Pope Francis calls for abolishing death penalty and life imprisonment

[graciew]

What is required of us when we sin? First we must admit our guilt and regret having committed it. We must repent. That, however, is insufficient.* Absolution takes away sin, but it does not remedy all the disorders sin has caused. Raised up from sin, the sinner must still recover his full spiritual health by doing something more to make amends for the sin: he must “make satisfaction for” or “expiate” his sins. (CCC 1459) We must also atone for it; our sin must be expiated by a just punishment.When it is a question of the execution of a man condemned to death it is then reserved to the public power to deprive the condemned of the benefit of life, in expiation of his fault (Pius XII)
How is expiation accomplished? It is done through the acceptance of our punishment.When his punishment is voluntarily accepted by the offender, it takes on the value of expiation. (CCC 2266)
This concept of expiation is lost in the modern approach to punishment.“A word must be said on the full meaning of penalty. Most of the modern theories of penal law explain penalty and justify it in the final analysis as a means of protection, that is, defense of the community against criminal undertakings, and at the same time an attempt to bring the offender to observance of the law. In those theories, the penalty can include sanctions such as the diminution of some goods guaranteed by law, so as to teach the guilty to live honestly, but those theories fail to consider the expiation of the crime* committed, which penalizes the violation of the law** as the prime function of penalty**” (Pius XII)
When punishment is looked at as mere vindictiveness it is no wonder that people question it. From that perspective justice itself becomes suspect. That of course has never been the church’s perspective.

Ender

Ender , to begin with I appreciate the time and effort you invest in your answers .
It does take time to let in the answers you and other posters write.
Justice and correctionals where I live are very different from yours. Very.

I understand the process you have explained , . Where I am at is: ok. I get it but as I understand it , it is the person in prison who has to be helped to undergo that process so as it has a purpose.
What justice can there be if not ?
How can God delight in no hope ?
Unless I.did.not get you and is is all left in God’ s hands.

 

[esieffe]

I SO agree with the Holy Father on this. I think one day we will discover that criminal behavior can be addressed or even prevented by medical means. For now, if no other reason than landing on the side of caution, given the amount of exonerated people, a moratorium on the DP will have to do.

 

[Tomdstone]

If by this you mean the pope has the authority to decide what should and should not be moral, you are mistaken. That is not at all what that passage means. The church is tasked with preserving the moral law, not inventing it.

• It is manifestly impossible for Catholic doctrine on the death penalty to “develop” from an approbation based on revealed truth to a condemnation based on the teaching of the last Pope. And, if we are not discussing the immorality of capital punishment in itself, when all is said and done it is not a question of “development” of doctrine, but only the debatable application of a morally legitimate penalty. Here Catholics, and civil authorities, remain free to make their own prudential judgments. *(Christopher Ferrera, President American Catholic Lawyers Assn)
  Ender

Should a Catholic listen to
Christopher Ferrera and Mr. Ender on this, or should a Catholic pay attention to what the Vicar of Christ and the Supreme Pontiff of the Catholic Church says. Pope Francis has been given the keys to the kingdom of heaven and the power to loose and bind by Our Divine Saviour Himself. Please correct me if I am wrong, but I doubt that you or Mr. Ferrera have been given similar authority from God. The Pope of the Catholic Church has called for the abolition of the death penalty, and this is what we should be listening to.

 

[pnewton]

Should a Catholic listen to
Christopher Ferrera and Mr. Ender on this, or should a Catholic pay attention to what the Vicar of Christ and the Supreme Pontiff of the Catholic Church says. .

Consider the possibility that there is room for both. The Holy Father, as said earlier, does not produce morals or doctrine. However, he has the authority from God to teach these morals and doctrine, as do the bishops. He has even further authority to give the disciplines which govern the lives of Catholics, for the purpose of leading them into Heaven.

In addition to this, each and everyone of us are called to use our reason to apply that discipline in our lives and in our society. To this end, we surely may discuss among ourselves areas where we disagree. I would say the points at which we must be wary are:

1. Questioning the authority of the Church directly (as in the Church is going backward)
2. Insisting that our understanding is the Catholic way, when it is only one within a spectrum of acceptable Catholic opinions.

Another danger sign I see, though it is not definitive, is using older, less authoritative sources to argue against current, more authoritative sources, like the Catechism, or any statement, verbal or written, by the Holy Father.

 

[dudleysharp]

I SO agree with the Holy Father on this. I think one day we will discover that criminal behavior can be addressed or even prevented by medical means. For now, if no other reason than landing on the side of caution, given the amount of exonerated people, a moratorium on the DP will have to do.

You may agree or disagree with him (1).

The fact is that innocents are more protected when murderers are dead.

Therefore, you and the Pope are allowing all murderers to live at the cost of more innocent s murdered. (2) and the cost of more murderers having more eternal problems.

1. Current Problems: Catholic Death Penalty Teaching
   prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2014/10/current-problems-catholic-death-penalty.html
2. THE DEATH PENALTY: SAVING MORE INNOCENT LIVES

No credible case of an innocent executed, in the US, since the 1930’s.

Since 1973, there have been 14,000 - 28,000 actual innocents murdered by those known murderers that we allowed to murder, again - recidivist murderers (two different recidivism studies from different years).

The Death Penalty: Do Innocents Matter? A Review of All Innocence Issues
http(COLON)//prodpinnc.blogspot(DOT)com/2013/10/the-death-penalty-do-innocents-matter.html

The Innocent Frauds: Standard Anti Death Penalty Strategy
and
THE DEATH PENALTY: SAVING MORE INNOCENT LIVES
http(COLON)//prodpinnc.blogspot(DOT)com/2013/04/the-innocent-frauds-standard-anti-death.html

OF COURSE THE DEATH PENALTY DETERS: A review of the debate
and
MURDERERS MUCH PREFER LIFE OVER EXECUTION
99.7% of murderers tell us “Give me life, not execution”
http(COLON)//prodpinnc.blogspot(DOT)com/2013/03/of-course-death-penalty-deters.html

There are so many false innocence claims and other issues that it makes one a skeptic.

Innocence Project Invents False Confessions
250% error rate in “confessions”
http(COLON)//prodpinnc.blogspot(DOT)com/2013/10/the-innocence-project-invents-false.html

70-83% of the anti death penalty folks claims of death row exonerations are false.

see 3-13
The Innocent Frauds: Standard Anti Death Penalty Strategy
http(COLON)//prodpinnc.blogspot(DOT)com/2013/04/the-innocent-frauds-standard-anti-death.html

Journalism professor accused of framing innocent man for murder as part of his campaign to abolish death penalty in Illinois
dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2829019/Journalism-professor-accused-framing-innocent-man-murder-campaign-abolish-death-penalty-Illinois.html

 

[dudleysharp]

Should a Catholic listen to
Christopher Ferrera and Mr. Ender on this, or should a Catholic pay attention to what the Vicar of Christ and the Supreme Pontiff of the Catholic Church says. Pope Francis has been given the keys to the kingdom of heaven and the power to loose and bind by Our Divine Saviour Himself. Please correct me if I am wrong, but I doubt that you or Mr. Ferrera have been given similar authority from God. The Pope of the Catholic Church has called for the abolition of the death penalty, and this is what we should be listening to.

The teachings are that you should listen to all and make a prudential judgment based upon reason and the facts, inclusive of:

Any good Catholic may disagree with the Church’s newest teaching on the death penalty
(1) and remain a Catholic in good standing (1) and can find that (a) the primary and eternal purpose of sanction is justice and/or redress, as confirmed in this latest CCC, and that (b) justice should not be and cannot be subjugated by a secondary purpose of sanction, even the important concern of “defense of society” and that (c) the death penalty offers a greater degree of protection for society and individuals (2) , that being the protection of the potential innocents harmed, now spared, and potential repeat unjust aggressors, also, now spared, by preventing them from harming even more innocents and , thereby, putting their eternal lives more at risk (3&4), thereby revealing that more executions provide greater protection for both innocents and the guilty and, therefore, more respect for the sanctity of life, the Church’s foundation of death penalty support, for over 2000 years and the death penalty and its greater protection of innocents and the guilty “better corresponds to the concrete conditions of the common good and are more in conformity to the dignity of the human person.”

1. prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2014/10/current-problems-catholic-death-penalty.html

 

[Ender]

Christopher Ferrera is not someone I would trust to listen on matter of Catholic teaching because of his hostile and critical views of the Church since Vatican II. An example is how he feels that NFP is inherently immoral.

The question is not whether you like Mr. Ferrera but whether his argument is valid. Attack if you can the assertion, not the man. The church’s doctrines are drawn from revelation; they are conclusions based on what it is believed God teaches. They are assuredly not the personal views of individual popes and Ferrara’s comment agrees with what the church herself teaches.
*The knowledge which the Church offers to man has its origin not in any speculation of her own, however sublime, but in the word of God which she has received in faith. *(Fides et Ratio 7)

As Teacher, she never tires of proclaiming the moral norm…The Church is in no way the author or the arbiter of this norm. (Veritatis Splendor 95)
Ender

 

[dudleysharp]

Christopher Ferrera is not someone I would trust to listen on matter of Catholic teaching because of his hostile and critical views of the Church since Vatican II. An example is how he feels that NFP is inherently immoral.

You will find no such problems with these:

1. From Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, then Prefect, Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith:

(paragraph 3) “Not all moral issues have the same moral weight as abortion and euthanasia. For example, if a Catholic were to be at odds with the Holy Father on the application of capital punishment or on the decision to wage war, he would not for that reason be considered unworthy to present himself to receive Holy Communion. While the Church exhorts civil authorities to seek peace, not war, and to exercise discretion and mercy in imposing punishment on criminals, it may still be permissible to take up arms to repel an aggressor or to have recourse to capital punishment. There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not however with regard to abortion and euthanasia.”

from Worthiness to Receive Holy Communion. General Principles, part of memorandum sent by Cardinal Ratzinger to Cardinal McCarrick, made public July 2004.
ewtn.com/library/curia/cdfworthycom.html

1. Kevin L. Flannery S.J., Consultor of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (since 2002)

“The most reasonable conclusion to draw from this (the CCC death penalty) discussion is that, once again, the Catechism is simply wrong from an historical point of view. Traditional Catholic teaching did not contain the restriction enunciated by Pope John Paul II” ."

“The realm of human affairs is a messy one, full of at least apparent inconsistency and incoherence, and the recent teaching of the Catholic Church on capital punishment — vitiated, as I intend to show, by errors of historical fact and interpretation—is no exception.”

“Capital Punishment and the Law”, Ave Maria Law Review, 2007 (30 pp),

by Kevin L. Flannery S.J.,*** Consultor of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (since 2002)*** and Ordinary Professor of Ancient Philosophy at the Pontifical Gregorian University (Rome); and

Mary Ann Remick Senior Visiting Fellow at the Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture (University of Notre Dame)

 

[Ender]

Ender , to begin with I appreciate the time and effort you invest in your answers.

I don’t mind at all. This topic involves a great deal more than is generally recognized and I welcome the opportunity to discuss it with someone who also finds it interesting.

Justice and correctionals where I live are very different from yours. Very.

This is why there can always be practical reasons both for and against the use of capital punishment.

it is the person in prison who has to be helped to undergo that process so as it has a purpose.

Punishment has four purposes, one of which is rehabilitation. Just because the primary purpose is retribution doesn’t mean the secondary objectives (protection and deterrence are the other two) are not also important.

What justice can there be if not? How can God delight in no hope?

For a Christian, death is not the end, and what is to be hoped for is eternal salvation. To that end, repentance and expiation are necessary and there is always the hope that a person facing his immanent death will understand the enormity of his sin, repent of it and be saved. For the non-Christian this simply looks like purposeless annihilation.

Ender

 

[dudleysharp]

That would be forward, at least as Catholics believe. Protestants may not accept the guidance of the Holy Spirit and view the Church as a corrupter of doctrine, but then they are not Catholic. We look to our Bishops as shepherd, with His Holiness as the Vicar of Christ, not bloggers. Now there is some room for disagreement as we seek to understand the mind of the Church, but the last source of understanding should come from non-Catholics who think we have gone backwards (or Catholics).

pnewton:

This is a very strange comment.

I, as many others, have presented, strictly, Catholic teachings to present our findings in good faith and have done so with you, likely hundreds of times over the years.

You may disagree, but it seems backward, to me, to

1. preach, factually, inaccurate teachings (“very rare if not practically non existent”) , to
2. put an opinion based prudential judgment into a CCC, when the whole purpose a CCC is to make teachings clear, the opposite of what has occurred, when it seems a fact that a prudential judgment has never been in a CCC, before, for, now, obvious and clear reasons, and
3. for finding that a primary eternal function of justice - redress or justice - as defined in the most recent CCC, should be replaced by a secondary function - defense of society - thereby raising a secular concern over an eternal one, even though
4. replacing the death penalty with a life sentence will spare more murderers at the cost of sacrificing more innocents to murderer and putting those same murderers at greater eternal risk.

You may disagree with these fine Catholic scholars, but don’t be so misleading with your statements. OK?

1. From Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, then Prefect, Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith:

(paragraph 3) “Not all moral issues have the same moral weight as abortion and euthanasia. For example, if a Catholic were to be at odds with the Holy Father on the application of capital punishment or on the decision to wage war, he would not for that reason be considered unworthy to present himself to receive Holy Communion. While the Church exhorts civil authorities to seek peace, not war, and to exercise discretion and mercy in imposing punishment on criminals, it may still be permissible to take up arms to repel an aggressor or to have recourse to capital punishment. There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not however with regard to abortion and euthanasia.”

from Worthiness to Receive Holy Communion. General Principles, part of memorandum sent by Cardinal Ratzinger to Cardinal McCarrick, made public July 2004.
ewtn.com/library/curia/cdfworthycom.html

1. Kevin L. Flannery S.J., Consultor of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (since 2002)

“The most reasonable conclusion to draw from this (the CCC death penalty) discussion is that, once again, the Catechism is simply wrong from an historical point of view. Traditional Catholic teaching did not contain the restriction enunciated by Pope John Paul II” ."

“The realm of human affairs is a messy one, full of at least apparent inconsistency and incoherence, and the recent teaching of the Catholic Church on capital punishment — vitiated, as I intend to show, by errors of historical fact and interpretation—is no exception.”

“Capital Punishment and the Law”, Ave Maria Law Review, 2007 (30 pp),

by Kevin L. Flannery S.J., Consultor of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (since 2002) and Ordinary Professor of Ancient Philosophy at the Pontifical Gregorian University (Rome); and

Mary Ann Remick Senior Visiting Fellow at the Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture (University of Notre Dame)

 

[dudleysharp]

To be unconditionally prolife would support the idea of self-defense because it would do the most protection to human life. Same could be said (even though I disagree) for capital punishment.

.

Factually, what is your disagreement?

No one disagrees that living murderers can and do harm and murder, again and that executed murderers do not - factual and rational truisms (1)

Therefore, we know that saving all murderers from execution sacrifices more innocent lives and, therefore, also puts more murderers at greater eternal risk (1)

Your disagreement is . . . ?

More details:

1. Catechism and State Protection
   prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2014/10/catechism-state-protection.html

The Death Penalty: Mercy, Expiation, Redemption & Salvation
prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2013/06/the-death-penalty-mercy-expiation.html

and

THE DEATH PENALTY: SAVING MORE INNOCENT LIVES

No credible case of an innocent executed, in the US, since the 1930’s.

Since 1973, there have been 14,000 - 28,000 actual innocents murdered by those known murderers that we allowed to murder, again - recidivist murderers (two different recidivism studies from different years).

The Death Penalty: Do Innocents Matter? A Review of All Innocence Issues
http(COLON)//prodpinnc.blogspot(DOT)com/2013/10/the-death-penalty-do-innocents-matter.html

The Innocent Frauds: Standard Anti Death Penalty Strategy
and
THE DEATH PENALTY: SAVING MORE INNOCENT LIVES
http(COLON)//prodpinnc.blogspot(DOT)com/2013/04/the-innocent-frauds-standard-anti-death.html

OF COURSE THE DEATH PENALTY DETERS: A review of the debate
and
MURDERERS MUCH PREFER LIFE OVER EXECUTION
99.7% of murderers tell us “Give me life, not execution”
http(COLON)//prodpinnc.blogspot(DOT)com/2013/03/of-course-death-penalty-deters.html

There are so many false innocence claims and other issues that it makes one a skeptic.

Innocence Project Invents False Confessions
250% error rate in “confessions”
http(COLON)//prodpinnc.blogspot(DOT)com/2013/10/the-innocence-project-invents-false.html

70-83% of the anti death penalty folks claims of death row exonerations are false.

see 3-13
The Innocent Frauds: Standard Anti Death Penalty Strategy
http(COLON)//prodpinnc.blogspot(DOT)com/2013/04/the-innocent-frauds-standard-anti-death.html

Journalism professor accused of framing innocent man for murder as part of his campaign to abolish death penalty in Illinois
dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2829019/Journalism-professor-accused-framing-innocent-man-murder-campaign-abolish-death-penalty-Illinois.html

 

[pnewton]

The Church is addressing the toxic situation of a culture of death. She deems it vital to be unconditionally prolife on every level because there exists in society, the erroneous belief that mortal man has some supreme power over life and death.

I am glad you brought this up. Once and a while on these threads, I like to bring up my own journey with this topic. I have dealt with a handful of people on the way to death row. Three have been executed. None were within the technical definition of being a continuing danger to society. However, I have also dealt with those who have gone to prison long term who have represented a continuing danger to society. I know one who was killed within a few months, and another who is a vegetable following an assault.

I have held to the opinion that it is not possible to safely incarcerate a few people. There are still some who will perpetrate violence within prison or without. We could reduce this number to zero if we were able to disregard constitutional protections and treat this class with any all restrictions needed to isolate them. So, for the longest I held out the need for the death penalty on a very limited basis.

I no longer hold to this position precisely because of the toxic culture of death that we live in. We can all agree that the worst offence is abortion. Over the years public opinion on abortion grew more accepting of this as a right for women. We are also facing a growing acceptance of euthanasia and assisted suicide. I know keeping a dangerous person locked up is a risk, even to the point of costing life, statistically speaking. My concern is the balance that having an active death penalty has on the culture of death we have in this country. We can strap a man down and kill him while an audience observes his death, but in doing so, we lose a little of our soul as society.

As I see abortion as a far greater issue, and the underlying cause of public opinion on abortion being our culture of death, I think promoting a culture of life as paramount importance. The handful of “what-ifs”, even if translated to actual crimes, does not balance the need to change our culture. Or understanding of the value of life needs radical surgery in which all that devalues life is excised from what we do as a society, so that what we do as individuals will be elevated.

 

[dudleysharp]

SNIP
For a Christian, death is not the end, and what is to be hoped for is eternal salvation. To that end, repentance and expiation are necessary and there is always the hope that a person facing his immanent death will understand the enormity of his sin, repent of it and be saved. For the non-Christian this simply looks like purposeless annihilation.

Ender

Yes. Some additional

1. “The medicinal reason for inflicting punishment, goes beyond preventing the criminal from repeating his crime and protecting society, to encouraging the guilty to repent and die in a state of grace. The vindictive reasoning also has this interest in mind: for by expiating the disorder caused by the crime, the moral debt of the guilty is lessened. In the early years of the nineteenth century, St. Vincent Pallotti frequently assisted the condemned to the scaffold, as St. Catherine had done in Siena. He was edified by the many holy deaths he saw, while helping the Archfraternity of San Giovanni, under the patronage of his friend the English Cardinal Acton. Headquartered in the Church of San Giovanni Decollato (St. John the Beheaded), their rule was to urge the condemned to a good confession, followed by an exhortation and Holy Communion followed by the grant of a plenary indulgence. The whole population of Rome was instructed to fast and pray for the intention of the criminal’s soul.” “Hanging Concentrates the Mind”, by Rev. George W. Rutler, Crisis Magazine, 2/13/13, crisismagazine.com/2013/hanging-concentrates-the-mind?utm
2. Saint Thomas Aquinas: " . . . the death inflicted by the judge profits the sinner, if he be converted, unto the expiation of his crime; and, if he be not converted, it profits so as to put an end to the sin, because the sinner is thus deprived of the power to sin anymore." Summa Theologica, II-II, 25, 6, 2
3. A more obvious example of expiation may not exist.

Jesus: Now one of the criminals hanging there reviled Jesus, saying, “Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us.” The other, however, rebuking him, said in reply, “Have you no fear of God, for you are subject to the same condemnation? And indeed, we have been condemned justly, for the sentence we received corresponds to our crimes, but this man has done nothing criminal.” Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” (Jesus) replied to him, “Amen, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.” Luke 23: 39-43.

It is not the nature of our deaths, but the state of our salvation at the time of our death which is most important.

 

[dudleysharp]

SNIP
Abolishing death penalty and life sentence.may mean 50 years.in jail and consider if you are.not still an agressor before letting you out.
.

The recidivism rate for those released from prison is 80% during the first 5 years after release.

So who will accurately determine there are no longer aggressors before we let them out?

See 2265 Preserving the common good requires rendering the unjust aggressor unable to inflict harm."

IT seems like you and the Pope are advising the opposite.

Please review:

Catechism & State Protection
prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2014/10/catechism-state-protection.html

 

[Tomdstone]

You may agree or disagree with him.
]

I suppose that this is true, but I feel better when I agree with the Pope since he is the Vicar of Christ, and has greater authority than many of the anonymous bloggers here.

 

[LongingSoul]

I am glad you brought this up. Once and a while on these threads, I like to bring up my own journey with this topic. I have dealt with a handful of people on the way to death row. Three have been executed. None were within the technical definition of being a continuing danger to society. However, I have also dealt with those who have gone to prison long term who have represented a continuing danger to society. I know one who was killed within a few months, and another who is a vegetable following an assault.

I have held to the opinion that it is not possible to safely incarcerate a few people. There are still some who will perpetrate violence within prison or without. We could reduce this number to zero if we were able to disregard constitutional protections and treat this class with any all restrictions needed to isolate them. So, for the longest I held out the need for the death penalty on a very limited basis.

I no longer hold to this position precisely because of the toxic culture of death that we live in. We can all agree that the worst offence is abortion. Over the years public opinion on abortion grew more accepting of this as a right for women. We are also facing a growing acceptance of euthanasia and assisted suicide. I know keeping a dangerous person locked up is a risk, even to the point of costing life, statistically speaking. My concern is the balance that having an active death penalty has on the culture of death we have in this country. We can strap a man down and kill him while an audience observes his death, but in doing so, we lose a little of our soul as society.

As I see abortion as a far greater issue, and the underlying cause of public opinion on abortion being our culture of death, I think promoting a culture of life as paramount importance. The handful of “what-ifs”, even if translated to actual crimes, does not balance the need to change our culture. Or understanding of the value of life needs radical surgery in which all that devalues life is excised from what we do as a society, so that what we do as individuals will be elevated.

And I don’t think that this reasoning is the brainchild of Pope St JPII either. Aquinas answered to that conundrum with scripture in Summa Theologica…

Our Lord commanded them to forbear from uprooting the cockle in order to spare the wheat, i.e. the good. This occurs when the wicked cannot be slain without the good being killed with them, either because the wicked lie hidden among the good, or because they have many followers, so that they cannot be killed without danger to the good, as Augustine says (Contra Parmen. iii, 2). Wherefore our Lord teaches that we should rather allow the wicked to live, and that vengeance is to be delayed until the last judgment, rather than that the good be put to death together with the wicked.​

 

[dudleysharp]

I suppose that this is true, but I feel better when I agree with the Pope since he is the Vicar of Christ, and has greater authority than many of the anonymous bloggers here.

Fair enough.

It is not the “anonymous” bloggers that matter, but the confirmable Catholic teachings which they present. Yes?

Prior to 1995, it think only two Pope’s voiced disagreement with the death penalty.

Within EV (1995) and the CCC (1997 and forward with amendments), there have been numerous problems identified within those documents, by well known and devoted Catholic scholars, also presented within these comments.

Fair enough?

In addition, as a matter of confirmable facts, the CCC and EV were both in clear error with their claim that repeat violence by known unjust aggressors “is rare if not practically non-existent”, a false claim which had to have been produced with zero fact checking.

Fair enough?

 

[dudleysharp]

And I don’t think that this reasoning is the brainchild of Pope St JPII either. Aquinas answered to that conundrum with scripture in Summa Theologica…

Our Lord commanded them to forbear from uprooting the cockle in order to spare the wheat, i.e. the good. This occurs when the wicked cannot be slain without the good being killed with them, either because the wicked lie hidden among the good, or because they have many followers, so that they cannot be killed without danger to the good, as Augustine says (Contra Parmen. iii, 2). Wherefore our Lord teaches that we should rather allow the wicked to live, and that vengeance is to be delayed until the last judgment, rather than that the good be put to death together with the wicked.​

It appears not having the death penalty, or speaking against it, would be in contradiction to that teaching.

THE DEATH PENALTY: SAVING MORE INNOCENT LIVES

No credible case of an innocent executed, in the US, since the 1930’s.

Since 1973, there have been 14,000 - 28,000 actual innocents murdered by those known murderers that we allowed to murder, again - recidivist murderers (two different recidivism studies from different years).

We can spare the guilty and condemn the innocent or we can spare the innocent and condemn the guilty.

Which does the Church teach?

The Death Penalty: Do Innocents Matter? A Review of All Innocence Issues
http(COLON)//prodpinnc.blogspot(DOT)com/2013/10/the-death-penalty-do-innocents-matter.html

The Innocent Frauds: Standard Anti Death Penalty Strategy
and
THE DEATH PENALTY: SAVING MORE INNOCENT LIVES
http(COLON)//prodpinnc.blogspot(DOT)com/2013/04/the-innocent-frauds-standard-anti-death.html

OF COURSE THE DEATH PENALTY DETERS: A review of the debate
and
MURDERERS MUCH PREFER LIFE OVER EXECUTION
99.7% of murderers tell us “Give me life, not execution”
http(COLON)//prodpinnc.blogspot(DOT)com/2013/03/of-course-death-penalty-deters.html

There are so many false innocence claims by the anti death penalty folks.

Innocence Project Invents False Confessions
250% error rate in “confessions”
http(COLON)//prodpinnc.blogspot(DOT)com/2013/10/the-innocence-project-invents-false.html

70-83% of the anti death penalty folks claims of death row exonerations are false.

see
The Innocent Frauds: Standard Anti Death Penalty Strategy
http(COLON)//prodpinnc.blogspot(DOT)com/2013/04/the-innocent-frauds-standard-anti-death.html

Journalism professor accused of framing innocent man for murder as part of his campaign to abolish death penalty in Illinois
dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2829019/Journalism-professor-accused-framing-innocent-man-murder-campaign-abolish-death-penalty-Illinois.html

 

[Ender]

Should a Catholic listen to Christopher Ferrera and Mr. Ender on this…

There are two things to consider here. The first is that teachings such as CCC 2267 have to be interpreted, understood. What exactly does it mean? It is not a question of choosing between me and the church but of between me and you. Second, when choosing between two possibilities it is usually better to take the one with the more sustainable argument.

Pope Francis has been given the keys to the kingdom of heaven and the power to loose and bind by Our Divine Saviour Himself.

This is an example of the point I just made above. The power to loose and bind has indeed been given to popes…so what does that mean? Well, it doesn’t mean what you think it does since it does not include the authority to decide what should or should not be moral.The power to “bind and loose” connotes the authority to absolve sins, to pronounce doctrinal judgements, and to make disciplinary decisions in the Church. (CCC 553)

The Pope of the Catholic Church has called for the abolition of the death penalty, and this is what we should be listening to.

Yes, as a prudential judgment, not as a moral choice. A stronger position would allow you to rebut my statements; you wouldn’t be reduced to calling for them to be ignored.

Ender

 

[Ender]

Another danger sign I see, though it is not definitive, is using older, less authoritative sources to argue against current, more authoritative sources, like the Catechism, or any statement, verbal or written, by the Holy Father.

It should be clear that a statement does not lose its authority with time. Morality does not change with time, and the development of doctrine does not include a reversal of what was believed earlier.

It seems the bigger danger is believing the Traditional teachings don’t count for much and all that matters is what has been said in the last few decades, as if the church was incapable of discerning moral behavior before our own time. What makes the current catechism more authoritative than any previous catechism? Why should we believe that what this pope says trumps what was said by his predecessors? Are we now to simply dismiss the writings of all the Fathers and Doctors, all the mystics and saints, and frankly everyone but popes? This is the direction arguments like yours are taking us. It really is impossible to sustain an argument against capital punishment in light of the overwhelming support given to its use by the church over the centuries, so to counter the weight of their arguments it appears your solution is to discard 2000 years of history.

Ender