Death Penalty

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Kendy

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So, I am for it. Am I a bad catholic? What am I supposed to believe?
 
Kendy said:
So, I am for it. Am I a bad catholic? What am I supposed to believe?
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Why do you support it if you presumably do not support abortion.

I support abortion because I really do not see any important reason to bring a person into a world of want, suffering, and humiliation.
 
ribozyme said:
Why do you support it if you presumably do not support abortion.

I support abortion because I really do not see any important reason to bring a person into a world of want, suffering, and humiliation.
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Well, because I think it is just just to kill someone who hascommitted a horrible crime, like raping and killing a child. And I don’t see the point of locking them up for life. I think prison should be more focused on reforming people to get them back into society. But if society feels, like they are not reformable than they need to be released back to God.

I also don’t understand how the Church can do a 180 on this issue. We used to be big supporters of the death penalty.

Kendy
 
I also don’t understand how the Church can do a 180 on this issue. We used to be big supporters of the death penalty
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Ummm, would you mind giving a source for that assertion?

Mind you, the Church has always supported the right of legitimate government to act as that government sees fit. And certainly there were cases when the government would have ‘required’ the death penalty, usually in cases of treason, because the alternative could have meant, if the treasonous person were left free, an opportunity for them to destroy that government and, of course, many, many innocent lives in that destruction; especially when there was no police force, when the monarch’s ‘guards’ could be bribed, etc., when there were few truly ‘secure’ prisons, etc.

But that is hardly ‘a big supporter of the death penalty.’

Again, mind you, there is a big difference between ‘murder’ and legitimate judicial sanction (death penalty). But the Church has always taught that not only must this be a legitimate decision of the government, it must be for something truly serious and unable to be dealt with otherwise–and as I said, until relatively recently there was not the type of stability or the treatments and places available to be sure a person could be either rehabilitated or kept ‘secure’ and not able to harm others. And of course even now we have had incidents where prisoners supposedly ‘kept safe’ have been able to overpower their jailers and to kill others, even in a ‘safe’ prison.

“Big supporter”? No. Accepting of legitimate government authority. . .especially in the times which, until relatively recently, there was little, if any, chance that anything short of that penalty could keep people ‘safe’? Yes.
 
coyotekate77 said:
Ummm, would you mind giving a source for that assertion?

Mind you, the Church has always supported the right of legitimate government to act as that government sees fit. And certainly there were cases when the government would have ‘required’ the death penalty, usually in cases of treason, because the alternative could have meant, if the treasonous person were left free, an opportunity for them to destroy that government and, of course, many, many innocent lives in that destruction; especially when there was no police force, when the monarch’s ‘guards’ could be bribed, etc., when there were few truly ‘secure’ prisons, etc.

But that is hardly ‘a big supporter of the death penalty.’

Again, mind you, there is a big difference between ‘murder’ and legitimate judicial sanction (death penalty). But the Church has always taught that not only must this be a legitimate decision of the government, it must be for something truly serious and unable to be dealt with otherwise–and as I said, until relatively recently there was not the type of stability or the treatments and places available to be sure a person could be either rehabilitated or kept ‘secure’ and not able to harm others. And of course even now we have had incidents where prisoners supposedly ‘kept safe’ have been able to overpower their jailers and to kill others, even in a ‘safe’ prison.

“Big supporter”? No. Accepting of legitimate government authority. . .especially in the times which, until relatively recently, there was little, if any, chance that anything short of that penalty could keep people ‘safe’? Yes.
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The catholic church supported and used the dealth penalty for centuries. St. Thomas used it as a public official. I don’t mean that the church was an ethusiatic excetutioner, but it doesn’t seem to me that anyone question its legitimate application until Pope John Paul. Yet, the church condemned thew excecution of Saddam Hussein. If you can’t excecute him, who can you excecute? 🤷
 
USCCB Position posted April 2006

Since 1980, the U.S. Catholic bishops have taken a strong and principled position against the use of the death penalty in the United States. The Catholic Church opposes the use of the death penalty not just for what it does to those guilty of horrible crimes, but for how it affects society. Last November (2005) , the U.S. Catholic Bishops affirmed this position in their statement A Culture of Life and the Penalty of Death. This statement complements the efforts of the Catholic Church for many years and is a part of a comprehensive Catholic Campaign to End the Use of the Death Penalty launched in March of 2005. Moreover, Pope John Paul II, in both The Gospel of Life and the revised Catechism of the Catholic Church, stated that our society has adequate alternative means today to protect society from violent crime without resorting to capital punishment.
 
Kendy said:
Well, because I think it is just just to kill someone who hascommitted a horrible crime, like raping and killing a child. And I don’t see the point of locking them up for life. I think prison should be more focused on reforming people to get them back into society. But if society feels, like they are not reformable than they need to be released back to God.

I also don’t understand how the Church can do a 180 on this issue. We used to be big supporters of the death penalty.

Kendy
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I am only playing devils advpcate. How does society (really a few people in a jury who have been pre-selected and all of them must support the death penalty) determine who is “reformable”? Surely you have heard of people on death row who have come to the faith and been born again. Was society wrong?

Furthermore, prison is not simply about reform. It is about justice, and should also contain an element of punishment and some form of reparation that enables criminals to work on making up the debt they owe to society because of their actions and to atone for their unjust deeds.
 
goodknight439 said:
USCCB Position posted April 2006

Since 1980, the U.S. Catholic bishops have taken a strong and principled position against the use of the death penalty in the United States. The Catholic Church opposes the use of the death penalty not just for what it does to those guilty of horrible crimes, but for how it affects society. Last November (2005) , the U.S. Catholic Bishops affirmed this position in their statement A Culture of Life and the Penalty of Death. This statement complements the efforts of the Catholic Church for many years and is a part of a comprehensive Catholic Campaign to End the Use of the Death Penalty launched in March of 2005. Moreover, Pope John Paul II, in both The Gospel of Life and the revised Catechism of the Catholic Church, stated that our society has adequate alternative means today to protect society from violent crime without resorting to capital punishment.
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I already knew this. I am saying I disagree and I don’t understand how they can just flip flop on their position like that.
 
Kevin42 said:
I am only playing devils advpcate. How does society (really a few people in a jury who have been pre-selected and all of them must support the death penalty) determine who is “reformable”? Surely you have heard of people on death row who have come to the faith and been born again. Was society wrong?

Furthermore, prison is not simply about reform. It is about justice, and should also contain an element of punishment and some form of reparation that enables criminals to work on making up the debt they owe to society because of their actions and to atone for their unjust deeds.
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Certainly, I have no problem with punishing people. but when some commits a really aweful crime what are we reforming them for? It’s not like we are going to let them back into society? Plus, sometimes, there’s no punish that it adequate other than death.
 
Kendy said:
So, I am for it. Am I a bad catholic? What am I supposed to believe?
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Not at all.
The church has not outlawed the death penalty at all.

What it has done is point out that given the current state, the proper use of the death penalty is harder and harder to find.

The church still allows for it if there is no other means of providing for the protection of the society.
With every increase in technology, the means of locking a criminal away forever and assuring the public is safe from them forever is increased…and the circumstance allowing for the proper use of the death penalty decreases.
 
Kendy said:
Certainly, I have no problem with punishing people. but when some commits a really aweful crime what are we reforming them for? It’s not like we are going to let them back into society? Plus, sometimes, there’s no punish that it adequate other than death.
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What about the percentage of prisoners who are eventually found not guilty?

Given that the prosecution, accursors, and administrators who carried out the sentence, would now be guilty of murder, should they not be put to death next?:cool:
 
Isambard said:
What about the percentage of prisoners who are eventually found not guilty?

Given that the prosecution, accursors, and administrators who carried out the sentence, would now be guilty of murder, should they not be put to death next?:cool:
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Poor choice of words. Mistake does not equal murder.

What’s in the past is behind us. With recent advances in forensic science, the chances of someone being wrongly convicted of a capital offense have been reduced to something approaching zero.
 
I am against the death penalty. Does that make me a bad Catholic? How many times must we address this issue before we grasp the idea that we are free to be for it or against it without being a bad Catholic?
 
goofyjim said:
I am against the death penalty. Does that make me a bad Catholic? How many times must we address this issue before we grasp the idea that we are free to be for it or against it without being a bad Catholic?
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Until people realise that it’s wrong I guess.
 
geezerbob said:
Poor choice of words. Mistake does not equal murder.

What’s in the past is behind us. With recent advances in forensic science, the chances of someone being wrongly convicted of a capital offense have been reduced to something approaching zero.
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Care to cite a source? And Im sure the family of the falsely accused will take comfort in your rationalization after their family member has their name is dragged through the mud, and then executed with their tax dollars.

“Woops, my bad!”, O yeah, totally comforting:rolleyes:
 
geezerbob said:
Poor choice of words. Mistake does not equal murder.

What’s in the past is behind us. With recent advances in forensic science, the chances of someone being wrongly convicted of a capital offense have been reduced to something approaching zero.
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Even putting one innocent person to death, is wrong. That’s right, “what’s in the past is behind us”. So how do you suppose we can resurrect someone who was put to death, after finding out that they were innocent?

Yes, some people deserve it. BUT it is GOD who will judge what that person’s life is worth, not me.
 
Isambard said:
Given that the prosecution, accursors, and administrators who carried out the sentence, would now be guilty of murder, should they not be put to death next?:cool:
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No, murder is the deprevation of the right to life of an innocent person.

As Pope Pius XII noted, it is not the State that deprives the criminal of their right to life, but rather, they did so to themselves by their actions.
Even when there is question of the execution of a condemned man, the State does not dispose of the individual’s right to life. In this case it is reserved to the public power to deprive the condemned person of the enjoyment of life in expiation of his crime when, by his crime, he has already dispossessed himself of his right to life.
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This was noted as well in the Council of Trent (on the 5th Commandment)
Execution Of Criminals
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Another kind of lawful slaying belongs to the civil authorities, to whom is entrusted power of life and death, by the legal and judicious exercise of which they punish the guilty and protect the innocent. The just use of this power, far from involving the crime of murder, is an act of paramount obedience to this Commandment which prohibits murder.
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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.
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Brendan said:
No, murder is the deprevation of the right to life of an innocent person.
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I believe he was talking about when an innocent person was wrongly convicted and then sentenced to death in the quotation you responded to.
 
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