D
dudleysharp
Guest
crazzeto I think you have paraphrased a significant error within this latest Catechism:
crazzeto writes:
“After all, Christ didn’t come into the world to damn it, but to save it. Better to offer these people as much time as possible to repent.”
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 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”. (2267)
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.
The biblical record, its interpretations, the Magesterium and virtually all knowledgeable Christian scholars and laymen, Catholic or not, find 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.
crazzeto writes:
“After all, Christ didn’t come into the world to damn it, but to save it. Better to offer these people as much time as possible to repent.”
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 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”. (2267)
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.
The biblical record, its interpretations, the Magesterium and virtually all knowledgeable Christian scholars and laymen, Catholic or not, find 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.
