Pope Francis: Death penalty is contrary to the Gospel

[OneSheep]

Good Morning Ender!

Do you really want to argue that the church’s doctrines have moved from selfishness to justice to love?

I think the establishment of any religion is in part generally a move from selfishness to justice. Religions take on the role of guiding social mores and society, so justice is very important. Yes, I think it is possible that some of church doctrine itself has changed in tone from justice to love, but there is never a lowering of the importance of justice.

More than that, do you really want to argue that justice is somehow opposed to love?

The pursuit of justice can be opposed to love, as what happened leading up to the crucifixion. Remember also that those who wanted to stone the adulterer wanted justice.

Are you now arguing that the prior 260 odd previous popes, and all the Doctors and Fathers of the church missed this, and it is only Pope Francis that has comprehended the true relationship between punishment and love?

I think you know by now that this is far from limited to Pope Francis. We have the previous popes, and the rest of the hierarchy. It took a long time to get rid of the death penalty for other crimes in societies, and it took a long time to get rid of allowances for slavery. In all of those cases, the reason to change the laws had to do in part for empathy and mercy for the individual being punished or persecuted. It makes perfect sense that the death penalty for murderers is the last holdout of the penalty itself. Yes, it has taken a long time to realize its negative impact on the merciful treatment of people by governments, and that the desire for the DP runs contrary to forgiveness.

Yes, humanity is that slow to understand what the Spirit has revealed. It has taken this long for us to be ready to accept this. Many of us are ready, you are not.

In no passage of the Gospel message does forgiveness, or mercy as its source, mean indulgence towards evil, towards scandals, towards injury or insult.

Yes, this is good. Are you thinking that the end of the DP is an indulgence toward evil, scandal, injury or insult? The author of that sentence would completely disagree with you.

In any case, reparation for evil and scandal, compensation for injury, and satisfaction for insult are conditions for forgiveness.

Are you saying that Pope JPII is promoting the idea that we are to withhold forgiveness of people until those conditions are met? If so, people could go their whole lives not forgiving. JPII is referring to some kind of societal compensation, not personal forgiveness, and not God’s forgiveness.

Are you yet coming from a position that promotes forgiveness of everyone we hold something against? If not, when will this change?

 

[Lmab451]

The Catechism of the Catholic Church states:

2267 Assuming that the guilty party’s identity and responsibility have been fully determined, the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against an unjust aggressor.

At this moment our prison system as a whole is drowning in debt and unable to pay for what it should. The prisons and jails are very over crowded and some who should serve time as punishment are being let go. Both guards and prisoners are being injured and killed regularly due to uncontrollable prisoners.
Due to these facts my opinion is this: in order to get these statistics under control, we need to actually raise the rates of those executed by executing those who are at most risk for committing more violence.
I am in law enforcement and, although I hope and pray for the best in everyone, in order to protect those who are innocent some lives must be ended after every chance has been given otherwise, far too many innocent people will be unjustly hurt/killed.

 

[Ender]

Due to these facts my opinion is this: in order to get these statistics under control, we need to actually raise the rates of those executed by executing those who are at most risk for committing more violence.

I agree with you. We should be increasing the number of executions, not decreasing it. I attended a three day conference recently, and among the (numerous) comments I heard was this: if an inadequate punishment is applied to a crime the crime will be seen as not very serious. This is what is happening with (at least) the crime of murder. We don’t even consider applying the death penalty to “ordinary” murder, but only to murder with special circumstances. What that says is that murder by itself is not all that terrible an act.

 

[simpleas]

Mazzatello - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

This ^^^^ is what one finds when one goes googling information about the death penalty, when you read posts that say the DP should be increased.
I was curious to know which was the ‘leading’ country in regard to murders and I believe it is south africa. S.Africa no longer has the death penalty…
And then the above popped up…
Just thought I’d share…

 

[o_mlly]

Francis statement is true. While the death penalty is not contrary to the Old Testament books or the New Testament epistles or Tradition, the authority to justify the death penalty is, as far as I can tell, contrary to Church teachings that reference the four gospels as authority.

 

[Ender]

While the death penalty is not contrary to the Old Testament books or the New Testament epistles or Tradition, the authority to justify the death penalty is, as far as I can tell, contrary to Church teachings that reference the four gospels as authority.

Think about this claim: capital punishment is affirmed in the Old Testament, the New Testament epistles, and Tradition, but I personally don’t find it affirmed in the four gospels…therefore it is opposed. How reasonable is it to suggest that the gospels are opposed to what is found in the rest of the Bible? In fact there is nothing in the gospels that is opposed to capital punishment, including the story of the woman caught in adultery. Opposition to the death penalty may be reasonable, but not on the grounds you have suggested.

 

[o_mlly]

Think about this claim: capital punishment is affirmed in the Old Testament, the New Testament epistles, and Tradition, but I personally don’t find it affirmed in the four gospels…therefore it is opposed. How reasonable is it to suggest that the gospels are opposed to what is found in the rest of the Bible? In fact there is nothing in the gospels that is opposed to capital punishment, including the story of the woman caught in adultery. Opposition to the death penalty may be reasonable, but not on the grounds you have suggested.

That is not he claim I made. Read the post again: The death penalty is, as far as I can tell, contrary to Church teachings that reference the four gospels as authority. Which is not the same as you ascribe to my post: The gospels are opposed to what is found in the rest of the Bible.

To refute my claim which I qualified as an opinion, one would need to cite a Church teaching in support of death as a just penalty that references the authority for that teaching in one of the four gospels, Do you have one?

 

[Ender]

To refute my claim which I qualified as an opinion, one would need to cite a Church teaching in support of death as a just penalty that references the authority for that teaching in one of the four gospels, Do you have one?

To my knowledge there is nothing in any of the gospels that directly addresses capital punishment, although Christ told several parables where death was given as punishment for evil. That fact, however, is relatively meaningless. To believe that the gospels were opposed to capital punishment, in contrast with the rest of the Bible, is to suggest that not only was the church misguided about its use but two persons of the trinity would be seen as disputing its use: God for, Jesus against.

 

[o_mlly]

To believe that the gospels were opposed to capital punishment, in contrast with the rest of the Bible, …

If Pope Francis’ quote was, “Death Penalty contradicts the Gospel” then your inference that claim is synonymous with a claim that the gospels opposed capital punishment. But the Pope did not. A reasonable inference of what he did say is that the gospels do not affirm capital punishment as just. A second reasonable inference is that the gospels in the tenor of their teachings but not the actual teaching oppose capital punishment as just.

 

[Ender]

If Pope Francis’ quote was, “Death Penalty contradicts the Gospel” then your inference that claim is synonymous with a claim that the gospels opposed capital punishment. But the Pope did not. A reasonable inference of what he did say is that the gospels do not affirm capital punishment as just. A second reasonable inference is that the gospels in the tenor of their teachings but not the actual teaching oppose capital punishment as just.

If there is nothing specific in the gospels about capital punishment then, at least at that level, there is nothing to contradict. As for capital punishment contradicting the generic teaching of the gospels, as I said before, if that is true then Pope Francis found something that eluded his 265 predecessors, not to mention virtually all of the Fathers and Doctors of the church. It also means that the church has taught and engaged in serious moral error for 2000 years. Color me skeptical.

 

[o_mlly]

Color me skeptical.

Both statements can be true:
The death penalty is contrary to the gospels.
The gospels do not contradict the death penalty.

Let’s give the Pope a break. Color me logical.