Is what my priest says correct?

[tam1982]

This week our church newsletter had the usual editorials from the priest. Two of these confused us because of the content and I wonder what the church stance is. One letter he talked about having made prophecys that have come true which was odd enough but the next was an explanation about thou shalt not kill actually is a command to cherish innocent life. He says that if someone is threatening your or your family’s life you have the right to kill them to protect yourself. I thought all life was sacred, and even the death penalty was considered a sin? Two weeks ago he told us about a very sick little boy that the doctors didn’t know what was wrong or how to help him, he stated he told the older sister he would only pray for the boy if his parents came to church every single Sunday like they are supposed to, that if they weren’t willing to do their part he wouldn’t help either. I have never had a priest like this and just wonder if my understanding of the faith is wrong or what. Thank you for trying to help clear this up and ease my heart.

 

[Fr.Charles_Grondin]

There’s a few different issues at play here.

1. I have no idea what he means by prophecy. No Catholic is required to believe in other people’s private revelation.
2. Self defense is always permitted. The commandment against killing was always understood as a commandment against murder. The Scriptures never condemn someone who is forced to kill in self defense or in defense of another. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church states:

**2263 **The legitimate defense of persons and societies is not an exception to the prohibition against the murder of the innocent that constitutes intentional killing. “The act of self-defense can have a double effect: the preservation of one’s own life; and the killing of the aggressor. . . . The one is intended, the other is not.”

**2265 **Legitimate defense can be not only a right but a grave duty for one who is responsible for the lives of others. The defense of the common good requires that an unjust aggressor be rendered unable to cause harm. For this reason, those who legitimately hold authority also have the right to use arms to repel aggressors against the civil community entrusted to their responsibility.

1. The death penalty is considered a society’s self defense against unjust aggressors. As with personal self-defense its use is only moral inasmuch as it is truly necessary. As 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.”

1. I have no idea why he wouldn’t pray for a sick child whose parents don’t go to church. Jesus healed the Roman centurion’s servant even though the Roman centurion was a pagan (Matthew 8:5-13). The prophet Jonah thought he knew better than God who was worthy of God’s mercy (Jonah 4:2) and tried to escape preaching to Gentiles and God had him swallowed up by a big fish and spit back up on the shore.
   If what you write is true, I personally think such an attitude is very sad and un-Christlike.