Death Penalty

[cardenio]

cardenio, please get a copy of Sister Helen PreJean’s book Dead Man Walking. Forget the movie, if you’ve seen it; read the book. The movie covered only a portion of what the book goes into.
Any question in my mind about the death penalty was resolved after reading her book and hearing her speak a couple years ago at a local Parish.

We read her book in class, but we hardly saw anything on the other side of the issue. I’m only sixteen and haven’t seen the movie.

Thing is, though, I went into the class against the death penalty and came out on the fence, because we only saw one side of the story. The Bourques and LeBlancs and Harveys suffered a lot more than Prejean expressed in the book. And something has to be said about that.

 

[byzmelkite]

You know, its too bad our Bishops can’t spend the same amount of time and energy organizing a campaign to end abortion.

 

[TNT]

byzmelkite:

You know, its too bad our Bishops can’t spend the same amount of time and energy organizing a campaign to end abortion.

Amen. I like your style!
Further, it inadvertently or otherwise creates a neat smokescreen around the sex-abuse-homosexual seminary, embezzlement cult that has thoroughly penetrated the hierarchy in the Latin rite church…especially the USCCB Mafia. How convenient!. Just do a search on “diocese” in any search engine and 95% of the hits will be on sex-abuse-embezzlement affairs of the US dioceses. They sanctimoniously preach about the death penalty and at the same time bankrupt the parishes left and right.
BTW:
Where was the USCCB on the death penalty for Terri Schiavo? The world sees them as hypocrites and thus their preaching will fall on deaf ears in the secular AND Christian (especially non-Catholic) arena. “Whitewashed Sepulchres” comes to mind.
Finally, the death penalty’s primary reason in the True Church Doctrine was NEVER NEVER NEVER safety of the masses. That is the straw man novelty perpetrated by JPII.

 

[TNT]

byzmelkite:

The Church has always taught that the death penalty for crimes that are grevious is intrinsically just and that it is up to the state to determine the appropriate application of the penalty.

The primary purpose of all punishment, including capital punishment, is retributive. Paul says clearly in Romans,

“For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of him who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain; he is the servant of God to execute his wrath on the wrongdoer. Therefore one must be subject, not only to avoid God’s wrath but also for the sake of conscience.”

Notice that the state is God’s agent of wrath. This is the teaching of the New Testament. In Genesis, God establishes the death penalty for murder. Notice that God establishes the death penalty with all of humanity, not just Israel. It is part of the universal Noadic covenant never revoked by the New Testament.

The Church’s current fixation on opposing the death penalty is highly mistaken in my opinion. It has no basis in Scripture or tradition. The Catechism’s elevation of “self defense” to the primary purpose of capital punishment has no good warrant. Therefore, it cannot bind on conscience. Were the Church someday to say that one may not use the death penalty, then the Church would be doing the equivalent of saying that one may use contraception. In either case, the Church would be violating Scripture, Tradition, and natural law.

With all due respect to the late Holy Father Pope John Paul II (who is a Saint and was a great Pope), his view on the death penalty can only be considered a private opinion when it is not backed by Scripture and Tradition.

YEAH! after 12 posts someone finally gets to the meat!
The death penalty’s primary reason in the True Church Doctrine was NEVER NEVER NEVER safety of the masses. That is the straw man novelty perpetrated by JPII.

 

[pnewton]

TNT:

The death penalty’s primary reason in the True Church Doctrine was NEVER NEVER NEVER safety of the masses.

This is something that is overlooked in almost every arguement on the subject. Punishment by death as a just consequence of taking a life was the purpose of the death penalty for all but the last couple of generations. (and byzmelkite presented a good case for it)

TNT:

That is the straw man novelty perpetrated by JPII.

The safety of society, as the prime reason for the death penalty, is a novel idea, although it is also presented as such in the Catechism. I do not however, view it is a true straw man, because with the volume of magesterial teaching on it, I consider it worth addressing. I do view it to be outside the realm of theology and better addressed by experts than theologians or bishops.

 

[DaveBj]

Here is God’s word on the issue (which should be final:

"Whoever sheds man’s blood, By man his blood shall be shed; For in the image of God He made man. (NKJV)

See also the 13th chapter of Romans, in which government officials are described as ministers of God for executing the wrath on wrongdoers.

No one can express a blanket opposition to the death penalty without admitting that he/she has taken a razor blade and cut these passages out of his/her Bible, thus taking a Protestant attitude toward Scripture.

(For the record, I am firmly in favor of the death penalty for certain crimes, where the guilt of the accused is proven beyond any doubt whatsoever.)

DaveBj

 

[Jaypeeto2]

The current hierarchy’s militant stand against the death penalty
flies in the face of 2,000 years of consistent magisterial Catholic teaching that the state sometimes has the right to execute the wrongdoer. I think it is HERESY.
We have better prisons now?!! HAH !!! Tell THAT to the prisoners.
There have always been prisons and plenty of them, in every age.
I am for the death penalty for certain crimes, but like the poster above, I am also insistent that guilt be firmly established, preferably these days with DNA evidence to back it up.
God bless all,
Jaypeeto2

 

[justcatholic]

All serial killers and child molesters should fry or be hung up by a rope at the nearest tree. To many do gooders have enforced laws where guys like Charlie Manson have sat in prison alive and well for years. Bring back the hanging tree I say.

 

[mosher]

To give a short ethics lesson … the Death Penalty as protection of the society is not a noval idea in any sense. It stems directly from Aristotle who developed the concept (and later St. Thomas) as treating States as de juri persons.

 

[byzmelkite]

mosher:

To give a short ethics lesson … the Death Penalty as protection of the society is not a noval idea in any sense. It stems directly from Aristotle who developed the concept (and later St. Thomas) as treating States as de juri persons.

But that’s only a secondary reason, not the primary reason. In Aquinas, the primary reason is retributive justice.

 

[dts]

I am pro-death penalty, because I do think it is a matter of justice. The USCCB hasn’t made a good theological case against the death penalty. In addition, they are screwing up pro-life jurisprudence in the process of arguing against the death penalty at the U.S. Supreme Court (urging evolving standards of decency etc. . . ).

In principle, the death penalty is fine. If there is a problem with its application, then the USCCB should work on articulating appropriate theological principles of determining when application of the death penalty is prudent or not.

Instead, we are getting a leftist political campaign.

Awesome article on the death penalty by one of the nation’s leading Catholic natural law thinkers here:

Capital Punishment: The Case for Justice
J. Budziszewski, First Things, (Aug/Sept. 2005)
firstthings.com/ftissues/ft0408/articles/budziszewski.htm

The first things article by Cardinal Avery linked above is also very good.

 

[mosher]

byzmelkite:

But that’s only a secondary reason, not the primary reason. In Aquinas, the primary reason is retributive justice.

Very true, as I just was pointing out that the idea ain’t something new.

 

[TNT]

mosher:

Very true, as I just was pointing out that the idea ain’t something new.

And we are just pointing out that pushing the “safety of the masses” up to primary position and ignoring the primary reason of justifiable retribution IS a new novelty.
This would be the same as never mentioning the primary reason of marriage and pushing “mutual affection” up to the primary reason, which would then justify a softer look at homosexual unions which CAN fulfill that reason, as well as divorce and birth control.
Clever eh. Of course this all works only if the laity have no knowledge of the perennial Magisterium on the subject.
Modernists have an agenda to destroy Tradition with a special hatred for Dogmatic Tradition. It restrains their free-thinking novelties.
When popes embrace or even tolerate modernism, it produces chaos in the Church as tradtional teaching is twisted or discarded, while a newchurch is formed. Almost volcanic in nature as the “passing down as received” (tradition) is abandoned and new novelties become the tradition of “no tradition”.
After about 2 generations of “not passing down as received” (anti-tradition) the church no longer has reference points for teaching and you have what we have today, loss of internal unity on just about any matter in Catholic religion. Which, (for the umteenth time) brings me to my sig:
To destroy a Religion, (and replace it) you must first sever its traditions.

 

[byzmelkite]

I am convinced that the Bishop’s current campaign to end the death penalty will fail because they not only have to deal with dissenting Catholics who don’t listen to them; they also have to deal with faithful Catholics who won’t listen to them. Ironically enough, on this issue, they will likely get the most radical leftist contingent within the Church behind them.

 

[UnworthySoul]

I_A_:

The catechism clearly states that the only time that the death penalty could be even remotely excusable if there is absolutely no other way to prevent him from being a threat. Just because we are to lazy or apathetic to do our duty and humanely prevent these people from being a threat, our sloth does not justify murdering them.

Our very Lord and savior was unjustly slaughtered via “capital punishment.”

Perhaps you should rethink your stance.

Nice try but your arguement is disingenuous at best. Outright deceitful at worst. To say, “the only time that the death penalty could be even remotely excusable if there is absolutely no other way to prevent…” is to put a VERY extreme personal spin on words expressed in the Cathechism. Your own personal spin. You attempt to change the intensity and meaning of the words to suit your aims. Not honest. As to “murdering” them, you need to look at the meaning of the word murder. You’re using a word that does not apply here.

For the record, I am for VERY limited application of the death penalty. I do believe too many innocent people are put to death. That said, there are indeed times when it is appropriate, though they are few and far between. Almost to the point where it is unnecessary. But I do NOT think it should be stricken from the books.

Telling someone to rethink their stance on this is also taking a position against the one posited by the Cathechism. The Pope even acknowledges that their can be disagreement on use of the death penalty without losing one’s position as a Catholic in good standing with the Church.

Maybe YOU should rethink YOUR stance.

 

[mosher]

TNT:

And we are just pointing out that pushing the “safety of the masses” up to primary position and ignoring the primary reason of justifiable retribution IS a new novelty.
This would be the same as never mentioning the primary reason of marriage and pushing “mutual affection” up to the primary reason, which would then justify a softer look at homosexual unions which CAN fulfill that reason, as well as divorce and birth control.
Clever eh. Of course this all works only if the laity have no knowledge of the perennial Magisterium on the subject.
Modernists have an agenda to destroy Tradition with a special hatred for Dogmatic Tradition. It restrains their free-thinking novelties.
When popes embrace or even tolerate modernism, it produces chaos in the Church as tradtional teaching is twisted or discarded, while a newchurch is formed. Almost volcanic in nature as the “passing down as received” (tradition) is abandoned and new novelties become the tradition of “no tradition”.
After about 2 generations of “not passing down as received” (anti-tradition) the church no longer has reference points for teaching and you have what we have today, loss of internal unity on just about any matter in Catholic religion. Which, (for the umteenth time) brings me to my sig:
To destroy a Religion, (and replace it) you must first sever its traditions.

I can see your point but I am hearing you take something to the level of ad absurdum. If remember correctly it is the Holy Father that is the benchmark of orthodoxy. It is our responsibility to be obedient. Anyother position is not catholic. Don’t forget: “Where there is Peter so there is the Church.”

 

[TNT]

mosher:

I can see your point but I am hearing you take something to the level of ad absurdum. If remember correctly it is the Holy Father that is the benchmark of orthodoxy. It is our responsibility to be obedient. Anyother position is not catholic. Don’t forget: “Where there is Peter so there is the Church.”

I am in deep agreement until you put in the ad absurdum…probably like “to the point of absurdity”.
Here is My Holy Father, my benchmark of orthodoxy, my obedience, and where Peter is:
Less than 100 years ago, I cannot imagine the absudity!

…as the plague [of **modernism] is not yet entirely stamped out, but lurks here and there in hidden places, We exhort all to be carefully on their guard against any contagion of the evil, to which we may apply the words Job used in other circumstances: ‘It is a fire that devoureth even to destruction, and rooteth up all things that spring’ (Job 31:12). Nor do We merely desire that Catholics should shrink from the errors of Modernism, but also from the tendencies or what is called the spirit of Modernism. Those who are infected by that spirit develop a keen dislike for all that savours of antiquity and become eager searchers after novelties in everything: in the way in which they carry out religious functions, in the ruling of Catholic institutions, and even in private exercises of piety."

              --**Pope Benedict XV**, [Encyclical                    *Ad Beatissimi Apostolorum*](http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Ben15/b15adbea.htm), 1914

Like I said, when pope teaches against pope, if you follow only the latest pope, you in effect, become a Mormon Spirit wherein their latest leader trumps all previous leaders who trumped all their prevoius leaders. Thus orthodoxy is to become a mockery.
When a pope dies His teachings live on, else all JPII’s teachings are null and void for he is now dead also.

 

[byzmelkite]

TNT:

I am in deep agreement until you put in the ad absurdum…probably like “to the point of absurdity”.
Here is My Holy Father, my benchmark of orthodoxy, my obedience, and where Peter is:
Less than 100 years ago, I cannot imagine the absudity!

Like I said, when pope teaches against pope, if you follow only the latest pope, you in effect, become a Mormon Spirit wherein their latest leader trumps all previous leaders who trumped all their prevoius leaders. Thus orthodoxy is to become a mockery.
When a pope dies His teachings live on, else all JPII’s teachings are null and void for he is now dead also.

I would also add that not everything a Pope says is of equal weight. We should always be respectful of the Holy Father but what he says in his morning Angelus talks or while giving a speech on the road is not equivalent to formally defined doctrine presented in Papal bulls and encyclicals.

The late Holy Father John Paul II had legitimate concerns about the death penalty and as any Christian, he had the right to call for its abolition if that was what he believed to be best in his conscience. But he could never formally define the death penalty as being wrong without overturning the whole doctrine of Papal infallibility. Popes can err and we are not obligated to follow them when they do err. Just because the Pope kisses a Koran that doesn’t mean I’m going to do it. And, just because the Pope has a world day of prayer with religious representatives from all religions praying together, that doesn’t mean I’m going to approve of it. So, when the Pope makes a personal judgment that the death penalty should be abolished, I am not necessarily going to agree just because he is the Pope.