Death penalty

[Lui]

First of all, the Church has not held that it was Mary Magdalene, only a woman caught in adultery.

Secondly, I think you are missing the point of that Gospel passage.

The Bible specifically says that the Pharisess brought the woman to Christ to TEST Him.

If Christ advocated the stoneing, the Pharisess could have brought Him to the Romans for violating Roman law (only the Romans could sentance someone to death)

If He freed her, He would be violating the Law of Moses (something that Christ Himself gave). If the violated the Mosaic Law, then they could arrest Christ on heresy charges. It would also mean that Christ could contradict Himself, which would mean that He was not God.

What He did was very sublime. Under the Law the Pharisees WERE sinless. The hallmark of Pharisetics was a total following fo the Law, to the letter.

So Christ told the Pharisees that they COULD stone the woman, but did it in a way that the Pharisees could not bring charges against Christ to the Romans. No Roman procurator would believe that the Pharisees were ‘sinless’.

The Pharisees were caught in their own trap. Christ did not deny the Mosaic Law (something He could not do, since He Himself gave that Law). They could not go to the people with proof that He was really a fraud or a heretic.

And the Pharisees had no case to bring before the Roman authorities.

Of course, the Pharisees could not stone the woman anyway, as they needed Roman approval for that.

So they left.

I never mentioned the story of the adulterous woman in John 8?

I talked about Mary Magdalene who was thought to be a prostitute before she became a disciple of Jesus and if indeed she was a prostitute, then Jesus would have thought she deserved the death penalty and not his mercy. He also wouldn’t have made her his disciple. You’ll probably argue that she wasn’t a prostitute because the Bible isn’t clear on that topic. I still don’t think that Jesus thought prostitutes, gays and adulterers deserved death.

I was quoting the very Word of God, what He Himself gave.

It seems you are claiming one of two things.

1. God made a mistake when He gave those commands to Moses
2. God is a right wing fanatic in your eyes.

Which one are you claiming.

BTW, I am not denying that those who commit those crimes cannot be shown Mercy and Love; what I am claiming is what God stated, that those crimes deserve death.

No, I’m claiming
3. not everything in the Bible is to be taken literally, especially in the Old Testament.

If so, why doesn’t the Catholic Church insist that adultery, prostitution and homosexuality should be punished with death?

Anyway, I just realized there was a thread with a poll on this topic that has been closed which I didn’t realize before I posted this thread.
I’m glad that the majority in the closed thread were either against capital punishment or at least thought it should be restricted/performed more rarely.

I don’t want to argue with pro death penalty advocates any further or go against any forum rules so I think it’s best to stay out of this discussion.

 

[Brendan]

I

No, I’m claiming
3. not everything in the Bible is to be taken literally, especially in the Old Testament.

So are you claiming that God did NOT actually give those commandments to Moses?

I don’t want to argue with pro death penalty advocates any further or go against any forum rules so I think it’s best to stay out of this discussion.

One can debate without going against forum rules.

 

[irenaeus1]

I understand that official teachings of the Church can develop such that we can have a fuller understanding of what we already know to be true. But what I struggle with regarding the current leanings in many of our bishop’s teaching on capital punishment is that it does not seem to be a development, but actually a change; i.e., an understanding opposite of what we knew to be true prior.

 

[irenaeus1]

We know that capital punishment is not intrinsically evil because God Himself often sanctioned it. Now some may cry foul regarding legal and disciplinary requirements of the Old Testament that no longer hold for us today, but one should look at Gen 9:6 which (as someone on this thread already noted) was part of the Noahic covenant which preceded the Law; i.e., “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed” predates Israel and the Levitical Law and would seem to be binding for all peoples and times. Even under the Law, murder seems to be the only crime for which no restitution was possible (Num 35: 31, 33). We often hear that the Church frowns upon the use of the death penalty because she recognizes the worth and dignity of every human life. This sounds very noble and Christian except for the fact that this is precisely the reason why the death penalty was imposed in the Scriptures. Human life is so valuable that the taking of innocent human life is punishable by death. The penalty is an extremely high price. Far from the claim of many that the life of the murderer is treated as worthless by societies that impose the death penalty; on the contrary, his life is highly valuable, which is precisely why his life is required as punishment. Why should the man who commits murder pay with his life? Because God made man in his own image, according to Gen 9:6. Yet the reason given by the bishops and others who oppose the imposition of the death penalty is because of the intrinsic worth and dignity of the human person, but again, according to Gen 9:6, this is precisely the reason **for **imposition of the death penalty. So which is it?

 

[Ender]

We know that capital punishment is not intrinsically evil because God Himself often sanctioned it. Now some may cry foul regarding legal and disciplinary requirements of the Old Testament that no longer hold for us today, but one should look at Gen 9:6 which (as someone on this thread already noted) was part of the Noahic covenant which preceded the Law; i.e., “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed” predates Israel and the Levitical Law and would seem to be binding for all peoples and times. Even under the Law, murder seems to be the only crime for which no restitution was possible (Num 35: 31, 33). We often hear that the Church frowns upon the use of the death penalty because she recognizes the worth and dignity of every human life. This sounds very noble and Christian except for the fact that this is precisely the reason why the death penalty was imposed in the Scriptures. Human life is so valuable that the taking of innocent human life is punishable by death. The penalty is an extremely high price. Far from the claim of many that the life of the murderer is treated as worthless by societies that impose the death penalty; on the contrary, his life is highly valuable, which is precisely why his life is required as punishment. Why should the man who commits murder pay with his life? Because God made man in his own image, according to Gen 9:6. Yet the reason given by the bishops and others who oppose the imposition of the death penalty is because of the intrinsic worth and dignity of the human person, but again, according to Gen 9:6, this is precisely the reason for imposition of the death penalty. So which is it?

And regarding the issue of Gen 9:6, it is not merely a single passage ripped out of context and taken literally when a literal interpretation is unwarranted. It is in fact the passage - and the literal interpretation - the Church gives it.

*- 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, 2004)

• - The conviction of right reason and the certainty of faith that human life, from its conception to natural death belongs to God and not to the human being, gives the human being that sacred character and personal dignity which the one legal and correct moral attitude inspires: profound respect. For the Lord of life said: “For your life-blood I will surely require a reckoning… for God made man in his own image” (Gen 9: 5-6). (BXVI, 2009)

*- The Creator himself has written the law of respect for life on the human heart: "*If anyone sheds the blood of a man, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God has he made man", is said in Genesis (9,6). (JPII, 2002)

- So much does God abominate homicide that He declares in Holy Writ that of the very beast of the field He will exact vengeance for the life of man, commanding the beast that injures man to be put to death.1 And if (the Almighty) commanded man to have a horror of blood,’ He did so for no other reason than to impress on his mind the obligation of entirely refraining, both in act and desire, from the enormity of homicide.
1 *Gn 9:5-6 *(Catechism of Trent)

*- 2260 The covenant between God and mankind is interwoven with reminders of God’s gift of human life and man’s murderous violence:**For your lifeblood I will surely require a reckoning… Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for God made man in his own image.59 *
The Old Testament always considered blood a sacred sign of life. This teaching remains necessary for all time.

• 59 Gen 9:5-6*
  This is the Church’s teaching on that passage, not ours.

Ender

 

[irenaeus1]

Another argument often made is Pope John Paul II’s 1995 encyclical, The Gospel of Life (Evangelium Vitae), where he finds that the only time executions can be justified is when they are required “to defend society” and that “as a result of steady improvements… in the penal system that such cases are very rare if not practically non existent.” The problem with this statement is that the condition of penal systems of various governments is a matter of prudential judgment and not a matter of doctrine. JPII’s position as well as many bishops is now based on the state of the corrections system - a position neither biblical nor theological. The pope could very well be in error on this, especially since this was an encyclical to the whole world; i.e., which penal systems in the world have sufficiently improved? The US’s? Russia’s? Spain’s? Swaziland’s? an indigenous tribe’s who resides in an isolated jungle in Africa?. How does one know when a government’s penal system has sufficiently improved so as to not regard capital punishment as a legitimate means? If anything, one would think that it should be the governments with less developed penal systems who should not have recourse to the death penalty for fear of abuse and/or mistakes. Secondly, when the Catechism of the Catholic Church was edited to include this statement from the pope’s encyclical, it is clear that it does not flow from what is stated regarding the purpose of punishment in the immediately preceding paragraphs… retributive justice has been removed from what was previously in the 1994 edition of the catechism.

 

[Hastrman]

Personally I would compare the current emphasis on the defensive aspect of the death penalty, at the expense of its retributive aspect, to the emphasis in some eras on the procreative aspect of sexuality, at the expense of the unitive.

 

[Pfaffenhoffen]

Let’s forget your Yes and No.
I would like to present what I read in a book about the 4 stages of Human Morality:

1. 
   *]law of the Jungle: take no prisoners, rape, steal, whatever, the stronger wins.
   *]Hammurabi, Talion Law, On eye for an eye, one tooth for one tooth. It means a stage superior to the jungle. If someone takes an eye then you are allowed to take one eye only not the 2 eyes or kill him and his family.
   *]do to others what you like them to do to you. Better than 2.
   *]Jesus’ Law: Love your enemies, do goo to whomever does you bad, pray for those who persecute you. Boy, such a command !
   
   I Think you are referring to stage 2. That is what Muslims of Saudi Arabia defend: after prayers on Friday, they cut heads, arms, feet, whatever, proportionate to the crime done. Muslim’s Moral Law is at a rather more primitive stage than law inspired on Christianity.
   

   Yes.
   Yes and no. The maximum punishment may not be fully proportionate to the extent of the crime, but since one cannot go beyond the maximum, it practical terms it doesn’t matter. If a person owes $1000 and has a $1000 he would be expected to pay the debt in full. If he owes $2000 but has only $1000 he would still be expected to pay what he can notwithstanding that he cannot pay the full debt. I think the same principle holds whether a person kills one person or a hundred.
   
   Ender

 

[Pfaffenhoffen]

That happens when people put politics above their faith and even justify certain politics with their faith.

I’m sure the Catholic Church and teachings are against the death penalty, except as you pointed out in rare extreme cases. I find it wrong and suspicious if a Catholic actually embraces and applauds the death penalty.

I find St. Thomas Moore excellent sentence before dying: “The king’s faithful servant but God’s first.”

 

[Pfaffenhoffen]

Boy, that is why I am in CAF, to hear different points of view. These 2 statements, I never expected to hear in 2011 from a Catholic…
God is unchanging but men are. God educated men through History of Salvation…

God said so, who am I to say He is wrong.

The slavery the Jews practiced was not chattle slavery. They owned the labor, not the person.

So yes, what the Jews practiced back then IS permissable. Morality does not, and cannot change, as God is unchanging.

What the Jews practiced is no different from our current system of using convicts to make license plates.

 

[Pfaffenhoffen]

So, if it has been “largely forgotten or misunderstood” so what are doing people who condemn people to death if it has been “largely forgotten or misunderstood”. Do they know what they are doing?

We shouldn’t get rid of the death penalty because it has a valid and important purpose, although I’ll admit that that purpose has been largely forgotten or misunderstood. The awfulness of the penalty should remind us of the awfulness of the crime but this is what we have lost: the proper sense of the awfulness of the crime of murder. We not only have become much to complacent and blase about such acts of violence but our interest has slowly shifted from compassion for the victim to concern for the killer. Did he grow up in poverty? Was he beaten as a child? What can we do to save him and others like him?

I don’t resent the concern shown the killer but that concern should not shape our understanding of the nature of the crime or of the response appropriate to it. If the penalty for murder is little different than the penalty for lesser crimes how are we to believe that murder is not of lesser gravity as well? For a punishment to be just it must be commensurate with the gravity of the crime; where we do not punish severely we are proclaiming that the crime was not severe.

Ender

 

[Pfaffenhoffen]

I see a lot threads about abortion. What is your opinion on death penalty? Shouldn’t death penalty be against Catholic faith too?

Why is it so that most people condemned to death in the USA are blacks and people with mental disorders or destitute people? Never saw the death sentence applied to rich people, to famous people, by the Circus-Court to O.J. Simpson…

 

[Ender]

I Think you are referring to stage 2. That is what Muslims of Saudi Arabia defend: after prayers on Friday, they cut heads, arms, feet, whatever, proportionate to the crime done. Muslim’s Moral Law is at a rather more primitive stage than law inspired on Christianity.

If you would like to state your position on capital punishment or make an argument that I have misinterpreted all of the citations I provided, make your case. I don’t know how to respond to comments like this. If my understanding is a primitive as you claim then surely you should be able to provide an argument that proves your point. I’d be interested in reading it.

Ender

 

[Ender]

So, if it has been “largely forgotten or misunderstood” so what are doing people who condemn people to death if it has been “largely forgotten or misunderstood”. Do they know what they are doing?

I think this might be one of the reasons JPII opposed the use of capital punishment - because people have lost sight of its purpose. If it is perceived solely as the revenge of the masses - rather than the just punishment for the crime of murder - then it might (again, as JPII appears to have believed) cause more harm than good. All of this, however, is about JPII’s perception of the benefits of capital punishment, not about the morality of its use.

Ender

 

[Ender]

Why is it so that most people condemned to death in the USA are blacks and people with mental disorders or destitute people?

This claim is untrue; it is an urban legend. The statistics don’t support this charge.

Ender

 

[Pfaffenhoffen]

As for blacks you may see it here:
alturl.com/udi8d
As for mentally unbalance, see the discussion here:
alturl.com/k7fu6
It is far from being an urban myth.

This claim is untrue; it is an urban legend. The statistics don’t support this charge.

Ender

 

[Ender]

As for blacks you may see it here: alturl.com/udi8d
As for mentally unbalance, see the discussion here: alturl.com/k7fu6
It is far from being an urban myth.

Your claim was that: "most people condemned to death in the USA are blacks and people with mental disorders or destitute people."

According to the figures you provided, 56% of the people executed were white. I didn’t read the 190 page report from Amnesty International; you’ll have to dig those statistics on mental illness out yourself but I doubt that they will support your contention either.

Ender

 

[Pfaffenhoffen]

If you would like to state your position on capital punishment or make an argument that I have misinterpreted all of the citations I provided, make your case. I don’t know how to respond to comments like this. If my understanding is a primitive as you claim then surely you should be able to provide an argument that proves your point. I’d be interested in reading it.

Ender

Forget, please, what I said. Just look at you proportion theory. Nothing can be proportionate to the death of a mother’s son, to the rape of a mother of wife.Nothing. that what I trying to make the point. when Muslims cut the hand to a person because the person has cut the hand of someone else, this punishment does not give the hand back to the first victim.

What I was trying to say is that if you kill a killer, that fact does not rend back the killer’s actions. It does not resurrect the killer’s victim. So, it has no proportion at all.

I told primitive for us Christians, for Christ taught us to forgive our enemies. How do you join the death penalty with this commandment?

 

[ciero]

I am in no way in favor of the death penalty. That being said I always have to laugh that the church makes the point that the death penalty should be abolished when up to 1969 the death penalty was legal inVatican City and from 1796 to 1865 the Papal States used the death penalty used the death penalty 516 times. Can anyone say hypocrisy?

penalty.

Of course, that – in and of itself – is no argument. Morality isn’t dictated by public policy of the majority of first world nations.

Actually, you’re not missing anything. The Catechism states:

2267 Assuming that the guilty party’s identity and responsibility have been fully determined, the traditional teaching of 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.

If, however, non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people’s safety from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and more in conformity to the dignity of the human person.

Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an offense incapable of doing harm - without definitely taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself - the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity “are very rare, if not practically nonexistent.” [John Paul II, Evan*gelium vitae 56.]

The Church has definitely been a strong supporter of getting rid of the death penalty. The US Bishops have been quite vocal about it as well: usccb.org/issues-and-action/human-life-and-dignity/death-penalty-capital-punishment/

As Hastrman pointed out, the main difference between abortion and the death penalty is the fact that the unborn are innocent. The Church doesn’t speak of the two in the same way. As the CCC admits, Church teaching “does not exclude recourse to the death penalty”. But it has been pretty clear from the recent popes and bishops that their manifest will is that it truly be a last resort and that – with today’s capabilities to imprison even dangerous people indefinitely-- it is almost never necessary to use it.

 

[Ender]

Just look at you proportion theory.

Let me preface this by saying that I’m not giving you my opinion of anything; all of my comments regarding the morality of capital punishment are based on what the Church teaches. Regarding “my” proportion theory: it isn’t my theory. It is what the Church teaches.

Legitimate public authority has the right and duty to inflict penalties commensurate with the gravity of the crime. (CCC 2266)

Nothing can be proportionate to the death of a mother’s son, to the rape of a mother of wife.Nothing. that what I trying to make the point.

This is an objection to all punishment. Why do you think it is an argument against the very punishment that comes closest to being proportionate?

What I was trying to say is that if you kill a killer, that fact does not rend back the killer’s actions. It does not resurrect the killer’s victim. So, it has no proportion at all.

No punishment can restore a killer’s victim; are you suggesting that killers should not be punished because nothing can undo what they have done? If the greatest punishment is inadequate then what is the argument for imposing a lesser one?

I told primitive for us Christians, for Christ taught us to forgive our enemies. How do you join the death penalty with this commandment?

The individual has the obligation to forgive but the State has the obligation to punish, nor should anyone believe that because they have been forgiven that the debt of their sins has been eliminated. Your forgiveness does not expiate someone elses sins.

It is a divinely revealed truth that sins bring punishments inflicted by God’s sanctity and justice. These must be expiated either on this earth through the sorrows, miseries and calamities of this life and above all through death,(3) or else in the life beyond through fire and torments or “purifying” punishments. (Paul VI)

Ender