One Catholic voice on death penalty takes on another (Prejean vs. Scalia)

[stumbler]

By Patricia Zapor
Catholic News Service

WASHINGTON (CNS) – For years, the two most prominent voices among U.S. Catholics on the subject of the death penalty have been those of a nun who is a former schoolteacher and a Georgetown- and Harvard-educated Supreme Court justice.

Sister Helen Prejean, author of two books that draw on her experiences as a spiritual adviser to men on death row, and Justice Antonin Scalia, the fourth most senior member of the Supreme Court, have come to represent the extremes of Catholic thought about capital punishment.

In her newest book, the nun takes on the jurist over their theological and constitutional differences on the issue.

With a movie, an opera and a stage play all recounting the story she told in a best-selling book, “Dead Man Walking,” Sister Prejean, a member of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Medaille, has become the most recognizable figure working to abolish the death penalty in the United States.

Scalia, meanwhile, anchors the diminishing segment of the court that consistently votes to uphold the constitutionality of the death penalty. His disagreement with the court majority was vehement as those justices recently overturned death sentences for mentally retarded people and juveniles convicted of murder.

He was particularly critical of an amicus, or friend-of-the-court, brief filed by the U.S. bishops and other religious groups in Atkins vs. Virginia, the case about a retarded defendant sentenced to death. Scalia ridiculed the brief as the “court’s most feeble effort to fabricate ‘national consensus’” against capital punishment.

In public appearances Scalia not only has defended the death penalty as constitutionally solid, but he has argued that the church doctrine approving of capital punishment dating to St. Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century and St. Augustine in the fourth century still prevails. He has said that more recent teachings of Pope John Paul II are not obligatory because they were not spoken ex cathedra, Latin for from the chair, meaning the pope intended them to be accepted as infallible teachings of the church.

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Article

 

[Richardols]

stumbler:

He has said that more recent teachings of Pope John Paul II are not obligatory because they were not spoken ex cathedra, Latin for from the chair, meaning the pope intended them to be accepted as infallible teachings of the church.

Shows you how little he knows. Certainly, the Pope’s teachings aren’t infallible, but to dismiss them as just the Pope’s personal opinion, no more weighty than the Pope’s opinion of the best restaurant in Rome shows how little he respects the Pope and how little he values what the head of our Church says.

Now, there’s a Supreme Court Justice who needs to be replaced!

 

[theistgal]

My concern about Sister Helen Prejean is that it is not clear whether she really believes what the Church teaches about life. She has stated that she thinks poor women don’t really have the option not to have abortions, and the real problem is that the Church doesn’t allow them to use contraception. She is also on record as favoring women priests.

That doesn’t mean she is wrong in her opposition to the death penalty; just taken her comments about Church teaching with a grain of salt, and investigate them for yourself.

 

[jimmy]

Is she the nun that was on the Oreilly Factor that was saying that they should let Terry Shiavo die?

 

[Lurch104]

jimmy:

Is she the nun that was on the Oreilly Factor that was saying that they should let Terry Shiavo die?

That is indeed the “nun” in question. She is a disgrace and is truly CINO.

cardinalnewmansociety.org/Publications/News/commencement_2003.htm

SPRING HILL COLLEGE (Mobile, AL): Sr. Helen Prejean, C.S.J., an activist against the death penalty, gave the commencement address and received an honorary degree on May 11. This is the first year that Cardinal Newman Society has protested the selection of Prejean, who is a frequent speaker at Catholic college commencements, upon learning of a disturbing interview and follow-up letter in Our Sunday Visitor (4/14/96, 5/19/96) in which she dissented from Catholic teaching on the death penalty. Prejean criticized the “loophole” in Pope John Paul II’s encyclical “Evangelium Vitae,” in which he allows for the death penalty “in cases of absolute necessity” and requires individuals to make their own prudential judgment according to their conscience. In the interview, Prejean opposed abortion but argued that poor women without emotional support have little “choice” to make the right decision. “I think for us to really answer the abortion question so that women don’t have them, we really have to look seriously at the whole thing of birth control, family planning and not having unwanted pregnancies,” Prejean said in contradiction to Catholic teaching. Prejean also lamented that “women aren’t getting a fair shake in the Church today” because they can’t announce the Gospel or give a homily at Mass, tasks reserved for priests. “When you have a theology that says men only can represent Christ, we have something seriously wrong,” Prejean said, appearing to question the male priesthood. Without evidence of more recent public statements expressing fidelity to Catholic teaching, Prejean is an inappropriate commencement speaker and honoree.

 

[jimmy]

Richardols:

Shows you how little he knows. Certainly, the Pope’s teachings aren’t infallible, but to dismiss them as just the Pope’s personal opinion, no more weighty than the Pope’s opinion of the best restaurant in Rome shows how little he respects the Pope and how little he values what the head of our Church says.

Now, there’s a Supreme Court Justice who needs to be replaced!

He obviously knows more than this Prejean lady, who is openly against the Church on several points.

 

[David_Paul]

stumbler:

He was particularly critical of an amicus, or friend-of-the-court, brief filed by the U.S. bishops and other religious groups in Atkins vs. Virginia, the case about a retarded defendant sentenced to death. Scalia ridiculed the brief as the “court’s most feeble effort to fabricate ‘national consensus’” against capital punishment.

The court also accepted an amicus in agreement from the European Union and justified its decsion as following “the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society.”

Be careful what you ask for Bishops.

 

[David_Paul]

jimmy:

He obviously knows more than this Prejean lady, who is openly against the Church on several points.

Surprised any Catholic wants Justice Scalia off the court. He is against the ACLU attempts to judicially censor religion, would overturn Roe V. Wade and wrote a prescient, blistering dissent in Lawrence v. Texas.

Well…I take that back. Ted Kennedy and John Kerry want him off the bench. They are filibustering ten judicial nominees with outlooks similiar to Scalia right now.

 

[Lisa_N]

David_Paul:

Surprised any Catholic wants Justice Scalia off the court. He is against the ACLU attempts to judicially censor religion, would overturn Roe V. Wade and wrote a prescient, blistering dissent in Lawrence v. Texas.

Well…I take that back. Ted Kennedy and John Kerry want him off the bench. They are filibustering ten judicial nominees with outlooks similiar to Scalia right now.

What? Ted Kennedy and John Kerry are Catholics? Do you have any evidence?

Lisa N

PS this is tongue in cheek and I say Scalia for Prez!

 

[David_Paul]

Lol…hey I know for a fact Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) is a Catholic. Or at least once was. Friends in her district have shown me communion picture she uses in campaign literature.

Familiar with her voting record?

 

[pnewton]

The constitutionality of the death penalty is rather clear. Does anyone really think that the writers of the constitution wished to abolish it? Only the most liberal of interpretations will see this evolving constitution as applicable to the death penalty. When we have reduced the constitution to something a subjective document that can evolve 180 degrees, we have put all our lives, and all political power in the hands of the courts. God help us!

 

[Richardols]

pnewton:

The constitutionality of the death penalty is rather clear. Does anyone really think that the writers of the constitution wished to abolish it?

No, those conservative slave masters had no problem with the death penalty. However, in an evolving society, the question of “cruel and unusual punishment” might be a constitutional question.

When we have reduced the constitution to something a subjective document that can evolve 180 degrees,

The Constitution is a subjective document. It’s been amended often enough to keep up with the times.

 

[Richardols]

jimmy:

He obviously knows more than this Prejean lady, who is openly against the Church on several points.

Does he? He opposes the Church on other points with his acceptance of the Culture of Death through his enthusiasm for the death penalty…

 

[Scott_Lafrance]

Richardols:

Shows you how little he knows. Certainly, the Pope’s teachings aren’t infallible, but to dismiss them as just the Pope’s personal opinion, no more weighty than the Pope’s opinion of the best restaurant in Rome shows how little he respects the Pope and how little he values what the head of our Church says.

Now, there’s a Supreme Court Justice who needs to be replaced!

Your kidding right? Justice Scalia is one of the few judges who actually believe in limits on judicial power. He actually believes that judges have no place in creating law where none exist.

 

[Richardols]

Scott_Lafrance:

Your kidding right? Justice Scalia is one of the few judges who actually believe in limits on judicial power. He actually believes that judges have no place in creating law where none exist.

I’m not kidding. And, he’s entitled to his opinion, if that is in fact, his opinion. There are those who share it, perhaps you do.

I don’t.

 

[Scott_Lafrance]

Richardols:

I’m not kidding. And, he’s entitled to his opinion, if that is in fact, his opinion. There are those who share it, perhaps you do.

I don’t.

If judges are entitled to create law, or disregard laws that are created by the legislature, what do we have a legislative body for? What about balance of power, or is that just a nice opinion as well?

 

[Richardols]

Scott_Lafrance:

If judges are entitled to create law, or disregard laws that are created by the legislature, what do we have a legislative body for?

Sure, thinking about all those Southern legislatures who legally and democratically passed all the segregation laws - who was the Supreme Court to dare to overthrow those laws? Judges overruling a Legislature? Damnyankees and commies!

And separate but equal? The nerve of those judicial activists in Brown vs. Bd of Education!! Lots of Christians wanted Earl Warren impeached over that one.

And the unbridled activism of the Supremes in reversing a legally enacted statute forbidding inter-racial marriages!!

What indeed do we have a legislative body for?

 

[Richardols]

Scott_Lafrance:

What about balance of power, or is that just a nice opinion as well?

If it wasn’t for the judiciary balancing the power of legislatures, black people would still be drinking out of separate fountains.

 

[Xavier4Life]

Richardols:

If it wasn’t for the judiciary balancing the power of legislatures, black people would still be drinking out of separate fountains.

It is one thing for the courts to affirm that all men are created equal, it is quite another to invent a mother’s “right” to kill in the womb, or (as you would like) to deny the state’s (God-given) authority to exercise justice. (cf. CCC 2267, Genesis 9:6, Romans 13:3-4)

 

[Richardols]

(as you would like) to deny the state’s (God-given) authority to exercise justice. (cf. CCC 2267, Genesis 9:6, Romans 13:3-4)

Not as I would like. As the Church would like. John Paul II was quite forceful on this account. And justice can be exercised without the death penalty.

BTW, the principle of judicial review for constitutionality of laws should remain a constant.