I’ll be honest, I can think of hypotheticals, but don’t have an actual example I can point to. I’m not trying to say that I support the death penalty, only that this feels like a direct contradiction to previous dogmatic teaching.Please provide concrete examples of situations where you think it would be a better option to just kill people, outside of a wartime situation.
And it’s possible for there to be contradictions.The wording of the revision seems to contradict statements such as these, so confusion is inevitible:
The wording of the revision seems to contradict statements such as these, so confusion is inevitible:
Council of Trent: Catechism for Parish Priests:
^ THISAnother kind of lawful slaying belongs to the civil authorities, to whom is entrusted power of life and death, by the legal and judicious exercise of which they punish the guilty and protect the innocent. The just use of this power, far from involving the crime of murder, is an act of paramount obedience to this Commandment which prohibits murder. The end of the Commandment- is the preservation and security of human life. Now the punishments inflicted by the civil authority, which is the legitimate avenger of crime, naturally tend to this end, since they give security to life by repressing outrage and violence. Hence these words of David: In the morning I put to death all the wicked of the land, that I might cut off all the workers of iniquity from the city of the Lord.
This is the sort of stuff I feel is being contradicted here.
If you want to say that there is no longer a need for it and that Catholic should not support it, that’s great. I pretty much agree. However, to take the stance that it is intrinsically immoral, as this changes seems to do, stands in stark contrast to the entire history of Church teaching on the subject.
"I pointed out to John what too many Catholics simply do not know: The death penalty has always been, and always will be, upheld as a legitimate and potentially just punishment in Catholic Tradition as well as in Scripture.
This teaching cannot change. "
Bolded emphasis mine.So, in the end is the Pope changing Church teaching by arguing against capital punishment? Absolutely not! It fact, it would be contrary to Church teaching to say that capital punishment is per se immoral, as some do. Rather, the Pope states that the conditions of modern society argue against it’s use in all but rare cases. It is simply becoming harder and harder to argue that a particular act of capital punishment is circumstantially necessary (the third element of a good moral act). The Pope is NOT substituting his judgment for the political prudence of those who must make decisions about when to use capital punishment. He is teaching principles and making a general evaluation about modern circumstances. Ultimately, the laity who are responsible for these judgments in political society must make them in the individual cases. In doing so, however, they have a grave obligation to apply all the principles taught by the Church to the cases before them, as taking a human life is always grave matter if done unjustly.
And what Francis says here doesn’t contradict that. He goes on and on about the present situation. And at present there are no situations that would warrant recourse to the death penalty.I was under the impression that it was a doctrinal teaching that the death penalty is morally permissible in certain circumstances.
Not necessarily. The Catechism says that in the Latin rite the “age of discretion” is the “reference point” for receiving Confirmation. It doesn’t mean that it is unchanging dogma that Catholics have to receive Confirmation at this age (and not before or after).Isn’t everything in the Catechism doctrinal?
On the other side of the coin, it should be possible to rehabilitate prisoners, more so than in the past. So, this makes the change more consistent with actual experience. You wouldn’t expect that society could rehabilitate people and yet have the Vatican in the dark ages about executing people. This proclamation removes a loophole that the Church can’t defend.Given this unilateral and non-definitive proposition by the Pope, I have a feeling we’re going to see more “dubia” and that this will just create more division until it is finally settled, hopefully according to Tradition. I would like to read a serious, in depth defense of this as to how it is actually a development and not a corruption.
The reality is the death penalty is the least likely way someone will be killed. What is far more likely is death from war. I’d like the Pope to say due to modern advancement war is never allowed. The natural consequence would be everyone serving in the military is doing something gravely immoral. That would mean the Swiss Guard is gravely immoral. I’d like to see that, but I’m not holding my breath. I imagine that is one area where we have to be reasonable and understand that justice is still real.Killing a tiny handful of murderers per year does very little to improve society. It just makes people feel better. Wrongly, because Jesus taught that we need to forgive. Yes, I know it’s hard, but a lot of Catholic church teachings are hard.
I was going to ask you based on your last post if you’d actually read what he wrote, as it sounded like you had not.Does anyone have the complete wording of Pope Francis’ revision? I just checked the Vatican website and it doesn’t seem to have been updated yet.
If he truly is saying that this change derives from the current structure of society, rather than from a change in the morality of the application of the death penalty, then I have no issue.
"Recourse to the death penalty on the part of legitimate authority, following a fair trial, was long considered an appropriate response to the gravity of certain crimes and an acceptable, albeit extreme, means of safeguarding the common good.
“Today, however, there is an increasing awareness that the dignity of the person is not lost even after the commission of very serious crimes. In addition, a new understanding has emerged of the significance of penal sanctions imposed by the state. Lastly, more effective systems of detention have been developed, which ensure the due protection of citizens but, at the same time, do not definitively deprive the guilty of the possibility of redemption,” the new section continues.
Pope Francis’ change to the text concludes: “Consequently, the church teaches, in the light of the Gospel, that ‘the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person,’ and she works with determination for its abolition worldwide.”