No difficulty if one accepts that Jesus Christ is
No, we’ve been responding to two different things. I’ll just drop this discussion.
Either there is an absolute prohibition against the death penalty or there isn’t and the fact that you recognize an exception means that that capital punishment can be just - we just disagree on the list of exceptions.
This argument goes out the window once you admit of any exceptions to using capital punishment.
Fine, then when I argue that capital punishment is the just punishment you cannot complain that we should be merciful since, according to you, if we are just we are also merciful. You now have no separate argument for showing mercy as distinct from being just.
Not at all. I believe that justice demands a life for a life - that this is what “commensurate severity” means - but that certainly doesn’t mean one barbarity for another.
True, but I’m only discussing this from the perspective of the Church’s teaching on capital punishment and the historical use and abuse of the death penalty isn’t relevant to that discussion.
I also have avoided this discussion because I view it as a distraction from the debate about whether the death penalty should be applied in murder cases. (It’s the KISS rule: Keep It Simple, Stupid)
And this is precisely what we should be debating.
Absolutely. I have repeatedly affirmed that punishment has (according to the Church) four objectives and they include protection and rehabilitation. There is nothing in the statement you cited that contradicts anything I have said. What I have pointed out, however, is that of the four objectives it is retribution that is primary and this is what imposes the obligation on the state of applying a punishment of “commensurate severity” on the criminal. This objective must be satisfied; the other three will be satisfied only “as far as possible.” That is, unlike retribution, they are objectives, not obligations.
You may in good faith believe so. There are numbers of people who do agree with you. And many who don’t. Good Catholics may stand on either side of the issue.
If Ender is to be consistent in wanting “eye for an eye,” “death for a death” justice, he ought to at least support the Biblical capital crimes - adultery, insolence to one’s parents, and homosexuality as well as murder.
The law is eternal; it does not change, so if something is true today then it must have been true yesterday … and vice versa. There is no option to accept something as true today that was untrue before.
What is true today that was not true before, is that we now have the means to contain violent criminals, and prevent them from harming others, without resorting to killing them - in most cases.
We should not promote stoning et al because the Church does not support such punishments. She does, however, support the use of executions.
First, the estimation that we in fact have such a capability is only opinion - clearly it cannot be doctrine - and it is an opinion I disagree with.
Everything I have said is based on what the Church herself has said. If you disagree with my comments then critique my understanding of the citations I provide, as colmywaykurtz has done. Your comments are not arguments, they are simply peevish expressions.
Yes, you are correct, however, “severity commensurate” is a determination to be made by the jurisdiction doing the prosecution. The Church does not set any sentences for any crimes. It upholds the legitimate right of the State to impose anything from the death penalty to “25 to Life” as a just punishment for murder by not specifying what it demands as the punishment.
No, just sarcasm. You have an idée fixe and are so sure that no one could be right about this other than you.
Would you please provide those references? I’m not trying to fight with you; I’m trying to learn. I’m not concerned with the Early Fathers at this point (my only knowledge is in reference to Augustine and I’m way behind on my studies of his thinking, although I am impressed by his intelligence and self-awareness); I’m interested in Church teaching. That would include the five catechisms and the “half a dozen” papal documents. Yes, I am requesting every single one.
Only if the public cannot be kept safe any other way!!
I thought of that, too. If the “just” punishment for murder is an act equivalent to the act the murderer performed, then abortionists should be put to death in exactly (or as close to exactly) the same way as they murdered their victims. So some should be pulled to pieces, some injected with saline, some have their throats slit, and some have their spines severed.
Supports as in tolerates or provides corroborative evidence for - NOT as in advocates or argues in favor of!
I agree that it should be dropped and I apologize for my somewhat incoherent language; sometimes I have a problem with processing language.
Just because a person must be killed in order to keep the public safe does not mean that person’s execution is just. Life often isn’t fair.
No, it doesn’t.
Au contraire, I can complain as much as I want to. Killing a person on an uncharted, unknown island who is murdering his fellow shipwrecked people is not just. It’s only acceptable because it is the only way to keep the rest of the shipwrecked people safe. It is a way of showing mercy to the shipwrecked people, not to the murderer.
Why not? Why do you believe that justice demands a life for a life but not one barbarity for another? Is it truly just to give an abortionist a lethal injection when he has murdered hundreds of unborn children via horrendous, painful methods? If justice demands a life for a life, why doesn’t it demand a cruel death for a cruel death? It uses the same reasoning.
Your use of the term “law” is rather vague. There are many kinds of “law”: Sharia law, civil, law, criminal law, God’s Law, Natural Law, Universal Law.