Pope Francis calls for abolishing death penalty and life imprisonment

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Well that happens when all the state hospitals are being closed. Everyone wants to be sympathetic to the mentally ill except when it comes time for the budget. The fact is there exists a segment of society that really needs long time to permanent institutionalization. Some people frankly cannot fuction outside of it. Nobody wants to hear that however so long story short they end up on the street and then usually in jail because they cannot function in society and end up hurting themselves or others.

When was the last time a mental health hospital was built instead of closed?
 
Sy_Noe said:
Could changing teaching on the death penalty be one of God’s surprises the Holy Father has talked about?
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The teaching isn’t changing. There are circumstances where the death penalty is appropriate. However, I believe the Pope is simply stating that those circumstances no longer exist.
 
EmperorNapoleon said:
My guess would be that the Pope is not necessarily opposed to lifelong imprisonment but to a life sentence without the possibility of parole. Such sentences preclude the possibility that the guilty person can be rehabilitated before it can be known whether that truly is the case. That is a sentence of vengeance rather than justice and vengeance belongs to God alone.
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I think that’s a good way to read it. He’s not necessarily saying that some people won’t (or even shouldn’t) end up in prison for the rest of their lives. It seems to me more about not taking away their hope for being made right with society right from the get-go.

Just by way of background, this is just a speech he made to a group from the International Association of Criminal Law. So he’s speaking on a relevant topic to a specific audience. It’s not at the level of papal encyclical, nor is it mean to be some sort of comprehensive evaluation of the criminal justice system as a whole.

So, sure, we can sit around poking holes or criticizing him for not mentioning x, y, and z. But I think the main point is to get people to think about how prisoners can better be treated with regards to their innate human dignity as pertains to their sentencing. That’s not a bad thing for us (or particularly for his immediate audience) to spend some time thinking about.
 
anthonymarie said:
If life in a cell is a “death sentence”, what does his holiness think of monasticism?
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I would think the Holy Father knows the difference between a prison cell and a monastic cell, and that he further understands that the monk is exercising one of the greatest gifts of God (Free Will), by entering and staying in monastic life, unlike the prisoner who is sentenced to confinement.🤷
 
Dawnia said:
The teaching isn’t changing. There are circumstances where the death penalty is appropriate. However, I believe the Pope is simply stating that those circumstances no longer exist.
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Maybe not in America. But in places where it is beyond the power of the civil government to protect the common good without implementing the death penalty, then it is morally permissible.
 
Neofight said:
I would think the Holy Father knows the difference between a prison cell and a monastic cell, and that he further understands that the monk is exercising one of the greatest gifts of God (Free Will), by entering and staying in monastic life, unlike the prisoner who is sentenced to confinement.🤷
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Just as the criminal exercises his free will in the commission of a crime, so must he face the consequence of the law and relinquish his liberty. It is not the state depriving one of his freedom, rather a person making a choice to go against the common good, thus surrendering his liberty.
 
Yeoman said:
As a person in a lot of experience in the law, but admittedly none in the criminal law, I think a commonly held Catholic view, which was more or less the one held by St. Pope John Paul II, was that the ability to retain the most dangerous prisoners had evolved to where the moral justification for the death penalty had ceased. That’s pretty evident if a person looks at the history of criminal punishment.

Originally, while there were jails, by and large society had very little ability to hold, feed, and care for prisoners, so there was not a good means of retaining the most violent offenders, or those with the most grievous offenses. So in those cases, you could look back and see where the death penalty was a type of self defense, or at least arguably so.

Now, this is far from true in western societies. We do have the ability to retain and hold safely nearly any prisoner indefinitely and in the US, we arguably hold far more than we should. Given that, the death penalty’s purpose of being self defense has passed, and it’s supposedly serving some other purpose, although what that is seems hard to adequately define. Anyhow, given that, while the Church’s position that the death penalty is a proper penalty under some circumstances, finds it self in an era when those circumstances virtually never arise…
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Not true, not at all. The “ability to retain and hold safely” presumes that the prisoner is being held in such a way that he can no longer do harm. The fact is that killers in prison do kill again while in prison (other prisoners and guards), and sometimes they do escape, even from the most secure prisons, and kill on the outside. That is why I continue to support the death penalty, in cases where the perpetrator’s guilt can be established beyond all doubt (not just beyond reasonable doubt).
 
christus_vincit said:
Pope Francis has really shown his hand as a progressive liberal in this past week. He and the Church are in DESPERATE need of our prayers.
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Our Pope has ‘shown his hand’ at being one of the most challenging Popes in quite a while. God choose one who agrees with Him, not with us!
 
Weejee said:
Pope Francis should keep his nose out of criminal justice and go back to helping the poor. I don’t know what the heck has happened to him since his election, but he seems to think he’s an expert on everything.
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I pray the Pope continues ‘keeping his nose’ involved in issues such as this.
 
Son_of_Niall said:
Our Pope has ‘shown his hand’ at being one of the most challenging Popes in quite a while. God choose one who agrees with Him, not with us!
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I’m inclined to agree with you about Francis being “challenging”. Even though I would not classify Francis as having the intellectual chops of Benedict XVI or John Paul II, he still manages to challenge my thinking in ways that they never did. I cannot speak for anyone else, but I know it’s been very good for me. I think it’s good that not all popes are cookie cutter images of each other.

For example, with this issue, I have never previously given any thought to life sentences being a bad thing. But now that I am thinking about it, I think the pope raises some very interesting points about human dignity and hope for the future. If a 20-something year old is convicted and sentenced to life in prison with absolutely zero possibility for parole, what motivation does he have to work towards interior change? Society has already written him off as irredeemable. That has to have a major impact on a person’s psyche.
 
Joe_5859 said:
I’m inclined to agree with you about Francis being “challenging”. Even though I would not classify Francis as having the intellectual chops of Benedict XVI or John Paul II, he still manages to challenge my thinking in ways that they never did. I cannot speak for anyone else, but I know it’s been very good for me. I think it’s good that not all popes are cookie cutter images of each other.

For example, with this issue, I have never previously given any thought to life sentences being a bad thing. But now that I am thinking about it, I think the pope raises some very interesting points about human dignity and hope for the future. If a 20-something year old is convicted and sentenced to life in prison with absolutely zero possibility for parole, what motivation does he have to work towards interior change? Society has already written him off as irredeemable. That has to have a major impact on a person’s psyche.
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When you consider the fact that prisons in particular were unknown in the ancient world, one has to ask what system they had that in it’s stead, and whether it worked better.
 
redbaron162 said:
As someone who has now spent several years in law enforcement I cannot agree to abolish life sentences. There are frankly to many sociopaths out there just waiting to get out so they can commit more crimes. Everyone keeps wanting to worry about the criminals rights but how about we start to worry about the victims rights a bit more?

Of course I would also say part of the reason so many repeat criminals keep going back to prison is directly related to how easy it is to do time in the US. If we made being in prison a horribe experience maybe more repeat ofenders would think twice about going back. As it is now most of the people I help put away act like they are going on vacation.
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Yep. Lemuel Smith killed a guard while he was in prison. But, who ever thinks about the innocent civilians? Or prison personnel? :mad:
 
Weejee said:
I don’t. I pray God will handle “This pope” in the manner in which God feels most fit.😃
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Not thanking God for our Pope is your prerogative. I thank God for him and firmly believe he is the fulfillment of everything the second Vatican council wanted to put into action. May we have a hundred more just like him.
 
Weejee said:
Yep. Lemuel Smith killed a guard while he was in prison. But, who ever thinks about the innocent civilians. Or prison personnel.
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Just playing devil’s advocate here…

So, do we pray for those who martyr believers, and let God administer his divine and perfect justice, or are there different categories?

Some might conclude that a person who makes someone a martyr has had the opposite effect they wished for on their victim…that is, the dead receives infinite grace. So, have the killers of the martyrs over the years been menaces to society or unwitting agents of God’s grace?

Perhaps this is why Christ tells us not to fear those who can kill us, but to fear those who can kill our souls.
 
redbaron162 said:
Well that happens when all the state hospitals are being closed. Everyone wants to be sympathetic to the mentally ill except when it comes time for the budget. The fact is there exists a segment of society that really needs long time to permanent institutionalization. Some people frankly cannot fuction outside of it. Nobody wants to hear that however so long story short they end up on the street and then usually in jail because they cannot function in society and end up hurting themselves or others.

When was the last time a mental health hospital was built instead of closed?
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👍
 
Neofight said:
Just playing devil’s advocate here…

So, do we pray for those who martyr believers, and let God administer his divine and perfect justice, or are there different categories?

Some might conclude that a person who makes someone a martyr has had the opposite effect they wished for on their victim…that is, the dead receives infinite grace. So, have the killers of the martyrs over the years been menaces to society or unwitting agents of God’s grace?

Perhaps this is why Christ tells us not to fear those who can kill us, but to fear those who can kill our souls.
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I’m speaking of justice here on earth, only on earth, to protect the innocent. Civil justice.😉
 
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