by known unjust aggressors, because of the failings in those systems?
It appears the Catechism’s (& EV) authors never considered the reality of such suferring. (3&4)
And why has the Chuch done this when it commands “Preserving the common good requires rendering the unjust aggressor unable to inflict harm.” ? 2265
Here are the known realities of all unjust aggressors, murderers and other violent offenders. They can morally/criminally/spiritually:
(a) improve, which can mean everything in a spectrum from still quite bad to sainthood;
(b) stay the same, a bad result for them and others; or
(c) become worse, a more severe, negative outcome which puts the unjust aggressor and all others even more at risk.
The only way to, humanly, make a criminal “unable to inflict harm” is to execute them. Rationally, factually, there is no other way.
What the Church has done is to reverse its longstanding emphasis on protecting innocents. This Catechism, to the contrary, has decided to give much more deference to guilty murderers than it has for protecting the innocent.
There are at least four Church recognized foundations for criminal sanction; 1) defense of society against the criminal; 2) rehabilitation of the criminal; 3) retribution or the reparation of the disorder caused by the transgression and 4) deterrence.
There is a 5th, biblical instruction, theology, tradition and reason which must guide the 4 others. They aren’t mentioned, because they are a constant.
All of those foundations are better met with the death penalty than by lesser sanctions.
The complaint that this Catechism has removed just retribution (and therefore, balance, redress, correction, etc.) from punishment is based upon the reality that this Catechism has allowed an improper evaluation of secular penal standards to dominate over just retribution.
While the first sections of this chapter detail the importance of retribution, as reviewed, above, the later sections provides little time for justice, which must dominate the utilitarian aspect of protection. The Church miscalculates and fails to realize the rational reality that innocents are more protected when murderers are executed, even though the Church enforces that reality within 2265.
“While punishment does serve the purpose of protecting society, it also and primarily serves the function of manifesting the transcendent, divine order of justice–an order which the state executes by divine delegation.” " . . . it may be argued that such a conception of punishment, rooted in the restoration of moral balance, always presupposes an awareness of the superordinate dignity of the common good as defined by transcendent moral truths." (5)
“Yet the presence of two purposes–retributive and medicinal justice–ought not obscure the priority of assigning punishment proportionate to the crime (just retribution) insofar as the limited jurisdiction of human justice allows. The end is not punishment, but rather the manifestation of a divine norm of retributive justice, which entails proportionate equality vis-à-vis the crime.” “The medicinal goal is not tantamount merely to stopping future evildoing, but rather entails manifesting the truth of the divine order of justice both to the criminal and to society at large. This means that mere stopping of further disorder is insufficient to constitute the full medicinal character of justice, which purpose alike and primarily entails the manifestation of the truth. Thus this foundational sense of the medicinality of penalty is retained even when others drop away.” (6)
Justice is the soul of sanction. All other results - protection, safety and deterrence - although beneficial and desired, are a result of sanction, not the reasons for it. Rehabilitation, correction, redemption and expiation have a foundation in just retribution, but depend upon the free will choice of the criminal who we hope will, by grace, avail themselves of those choices.
contd
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.
Inexcusably absent from consideration, within the Catechism, is any specific discussion of harm to “innocent” murder victims and potential murder victims and the effects on their earthly and eternal lives when we give known murderers the opportunity, too often realized, to harm and murder, again.
It is as if the Church is unaware that executed murderers cannot harm, again, but that livings murderers can and do.
Why has the Church chosen to depend upon widely varying and error prone incarceration systems, when the reality is that so many innocents are caused further suffering by known unjust aggressors, because of the failings in those systems?
It appears the Catechism’s (& EV) authors never considered the reality of such suferring. (3&4)
And why has the Chuch done this when it commands “Preserving the common good requires rendering the unjust aggressor unable to inflict harm.” ? 2265
Here are the known realities of all unjust aggressors, murderers and other violent offenders. They can morally/criminally/spiritually:
(a) improve, which can mean everything in a spectrum from still quite bad to sainthood;
(b) stay the same, a bad result for them and others; or
(c) become worse, a more severe, negative outcome which puts the unjust aggressor and all others even more at risk.
The only way to, humanly, make a criminal “unable to inflict harm” is to execute them. Rationally, factually, there is no other way.
What the Church has done is to reverse its longstanding emphasis on protecting innocents. This Catechism, to the contrary, has decided to give much more deference to guilty murderers than it has for protecting the innocent.
There are at least four Church recognized foundations for criminal sanction; 1) defense of society against the criminal; 2) rehabilitation of the criminal; 3) retribution or the reparation of the disorder caused by the transgression and 4) deterrence.
There is a 5th, biblical instruction, theology, tradition and reason which must guide the 4 others. They aren’t mentioned, because they are a constant.
All of those foundations are better met with the death penalty than by lesser sanctions.
The complaint that this Catechism has removed just retribution (and therefore, balance, redress, correction, etc.) from punishment is based upon the reality that this Catechism has allowed an improper evaluation of secular penal standards to dominate over just retribution.
While the first sections of this chapter detail the importance of retribution, as reviewed, above, the later sections provides little time for justice, which must dominate the utilitarian aspect of protection. The Church miscalculates and fails to realize the rational reality that innocents are more protected when murderers are executed, even though the Church enforces that reality within 2265.
“While punishment does serve the purpose of protecting society, it also and primarily serves the function of manifesting the transcendent, divine order of justice–an order which the state executes by divine delegation.” " . . . it may be argued that such a conception of punishment, rooted in the restoration of moral balance, always presupposes an awareness of the superordinate dignity of the common good as defined by transcendent moral truths." (5)
“Yet the presence of two purposes–retributive and medicinal justice–ought not obscure the priority of assigning punishment proportionate to the crime (just retribution) insofar as the limited jurisdiction of human justice allows. The end is not punishment, but rather the manifestation of a divine norm of retributive justice, which entails proportionate equality vis-à-vis the crime.” “The medicinal goal is not tantamount merely to stopping future evildoing, but rather entails manifesting the truth of the divine order of justice both to the criminal and to society at large. This means that mere stopping of further disorder is insufficient to constitute the full medicinal character of justice, which purpose alike and primarily entails the manifestation of the truth. Thus this foundational sense of the medicinality of penalty is retained even when others drop away.” (6)
Justice is the soul of sanction. All other results - protection, safety and deterrence - although beneficial and desired, are a result of sanction, not the reasons for it. Rehabilitation, correction, redemption and expiation have a foundation in just retribution, but depend upon the free will choice of the criminal who we hope will, by grace, avail themselves of those choices.
contd
D
dudleysharp
Guest
“The Roman Catechism of the Council of Trent” (1566)
“The just use of this power (execution), 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.”
We have another obvious conflict between two standards
a) “PARAMOUNT OBEDIENCE” to God (Trent, 1566) vs man’s accomplishments within the error prone criminal justice system (Catechism, amended 2005).
There is this additional problem:
2267: “without definitively taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself”.
The Catechism finds that we should end the death penalty in order to provide alternate sanctions “without definitively taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself” (2267)
First, the Catechism appears to be reversing the redemption process - the Catechism states, above, that the wrongdoer redeems himself. The biblical/theological realities find that all wrongdoers can/should seek redemption, but that God provides redemption to the wrongdoer by His grace. Wrongdoers can only seek redemption, they cannot provide it to themselves.
Secondly, the Church is, hereby, stating that the death penalty is “taking away from him (the executed party) the possibility of redeeming himself”.
The Catechism is stating that the God invoked sanction of death takes away the possibility of redemption. Think about that. There is nothing to defend such a claim, in such a context.
All of our sins have us die “early”. Is there a case, whereby God has erased the possibility of our redemption, solely because of our earthly and “early” deaths? Such an interpretation is, in context, flatly, against God’s message and cannot stand.
Yet, that is what this newest Catechism is stating.
Consider that the biblical record and its interpretations, supported by most if not all scholars and laymen, is that the universal blessing that God gives us is that we all have the opportunity of being redeemed “before we die”. The death penalty does not/cannot take that away anymore than does a car wreck, cancer, old age or any other “earthly” and “early” death, meaning all deaths, because of our sins. We all die “early” because of our sins.
It is as if the Church had, completely, forgotten the meaning of St. Dismas’ death, his words exchanged with Jesus and the promise to come. (7)
The Catechism, wrongly, finds that all “early” deaths, meaning all earthly deaths, negate the possibility of our being redeemed. Such is an astonishing claim, if not much worse.
In God’s perfection, we suffer an “early” death, because of our sins. The Catechism wrongly tells us that our “early” deaths takes away the possibility of our being redeemed. It can’t and does not. God gives all of us the opportunity of redemption, in His grace, before our earthly and early deaths, no matter what that death may be.
This newest Catechism cannot rewrite that, even though it is trying to.
Furthermore, a unique benefit of the death penalty is that the offender knows the day of their death and therefore has a huge advantage over the rest of us and, most certainly over the innocent murder victim.
“. . . a secondary measure of the love of God may be said to appear. For capital punishment provides the murderer with incentive to repentance which the ordinary man does not have, that is a definite date on which he is to meet his God. It is as if God thus providentially granted him a special inducement to repentance out of consideration of the enormity of his crime . . . the law grants to the condemned an opportunity which he did not grant to his victim, the opportunity to prepare to meet his God. Even divine justice here may be said to be tempered with mercy.” Carey agrees with Saints Augustine and Aquinas, that executions represent mercy to the wrongdoer: (p. 116). Quaker biblical scholar Dr. Gervas A. Carey. A Professor of Bible and past President of George Fox College, Essays on the Death Penalty, T. Robert Ingram, ed., St. Thomas Press, Houston, 1963, 1992
St. Thomas Aquinas: “The fact that the evil, as long as they live, can be corrected from their errors does not prohibit the fact that they may be justly executed, for the danger which threatens from their way of life is greater and more certain than the good which may be expected from their improvement. They also have at that critical point of death the opportunity to be converted to God through repentance. And if they are so stubborn that even at the point of death their heart does not draw back from evil, it is possible to make a highly probable judgement that they would never come away from evil to the right use of their powers.” Summa Contra Gentiles, Book III, 146.
contd
“The just use of this power (execution), 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.”
We have another obvious conflict between two standards
a) “PARAMOUNT OBEDIENCE” to God (Trent, 1566) vs man’s accomplishments within the error prone criminal justice system (Catechism, amended 2005).There is this additional problem:
2267: “without definitively taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself”.
The Catechism finds that we should end the death penalty in order to provide alternate sanctions “without definitively taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself” (2267)
First, the Catechism appears to be reversing the redemption process - the Catechism states, above, that the wrongdoer redeems himself. The biblical/theological realities find that all wrongdoers can/should seek redemption, but that God provides redemption to the wrongdoer by His grace. Wrongdoers can only seek redemption, they cannot provide it to themselves.
Secondly, the Church is, hereby, stating that the death penalty is “taking away from him (the executed party) the possibility of redeeming himself”.
The Catechism is stating that the God invoked sanction of death takes away the possibility of redemption. Think about that. There is nothing to defend such a claim, in such a context.
All of our sins have us die “early”. Is there a case, whereby God has erased the possibility of our redemption, solely because of our earthly and “early” deaths? Such an interpretation is, in context, flatly, against God’s message and cannot stand.
Yet, that is what this newest Catechism is stating.
Consider that the biblical record and its interpretations, supported by most if not all scholars and laymen, is that the universal blessing that God gives us is that we all have the opportunity of being redeemed “before we die”. The death penalty does not/cannot take that away anymore than does a car wreck, cancer, old age or any other “earthly” and “early” death, meaning all deaths, because of our sins. We all die “early” because of our sins.
It is as if the Church had, completely, forgotten the meaning of St. Dismas’ death, his words exchanged with Jesus and the promise to come. (7)
The Catechism, wrongly, finds that all “early” deaths, meaning all earthly deaths, negate the possibility of our being redeemed. Such is an astonishing claim, if not much worse.
In God’s perfection, we suffer an “early” death, because of our sins. The Catechism wrongly tells us that our “early” deaths takes away the possibility of our being redeemed. It can’t and does not. God gives all of us the opportunity of redemption, in His grace, before our earthly and early deaths, no matter what that death may be.
This newest Catechism cannot rewrite that, even though it is trying to.
Furthermore, a unique benefit of the death penalty is that the offender knows the day of their death and therefore has a huge advantage over the rest of us and, most certainly over the innocent murder victim.
“. . . a secondary measure of the love of God may be said to appear. For capital punishment provides the murderer with incentive to repentance which the ordinary man does not have, that is a definite date on which he is to meet his God. It is as if God thus providentially granted him a special inducement to repentance out of consideration of the enormity of his crime . . . the law grants to the condemned an opportunity which he did not grant to his victim, the opportunity to prepare to meet his God. Even divine justice here may be said to be tempered with mercy.” Carey agrees with Saints Augustine and Aquinas, that executions represent mercy to the wrongdoer: (p. 116). Quaker biblical scholar Dr. Gervas A. Carey. A Professor of Bible and past President of George Fox College, Essays on the Death Penalty, T. Robert Ingram, ed., St. Thomas Press, Houston, 1963, 1992
St. Thomas Aquinas: “The fact that the evil, as long as they live, can be corrected from their errors does not prohibit the fact that they may be justly executed, for the danger which threatens from their way of life is greater and more certain than the good which may be expected from their improvement. They also have at that critical point of death the opportunity to be converted to God through repentance. And if they are so stubborn that even at the point of death their heart does not draw back from evil, it is possible to make a highly probable judgement that they would never come away from evil to the right use of their powers.” Summa Contra Gentiles, Book III, 146.
contd
D
dudleysharp
Guest
References:
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) 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/
e) Governor commutes 108 year sentence: Offender later murders 4 policemen, while on bond for two child rapes
google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5if_tdQrE5B6tvgSYXBtfmfMOLEwwD9CACTHG0
f) 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.
g) the Holy See could find these types of cases every day seemingly forever, if it cared to look.
- Genesis 9:5-6 - “For your own lifeblood, too, I will demand an accounting: from every animal I will demand it, and from man in regard to his fellow man I will demand an accounting for human life. If anyone sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; For in the image of God has man been made.” (NAB)
- Death Penalty Support: Modern Catholic Scholars
prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2009/07/death-penalty-support-modern-catholic.html - Pope John Paul II: Prudential Judgement and the death penalty
homicidesurvivors.com/2007/07/23/pope-john-paul-ii-his-death-penalty-errors.aspx - 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 news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091109/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_fort_hood_muslims
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) 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/
e) Governor commutes 108 year sentence: Offender later murders 4 policemen, while on bond for two child rapes
google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5if_tdQrE5B6tvgSYXBtfmfMOLEwwD9CACTHG0
f) 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.
g) the Holy See could find these types of cases every day seemingly forever, if it cared to look.
- “Evangelium Vitae, St. Thomas Aquinas and the Death Penalty”, p 519, Steven A. Long, The Thomist, 63 (1999): 511-552
- ibid, p 522
- Luke 23:39-43 "Now one of the criminals hanging there reviled Jesus, saying, “Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us.” The other, however, rebuking him, said in reply, “Have you no fear of God, for you are subject to the same condemnation? And indeed, we have been condemned justly, for the sentence we received corresponds to our crimes, but this man has done nothing criminal.” Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” (Jesus) replied to him, “Amen, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.” (NAB).
It is not about the method of earthly death, but about the promise of eternal salvation.
A work in progress
B
Betterave
Guest
What a ridiculous post, in argumentation and in length. How about having a grasp of the reality that VerumPeto mentioned a few posts upthread?
If you have an opinion to offer that you’re prepared to defend, please post it succinctly.
[/quote]
D
dudleysharp
Guest
If you could be more specific, re argumentation, I would happily respond.
Re: VerumPeto
The problem with VP was the absense of reality.
The problem with PJPII and the EV was that it was factually in error and based upon secular issues.
“Pope John Paul II: Prudential Judgement and the death penalty”
homicidesurvivors.com/2007/07/23/pope-john-paul-ii-his-death-penalty-errors.aspx
VP was referreing to actual innocents discovered on death row. VP said it was 17% of all cases. No, it is about 0.3%.
VP forgot to fact check.
Please review:
The 130 (now 139) death row “innocents” scam
homicidesurvivors.com/2009/03/04/fact-checking-issues-on-innocence-and-the-death-penalty.aspx
VP claims that racial bias controls death penalty prosecutions. He may not have fact checked that claim, either:
“Death Penalty Sentencing: No Systemic Bias”
prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2009/07/death-penalty-sentencing-no-systemic.html
B
Betterave
Guest
In general your argumentation is just way too simplistic and one-sided, characterized by rhetorical excess. If you have a particular point you want to highlight, please point it out and we can discuss it.
To give you an example, starting at the beginning: The passage could easily be more misleading, counter to your claim. Your point about the traditional teaching of the Church has some merit, I think, but this traditional teaching is hardly binding dogma. Your claim that JPII’s stance on the issue restricts recourse to the DP so as to make it virtually useless begs the question as to its usefulness in the first place. Biblical instruction insists on all sorts of applications of the DP which are very clearly culturally conditioned and unacceptable (and probably never actually taken seriously, according to the letter of the law, anyway). Your citing Biblical authority makes no sense if you think that views on the appropriateness of particular applications of the DP cannot undergo development.
That’ll be all for now. Cheers.
B
Betterave
Guest
I will agree that there was a certain amount of “lack of reality” in VP’s post, but I think the same applies to yours. Peace.
D
dudleysharp
Guest
It doesn’t apply to mine, or you would point it out, which you did not.
I pointed out VP’s with evidence.
Not only did you not provide any evidence against my presentation, you pointed out no specific errors, at all.
D
dudleysharp
Guest
I don’t think the passage could have been more misleading, within a Catechism, which is what I was discussing. With the amountof checks and balances that are supposed to be used when writing, reviewing and editing a Catechism, it would seem impossible for the Catechism to be more in error.
I think you understimate how far away from biblical, theological, traditonal and rational teachings that this Catechism has travelled. If anything, my comments were too reserved, not approaching excess.
I hope you will take the time to read my references, which support that opnion. Here’s one:
“There are certain moral norms that have always and everywhere been held by the successors of the Apostles in communion with the Bishop of Rome. Although never formally defined, they are irreversibly binding on the followers of Christ until the end of the world.” “Such moral truths are the grave sinfulness of contraception and direct abortion. Such, too, is the Catholic doctrine which defends the imposition of the death penalty.”
Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J., considered one of the most prominent Roman Catholic theologians of the 20th century.
B
Betterave
Guest
I did and I will again: your claim that I didn’t point out any specific errors is an error.
E
Ender
Guest
Dulles states that there are four purposes of punishment and they are clearly separate objectives. 2266 states that “redressing the disorder” is the primary objective which surely infers that there are other objectives which are secondary. Of the four listed by Dulles there is only one that applies to this objective: retribution. Protecting society from future crimes does nothing to address the harm caused by past crimes; neither does deterrence. Rehabilitation refers to the individual who committed the crime but his rehabilitation does not pay the debt owed by his sin.
*A penalty is the reaction required by law and justice in response to a fault: penalty and fault are action and reaction. *(Pius XII)
The penalty itself, independent of whether it protects, deters, or rehabilitates, is necessary.
This is a prudential issue which is not relevant to the moral question regarding the use of the death penalty.
Ender
B
Betterave
Guest
So you’re saying that while the statement itself could obviously be far more misleading, because it’s a Catechism, it could not? But read your comment below… If a Catechism can travel away from said teachings, how have you determined this to be the stopping point? What merit does it have in your view that at least minimally qualifies it for possibly (and, as it happens, actually) being included in a Catechism? Do you actually have some arcane “theory of the Catechism” that justifies this claim?
JPII too continued to defend the limited imposition of the death penalty. What is your point?? It also goes without saying that Fr. Hardon would defend certain limits on imposing the death penalty, does it not? (Ignore my arguments if you want, but that is not good argumentative practice.)
B
Betterave
Guest
2266 The efforts of the state to curb the spread of behavior harmful to people’s rights and to the basic rules of civil society correspond to the requirement of safeguarding the common good. Legitimate public authority has the right and duty to inflict punishment proportionate to the gravity of the offense. Punishment has the primary aim of redressing the disorder introduced by the offense. When it is willingly accepted by the guilty party, it assumes the value of expiation. Punishment then, in addition to defending public order and protecting people’s safety, has a medicinal purpose: as far as possible, it must contribute to the correction of the guilty party.67
Read 2266 again. “Redressing the disorder” is clearly not referring to retribution. How can you say this?
Also, killing the murderer may help him to pay his debt, but it may not. Only if he is united to Jesus is this possible. This is an enormously important point that you seem to ignore.
I’m not disputing this, and neither did JPII.
This remark was addressed to others who had mentioned the cost of housing prisoners for life. Granting the permissibility of DP, however, prudential issues are moral issues. That is why DP may be morally required in some cases.
E
Ender
Guest
Genesis 9:5-6 was not randomly selected by dudleysharp because it supports his position; it was cited because the Church cites it and quite clearly the Church does not interpret it as culturally conditioned. These passages form the basis of the Church’s position on capital punishment expressed quite fully in the Catechism of Trent and cannot simply be dismissed as “unacceptable.”
Given that the current catechism states that these passages are “true for all time” I just don’t see a lot of room for “development.”
Ender
B
Betterave
Guest
Two points:
- Dudley added an ellipsis to his quotation of the Catechism’s quotation of Genesis 9. Methinks this ellipsis is less than innocent.
- It does not make sense to invoke the authority of the Catechism to call into question the authority of the Catechism. And N.B.: That is what you are doing here. You are not merely pointing to perceived inconsistencies in the Catechism. The Catechism cites Genesis 9 and goes on to interpret it. Don’t pretend it’s something else.
V
verum_peto_1
Guest
… the racial bias in death penalty application has long been known and accepted. This is not subject to dispute. When you compare criminal conviction rates with race, you see that sentencing is disproportionate according to race and income. This is true in all areas, and also with capital sentencing. Once of my best friends defended death penalty cases for years. She knows a lot more about it than any biased web site you can find. We can all find sites which will provide statistics to match our opinions.
How about this for “evidence”. When I was a kid, we had a neighbor who was convicted of murdering his wife. He spent seven years in prison before the actual killer was found and convicted. After his release, he went to law school and became the City Attorney for a large city. He dated my mother and proposed to her after my dad died. They never married, but he was a good friend of the family.
I don’t buy any statistical argument that it is OK to kill innocent people, because they are only 0.03 percent of the population. I know from my experience with juries that decisions are not made based on evidence. Anyone who believes that a fraction of a percent of convictions are wrong is simply naive.
How about this for “evidence”. When I was a kid, we had a neighbor who was convicted of murdering his wife. He spent seven years in prison before the actual killer was found and convicted. After his release, he went to law school and became the City Attorney for a large city. He dated my mother and proposed to her after my dad died. They never married, but he was a good friend of the family.
I don’t buy any statistical argument that it is OK to kill innocent people, because they are only 0.03 percent of the population. I know from my experience with juries that decisions are not made based on evidence. Anyone who believes that a fraction of a percent of convictions are wrong is simply naive.
E
Ender
Guest
I say it because that is its plain meaning.
*If the Pope were to deny that the death penalty could be an exercise of retributive justice, he would be overthrowing the tradition of two millennia of Catholic thought, denying the teaching of several previous popes, and contradicting the teaching of Scripture (notably in Genesis 9:5-6 and Romans 13:1-4). *(Cardinal Dulles)
A word must be said on the full meaning of penalty. Most of the modern theories of penal law explain penalty and justify it in the final analysis as a means of protection, that is, defense of the community against criminal undertakings, and at the same time an attempt to bring the offender to observance of the law. In those theories, the penalty can include sanctions such as the diminution of some goods guaranteed by law, so as to teach the guilty to live honestly, but* those theories fail to consider the expiation of the crime committed, which penalizes the violation of the law as the prime function of penalty*** (Pius XII)
For* the fundamental demand of justice**, whose role in morality is to maintain the existing equilibrium, when it is just, and to restore the balance when upset. It demands that by punishment the person responsible be forcibly brought to order;* (Pius XII)
*the act of sin makes man deserving of punishment, in so far as he transgresses the order of Divine justice, to which he cannot return except he pay some sort of **penal compensation, *which restores him to the equality of justice (Aquinas, ST)
He who takes vengeance on the wicked in keeping with his rank and position does not usurp what belongs to God but makes use of the power granted him by God. For it is written (Romans 13:4) of the earthly prince that “he is God’s minister, an avenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil.” (Ibid)
Do you recognize the connection between retribution and vengeance (which, as Aquinas defines it “consists in the infliction of a penal evil on one who has sinned”?
Two things are necessary for the full remission of the sin, both the punishment and the acceptance of the punishment. The fact that the criminal may not accept the punishment as penance makes no difference to the responsibility of the State in assigning it in the first place.
Ender
- Status