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Weejee
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I’d like God to send us a Pope who looks forward instead of back to fifty years ago. Someone who will will prepare us for Vatican III.
Pope Francis calls for abolishing death penalty and life imprisonment
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HelligUsvart
Guest
I always knew that we should visit those people in prison, but I never was taught that we should free them from it 
Didnt Fulton Sheen teach about this very situation as False Compassion, where he says the care is placed on the offender instead of the victim?
Didnt Fulton Sheen teach about this very situation as False Compassion, where he says the care is placed on the offender instead of the victim?
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Son_of_Niall
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Why would we need a 'Vatican 3"?I’d like God to send us a Pope who looks forward instead of back to fifty years ago. Someone who will will prepare us for Vatican III.
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Pat_Albertson
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Most criminals (~90%) are psychopaths and there is no cure for psychopathy, so I’m sorry but just I’m going to have to disagree with the Pope on this.
Some people (criminals) just cannot handle their freedom and need to be placed in a rigidly structured environment. The rest of the public needs to be protected from them for as long as they (the criminals) are alive.
Some people (criminals) just cannot handle their freedom and need to be placed in a rigidly structured environment. The rest of the public needs to be protected from them for as long as they (the criminals) are alive.
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Lost_Wanderer
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Stats please? I don’t necessarily disagree with your sentiment but it helps if there are credible numbers behind them.
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sscott
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If the Pope wants to be charitable to violent criminals, most of whom are unrepentant, I have a solution. Parole them to the Vatican and let the Pope see what it is like to have these criminals living in his midst. I don’t want them out of prison in mine.
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Pat_Albertson
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I probably could have expressed that better. Crudely speaking, about 90% of what are considered serious criminals, the sort the Pope is interested in letting go free, are psychopathic. Here’s a quote:
From: The damage they do.
I don’t think we ought to allow these sorts of people their freedom. They need structure, control. That’s what prisons do, they provide the rigid structure and control for criminals that both the criminals themselves and the rest of the population need. And yes, some people need to be constrained by a regimen of lifelong control.
I’m pretty sure I have read that 90% figure with respect to the general prison population, but I don’t know where. Anyway, there is plenty of information linking even garden variety criminality to psychopathy.
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simpleas
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I believe it was around the 1960’s here when the last person was executed. I thank God we do not have people waiting on death row. I don’t believe we have the right to take a life unless it’s self defence. Criminals that get a life sentence at a young age may be remorseful of their crime, but they will never get parole.
I wouldn’t want to have lived before, when we would have hung people for some really small crimes and maybe even the innocent.
I do think there are some people who would be a danger to others and so would need to be held secure, that’s common sense. But to end their life… no.
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on_the_hill
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I occasionally cross paths with a woman, professionally, who really seems to carry an underlying belief that people who are in prison, or stand accused of crimes, are victims of The System.I always knew that we should visit those people in prison, but I never was taught that we should free them from it
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Ben_F
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I fail to see anything unjust about the death penalty or life in prison. If you know the penalty in advance and choose to commit the crime anyway, it´s not unjust, that you pay for the crime. Punishment and re-habilitation are two separate topics. Improving re-habilitation methods at the sacrifice of just punishment is just illogical. The horrors of prision life is a deterrent. I´ve never commited a crime that would get me in prison. I don´t believe that I ever will. Programs outside of prison, for people that have done their time is what is needed. Life in prison, may be a hidden death sentence, but it is still just, Inhumane punishment doesn´t exist in the civilized world today. This is just my in-put. I respect the opinions of others, particularly, that of the Holy Father God bless:thumbsup:
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LongingSoul
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The death penalty was abolished nearly a century ago where I come from and I understand that the underlying discomfort stemmed from the cultural inequalities and injustices that made crime more prevalent in certain races and classes.
So while the practical need for punishment and prison was not being denied, use of the death sentence was being recognised as reinforcing systemic class-ism and systemic racism. The taking of human life which is soundly prohibited by the fifth commandment is not made an exception to that by the obligation to punish crime but is only a defensive act in relation to the good of society. It is a sentence that’s ritual intent is primarily defensive.
This has been a widely held social view even prior to the language alterations to the subject by the Vatican in 1992. I think the fact that the Church has never promoted use of the death penalty where it was not used… or denounced its abolition from the law of the many countries who’ve taken that path… indicates that the Church has always held that position. Where she*** has*** spoken up in the past is against claims that it is intrinsically evil and alternately today where there are claims that it is an intrinsic moral good.
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Weejee
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:tiphat:
Yep. Let him put his money where his mouth is!
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Weejee
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Vatican III? I imagine some time in the future, we will have another church council. They may call it by a different name, but most likely, there will be one.
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Sy_Noe
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When the Holy Father calls for abolishing putting people to death by means of the death penalty, is he only speaking about places like America having no circumstances for its use and speaking about the morality of its use in places like America? Or is he calling for an end to human beings on earth using the death penalty period?
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boar2roar
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Death penalty I disagree with him but whatever its just a shot at America (the south) which isn’t catholic anyway. What is he talking about with the life imprisonment thing, did he think this through before calculating the bonus points the media will give him for saying this. Real life imprisonment is becoming rarer in more “tolerant” countries and does he know how hard it is to get actual life in jail. Monsters get that, people who the pope would feel threatened by even with all his security guards by him.
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Dawnia
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I think, he truly believes that there are no circumstances anywhere that would require the death penalty.
I don’t happen to agree with him.
There are people where prison isn’t an effective punishment.
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adawgj
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I agree, The USA should have gotten rid of the death penalty when the Europeans got rid of it.
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anthonymarie
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A fulfillment of which aspect? The content or the so called “spirit”.
He’s certainly a throw back from that period but, as a friend of mine used to say, is there any period in history so outdated as the 60’s? This approach has been tried and found wanting. The biggest apostasy of any religion ever took place in our Church following reckless experiments and innovations after the council.
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anthonymarie
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I agree that the death penalty should go in rich countries where we can afford to keep prisoners, if only because killing prisoners makes us look hypocritical when we start talking about the inalienable right to life of every human being.
It’s the life in prison being a death sentence thing that gets me. It’s just really, well, unchristian even. It seems to suggest that a life in cell is no life at all but there’s no such thing as a life not worth living. The very worldly way this pope seems to sometimes talk disturbs me. Sure life in prison is tough, but it’s not the same as death!
Some prisoners living life sentences have had spiritual conversions, have written books, have formed friendships. Monks spend most of their lives in a cell.
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pnewton
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Yes. Nearly all. That adjective allows for some to argue for the retention of the death penalty. I do not, at least any more. I think we lose more than we gain as a society by keeping the death penalty as an option.
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