Death penalty poll

[JimG]

I would be entirely opposed to the death penalty, except…
except that I keep hearing of violent murderers with life sentences who are paroled from prison, going out to kill again.

I read of one case locally where a multiple murderer was convicted and sentenced to four CONSECUTIVE life sentences. Surely that should make one feel safe. But the article also noted that he was coming up for a parole hearing for the fourth time.

There was another case where a person murdered the daughter of one of our parishioners, along with 4 other girls. The bodies were never found. He was convicted anyway on the evidence available. The murderer himself offered to show police the location of all the bodies in exchange for a lesser sentence. That deal was denied. He was sentenced to life in prison. Yet–this parishioners every few years has to keep testifying at his parole hearings to try to ensure that he doesn’t go free.

If a life sentence doesn’t mean life, then we might have to opt for death.

 

[Ann_Cheryl]

KBarn:

I believe what the Church teaches, that legitimate civil authorities have the right to administer the death penalty. However, I think that if it is used at all, it can only be used when the criminal is clearly guilty and still poses a substantial threat to society. This is possible, but less likely as we are able as a society to imprison people more effectively. The question of when the death penalty can be applied is one of prudence, but prudence dictates that given modern innovations, it remain practically unused.

You have articulated what I mostly believe. Mostly because most people have no idea what prison is like. I live near several prisons. We as a society are not imprisoning people effectively. One prisoner was beat to death with a stool cover. It was ruled a natural death. Another prisoner stabed an inmate with his pencil. He lived thanks to a quick thinking guard. I think that it should be on a case by case decision. I do not wish to have anyone put to death but I do want to protect the innocent. The guards have no protection but the reluctants of the prisoners. The prisoners had decided to kill a guard. What stopped them was they would have had to kill another guard they liked.

 

[Isidore_AK]

Ann Cheryl:

You have articulated what I mostly believe. Mostly because most people have no idea what prison is like. I live near several prisons. We as a society are not imprisoning people effectively. One prisoner was beat to death with a stool cover. It was ruled a natural death. Another prisoner stabed an inmate with his pencil. He lived thanks to a quick thinking guard. I think that it should be on a case by case decision. I do not wish to have anyone put to death but I do want to protect the innocent. The guards have no protection but the reluctants of the prisoners. The prisoners had decided to kill a guard. What stopped them was they would have had to kill another guard they liked.

Thats exactly why I’m pro-death penalty. Criminals don’t stop being criminals once they get to prison. Gang drug operations are often run from the prison system, the violent criminals extort others in prison, guards and other inmates are beaten & killed. We all know about ‘bubba’…

Executing the most violent and/or repeat offenders (especially rapists & child molesters), while making sure that prisons are not ‘fun’ for those sentanced would help tremendously. Inmates are not serving their sentances…life often means 15-20 years. Maybe the parole boards are thinking in dog years…

We need to lock down violent criminals. Leave them in a cell 23 hours a day. No TV, no computers, no yard time. Let 'em rot. Maybe that would fix the problem. Don’t let them have care packages. Access (by delivery) of books from the prison library would be acceptable…with the privelage to be withdrawn for any bad behavior.

It tears me apart every time I hear about a violent sex-offender, who is on parole or served his sentence, who has raped and murdered another person. Its our fault as a society for letting them loose to rape and kill again. Never again I say. Never again…I cry every time I see a photo of another little girl who has been raped and murdered…there has been so much of it recently. All by registered sex offenders…Why? Why do we let this happen!?! We need to protect our children. Please reconsider…their blood is on our hands if we don’t do something… :crying:

The guity must pay. I don’t want them to have the chance for a death bed conversion. I am happy every time one commits suicide by cop. I don’t want them to have the chance for some Liberal freakin judge & jury to let them off with a slap on the wrist to do it to someone else. I know its wrong of me, but its how I feel…I have lost all sense of compassion or mercy for those sick bastards.

 

[liberal_friend]

rayne89:

I don’t believe in the death penalty.

But GOD does believe we should use it. And His vote counts for just a little bit more than yours does; sorry to be the one to have to tell you that.

 

[Lucania]

I don’t believe in the death penalty. I do believe in HARD LABOR. Bring back the roadside chain gangs, cleaning up the highways etc. instead of paying county/state employees to do it. The most hardened criminals should never be out on parole to wreak havoc on innocent lives. I don’t know how it is in prison, but we are given an impression that prisoners have much recreation time on their hands for weight lifting, playing basketball, going to the Library, many learning a bout laws that they can find a loophole to try to overturn their sentence. All I know is while I am not for the death penalty, prison shouldn’t resemble camp.

 

[sdnewbie]

Lucania:

I don’t believe in the death penalty. I do believe in HARD LABOR. Bring back the roadside chain gangs, cleaning up the highways etc. instead of paying county/state employees to do it. The most hardened criminals should never be out on parole to wreak havoc on innocent lives. I don’t know how it is in prison, but we are given an impression that prisoners have much recreation time on their hands for weight lifting, playing basketball, going to the Library, many learning a bout laws that they can find a loophole to try to overturn their sentence. All I know is while I am not for the death penalty, prison shouldn’t resemble camp.

I absolutely agree. I used to be pro-death penalty until a couple of years ago and I have reformed my thinking into the “lock 'em up and throw away the key”…and don’t make it so easy on them. If they can’t handle the time they are going to do, maybe they shouldn’t commit the crime. hmphff! what a concept.

 

[Trelow]

Having had been a hard line death penalty supporter, I have finilay come to understand that we do not need it as it is used today in the US. It seems the more I pray and research teh more evey militant action comes back to the rules outlined for just war. In the case of the death penalty; there is almost always another level we can take it to remove the offender so that they will not be able to harm human persons. The cases where killing them to do so would be required are practically nil.

 

[Steven_Merten]

God commands man to put to death murderers.

NAB GEN 9:6

"If anyone sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; For in the image of God has man been made." Jesus gives the Church the power to have Him hold sins bound in heaven. When Jesus holds a man bound to his sin in heaven, (the sword of His mouth) does this not bind the man to spiritual eternal death? Is it not this Christ given Church power to sentence souls to eternal death which the Church uses in anathema? The Church damning souls to hell through the power of the keys to the kingdom is infinitely deadlier than state physical capital punishment.

The Pope sentencing souls to eternal death does not make him the leader of a culture of spiritual death. The state putting murderers to death, as God commands, protects life for the body of people as Chruch sentences of spritual death anathema protects spritual life for the body of the Church.

Please visit Throwing Stones

Anathema
In passing this sentence, the pontiff is vested in amice, stole, and a violet cope, wearing his mitre, and assisted by twelve priests clad in their surplices and holding lighted candles. He takes his seat in front of the altar or in some other suitable place, amid pronounces the formula of anathema which ends with these words: "Wherefore in the name of God the All-powerful, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, of the Blessed Peter, Prince of the Apostles, and of all the saints, in virtue of the power which has been given us of binding and loosing in Heaven and on earth, we deprive N-- himself and all his accomplices and all his abettors of the Communion of the Body and Blood of Our Lord**, we separate him from the society of all Christians, we exclude him from the bosom of our Holy Mother the Church in Heaven and on earth, we declare him excommunicated and anathematized and we judge him condemned to eternal fire with Satan and his **angels…

"He who dares to despise our decision, let him be stricken with anathema maranatha, i.e. may he be damned at the coming of the Lord, may he have his place with Judas Iscariot, he and his companions.

Quoted from http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01455e.htm

**NAB MAT 16:13 **Jesus replied, "Blest are you, Simon son of John!..

I will entrust to you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you declare bound on earth shall be bound in heaven; whatever you declare loosed on earth shall be loosed in heaven."

**NAB REV 1:16 **A sharp, two-edged sword came out of his mouth,…

…I hold the keys of death and the nether world."

NAB ISA 11:4

The Rule of Immanuel

He shall strike the ruthless with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall slay the wicked.
​

Peace in Christ, Steven Merten
www.ILOVEYOUGOD.com

 

[Trelow]

Steven Merten:

God commands man to put to death murderers.

Yes, but the Church in union with the Holy Pontiff who holds the keys of St. Peter which have the power to bind and loose has declared:

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.
"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.
"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.]

 

[Trelow]

]
Jesus gives the Church the power to have Him hold sins bound in heaven. When Jesus holds a man bound to his sin in heaven, (the sword of His mouth) does this not bind the man to spiritual eternal death? Is it not this Christ given Church power to sentence souls to eternal death which the Church uses in anathema? The Church damning souls to hell through the power of the keys to the kingdom is infinitely deadlier than state physical capital punishment.

The Pope sentencing souls to eternal death does not make him the leader of a culture of spiritual death. The state putting murderers to death, as God commands, protects life for the body of people as Chruch sentences of spritual death anathema protects spritual life for the body of the Church.

Whoa there!

Declaring some one is anathema is not sentencing them to spiritual death! It is simply declaring that if you do these things you have separated yourself from the Christ and His Holy Bride. It is defining what you have caused through your actions. Not a sentence.

 

[Steven_Merten]

Trelow:

Whoa there!

Declaring some one is anathema is not sentencing them to spiritual death! It is simply declaring that if you do these things you have separated yourself from the Christ and His Holy Bride. It is defining what you have caused through your actions. Not a sentence.

Hello Trelow,

Anathema is defined as a “sentence” passed by the Pope. In Anathema the Pope states that he deprives _____ of the body and blood of Jesus, excludes him from the bosom of the Church and judges him condemned to eternal fire with Satan.

The Church knows of the terrifiying consequences of spiritual eternal death through the Church censure of anathama. This is why the Church is careful to usually put loophole clauses for a repentant person to go through should they not be able to get to the Church to have a standing Church binding of sin removed. Without such loophole clauses, Jesus would be bound to his sworn oath to St. Peter to hold bound in heaven anyones sin who St. Peter (the succession of Pope’s) binds and does not loost on earth.

Please visit Throwing Stones

Anathema

Still the anathema maranatha is a censure from which the criminal may be absolved; although he is delivered to Satan and his angels, the Church, in virtue of the Power of the Keys, can receive him once more into the communion of the faithful. More than that, it is with this purpose in view that she takes such rigorous measures against him, in order that by the mortification of his body his soul may be saved on the last day. **The Church, animated by the spirit of God, does not wish the death of the sinner, but rather that he be converted and live. This explains why the most severe and terrifying formulas of excommunication, containing all the rigours of the Maranatha have, as a rule, clauses like this: Unless he becomes repentant, or gives satisfaction, or is corrected. **
**NAB JOH 20:20 **

"Recieve the Holy Spirit. If you forgive men’s sins, they are forgiven them; if you hold them bound, they are held bound."

Anathema In passing this sentence,…
…"Wherefore in the name of God the All-powerful, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, of the Blessed Peter, Prince of the Apostles, and of all the saints, in virtue of the power which has been given us of binding and loosing in Heaven and on earth, we deprive N-- himself and all his accomplices and all his abettors of the Communion of the Body and Blood of Our Lord, we separate him from the society of all Christians, we exclude him from the bosom of our Holy Mother the Church in Heaven and on earth, we declare him excommunicated** and anathematized and we judge him condemned to eternal fire with Satan and his angels…**

may he be damned at the coming of the Lord, may he have his place with Judas Iscariot, he and his companions.

Quoted from http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01455e.htm

Peace in Christ

Steven Merten
www.ILOVEYOUGOD.com

 

[Trelow]

Steven Merten:

Hello Trelow,

Anathema is defined as a “sentence” passed by the Pope. In Anathema the Pope states that he deprives _____ of the body and blood of Jesus, excludes him from the bosom of the Church and judges him condemned to eternal fire with Satan.

It is a great blessing for someone to be excommunicated. It under no uncertain terms let’s that person know that they are separated from God have have to get their hearts back in line. If they were not to be excommunicated then they would persist in sacrilege. A work of mercy for those poor souls indeed!

 

[CCF_Jeff]

Or at least the necessary qualifier:

**2267 …**the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.

 

[coralewisjr]

snowgarden:

I’ll never forget the whole seamless garment philosophy that Cardinal Bernadine voiced. It affected me deeply but I was on the fence with the death penalty for along time. I eventually just surrendered to it and hope that all murderers repent and accept Christ and that they are given the rest of their natural life to have that opportunity. I admire those who have prison ministries…I wouldn’t want to do it but I’m glad there are those who can see God in these people. (I have to admit that when I see candlelight vigils outside of death row and people singing “We Shall Overcome”, I do feel anger at those people and sympathize with the families of those who were killed and who seek this kind of justice. However, if the government takes away the option to use capital punishment then we all just have to accept it.)

I doubt that the US government will take away the death penalty. After all, the US Supreme Court overturned many states’ prolife laws back in 1973. If we kill preborn children…Lord have mercy on us! Let’s pray.

 

[Holly3278]

None.