Is the death penalty really inadmissable?

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AlNg said:
The teaching on torture has changed.
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Are all non-infallible doctrines changeable? Your comment here suggests you believe that they are.
Does God still command such or did God change His mind and does not command that anymore?
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This is another of the “some things change so the morality of capital punishment can change too” arguments. Is it your position that literally every non-infallible doctrine is subject to error and reversal, because if not you have to address the specifics of what is involved with claiming the doctrine on capital punishment can, and has changed. You should also be willing to fully recognize the nature of the change, and whether change (development) can include complete reversal of the doctrine.
 
Ender said:
This is another of the “ some things change so the morality of capital punishment can change too ” arguments. Is it your position that literally every non-infallible doctrine is subject to error and reversal, because if not you have to address the specifics of what is involved with claiming the doctrine on capital punishment can, and has changed. You should also be willing to fully recognize the nature of the change, and whether change (development) can include complete reversal of the doctrine.
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Do you believe in the principle of the ‘common good’. Do you believe there is a collective ‘social conscience’ that has authority to denounce injustice and demand justice of our leaders?
 
Motherwit said:
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Ender:
This is another of the “ some things change so the morality of capital punishment can change too ” arguments. Is it your position that literally every non-infallible doctrine is subject to error and reversal, because if not you have to address the specifics of what is involved with claiming the doctrine on capital punishment can, and has changed. You should also be willing to fully recognize the nature of the change, and whether change (development) can include complete reversal of the doctrine.
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Do you believe in the principle of the ‘common good’. Do you believe there is a collective ‘social conscience’ that has authority to denounce injustice and demand justice of our leaders?
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Since Ender is Catholic, I expect him to answer yes, but because I know you, Motherwit, I expect you to assert those terms to denote and connote something totally other and different than either I or Ender would define according to the Church.
 
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My understanding is directly aligned with Church teaching and as I cited, the Compendium that makes our obligation clear.
 
AlNg said:
What does it mean when the Pope says: “There can be no stepping back from this position" ?
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He had already stated his position previously. While he is teaching this, it cannot be dogma, rather only doctrine based on what the world is like today. In such things, the world can change, and no pope can bind another in what the world will be like when he is gone.

As doctrine of this type, dissent cannot be called heresy. People can still disagree, though in theory they are supposed to continue to try and understand the Church.

This is what I meant when I said he closed no doors. So the death penalty is inadmissible (in this day) by the teaching of the Church, but agreeing with that teaching is not a matter of salvation.

For those whose vocabulary does not extend to this word, we have a plethora of online dictionaries. It is and adjective which means the noun it describes is not to be admitted, or allowed.
 
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Motherwit said:
Do you believe in the principle of the ‘common good’. Do you believe there is a collective ‘social conscience’ that has authority to denounce injustice and demand justice of our leaders?
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You should know that I do inasmuch as I have said this any number of times.
pnewton said:
He had already stated his position previously. While he is teaching this, it cannot be dogma, rather only doctrine based on what the world is like today. In such things, the world can change, and no pope can bind another in what the world will be like when he is gone.
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It is neither dogma nor doctrine; it is a judgment.
As doctrine of this type, dissent cannot be called heresy. People can still disagree, though in theory they are supposed to continue to try and understand the Church.
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We are not permitted to dissent from doctrine. Dissenting from an opinion is not dissent from the church.
For those whose vocabulary does not extend to this word, we have a plethora of online dictionaries. It is and adjective which means the noun it describes is not to be admitted, or allowed.
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As the US bishops declared, the word is ambiguous, and it is ambiguous precisely because it has no theological meaning. It implies what cannot be claimed: that capital punishment is intrinsically evil. It suggests we are to act as if it was even as we know it cannot be.
 
StephenW said:
The Church, it seems, should not be promoting the death penalty,
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The Church does not promote the death penalty. The Church has acknowledged the authority of civil governments to us it as a tool in administering justice.
 
Ender said:
And can development include reversal so that any and all non-infallible doctrines can be repudiated in the future?
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At one time the natural law is interpreted to allow torture. At the present time, the natural law is interpreted to forbid torture. If you will give me a list of any and all of the non-infallible doctrines you are talking about, then I can go over each one and answer your question.
 
AlNg said:
At one time the natural law is interpreted to allow torture. At the present time, the natural law is interpreted to forbid torture. If you will give me a list of any and all of the non-infallible doctrines you are talking about, then I can go over each one and answer your question.
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May I interject?

I think there are a couple of inherent difficulties in creating a list of “non-infallible doctrines”. The first difficulty, it seems to me, is that the idea of doctrine is a teaching that is true. Maybe this is purely semantics in the context of your conversation, I don’t know. Regardless, by way of a definition, the CCC states that doctrine is:

“The revealed teachings of Christ which are proclaimed by the fullest extent of the exercise of the authority of the Church’s Magisterium” (p. 875).

It seems important, then, to carefully distinguish between what the clergy did or failed to do, said or even taught, etc., and what is actually a doctrine or a dogma of the Church. The example of torture you offered is problematic in just this way. Torture was not once a doctrine of the Church that has now been repudiated. I took a quick look at Denzinger (1954 version, my new one is packed away at the moment), and could not find any doctrinal statements about the natural law justifying torturing people. Actually, I could not find anything about using torture. I think this is the first inherent difficulty—the question of doctrine itself, that is, what it means. The development of doctrine is only a deepening understanding of revelation. It may be that a deepening understanding of revelation results in the Church reaching different conclusions about certain practical judgments, but holding that doctrine may simply be repudiated seems to be an untenantable position. It also seems that the burden of proof is on the person who asserts this. One would have to clearly identify a doctrine of the Church and then identify where the Church later repudiated the doctrine (i.e. using the definition of doctrine above). The statement, “non-infallible doctrines” (i.e. “fallible doctrines”) seems oxymoronic.

The other inherent difficulty with creating a list of “non-infallible doctrines” is predicated on the notion that the Church defines doctrine that it does not hold to be necessarily true. What would be the purpose of doing this? The alternative is that the Church intended to teach the truth in defining a doctrine concerning faith and morals, but erred in doing so.
 
Motherwit said:
That interpretation has come through a very narrow lens though. For about 150 years, Christian countries have been abolishing the death penalty based on a growing awareness of its offense to human dignity.
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Can any government eliminate the risk that a life sentenced serial killer will falsify evidence decades later (once the case is forgotten, witnesses have died, etc.) in order to overturn his conviction or get release on bail?
 
AlNg said:
At one time the natural law is interpreted to allow torture. At the present time, the natural law is interpreted to forbid torture. If you will give me a list of any and all of the non-infallible doctrines you are talking about, then I can go over each one and answer your question.
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I’ll just pick a few and you can decide whether they are reversible.
  • Homosexual behavior is intrinsically disordered
  • Marriage is between one man and one woman
  • One cannot remarry after a divorce
  • Sunday mass is obligatory
Is there a reason any or all of these cannot be reversed in the future?
 
StephenW said:
The statement, “non-infallible doctrines” (i.e. “fallible doctrines”) seems oxymoronic.
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The church herself distinguishes between those doctrines which are proclaimed infallible (dogmas?) and those which are not. Perhaps the distinction here is that in “the exercise of the ordinary Magisterium” a doctrine may still be infallible but it is not (yet) proclaimed to be so. It does, however, seem to leave the door open to at least the possibility of error.

CCC 892 Divine assistance is also given to the successors of the apostles, teaching in communion with the successor of Peter, and, in a particular way, to the bishop of Rome, pastor of the whole Church, when, without arriving at an infallible definition and without pronouncing in a "definitive manner," they propose in the exercise of the ordinary Magisterium a teaching that leads to better understanding of Revelation in matters of faith and morals. To this ordinary teaching the faithful “are to adhere to it with religious assent” which, though distinct from the assent of faith, is nonetheless an extension of it.
 
I understand the joke, but I’m not sure that it’s not the only reasonable answer (assuming you consider reversal of the doctrine on capital punishment reasonable.) If all that is required to reverse any doctrine is the claim that we have a better understanding of mankind than those other guys, then what cannot be changed?
 
Ender said:
If all that is required to reverse any doctrine is the claim that we have a better understanding of mankind than those other guys
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Is slavery ok? What about lending money at interest?

The Church participated in the first, and it is even found throughout the Bible. The second was condemned for centuries, before ceasing to be so.

What about praying for the conversion of the Jews? That’s even been taken out of liturgy, and has also been condemned, but the Church preached that was a good thing to do for centuries (probably longer).

I’m not sure how the death penalty is any different from those three things, but the crack theologians here at CAF will fix that.
 
Maybe it isn’t proposed infallibly. But the the faithful are required to give their religious submission (obsequium religiousum) of their intellect and will.

Lumen Gentium 25:
This religious submission of mind and will must be shown in a special way to the authentic magisterium of the Roman Pontiff, even when he is not speaking ex cathedra; that is, it must be shown in such a way that his supreme magisterium is acknowledged with reverence, the judgments made by him are sincerely adhered to, according to his manifest mind and will.
 
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