Pope revises catechism to say death penalty is 'inadmissible'

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whichwaytogo47 said:
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Rhubarb:
Didn’t you know? The Pope’s authority to teach on matters off faith and morals only extends as far as conservative politics. At least in the US.
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Or an absolutist intolerance towards such… the church is not or should not be in a position to say that a conservative view is necessarily antithetical to the church’s mission.
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I never said that. You are putting words in my mouth

My /personal/ view is that Church teaching is above political distinctions and that there are certain matters that liberal policy supports better, and certain matters that conservative policy supports better
 
One issue I see is the deliberate attempt to develop doctrine. In the past, the Church deliberately tried to stay away from novelty. Doctrine developed, in fact, as a necessary means of opposing novelties (see St. Vincent de Lerins Commonitory, cited in the CDF letter to justify development). In more recent times, doctrine has developed backwards. The developer picks some novelty he really want to be able to say, and then tries to figure out how to get to that point or as close to it as possible without technically falling into heresy. But, at least with the information I have now, this appears to be a failed attempt at that.

Just calling something a development doesn’t make it so.
 
This isn’t a case of what “the pope said”. This is the teaching of the church as expressed in the ccc.
 
No worries, the next Pope will just reverse it. You live by the sword you die by the sword. Pen and phone territory.

We are all Protestants now. At least we are the ORIGINAL Protestants!☺️
 
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Cruciferi said:
Eh, we still have Just War Theory and The Right to Self Defense.
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What’s the difference between killing a person to keep him from killing others (death penalty) and killing a person to keep him from killing you (self defense)?

The same rationale that led to this change in position on the death penalty could easily be applied to self defense, and that is pretty scary.
 
MikeInVA said:
What’s the difference between killing a person to keep him from killing others (death penalty) and killing a person to keep him from killing you (self defense)?
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Many many times U.S. soldiers kill terrorists to keep them from killing others…not just themselves. The difference, I guess, is that we have the non-terrorist murderer in hand while the terrorist is on the loose.
 
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My concern is that if there are absolutely no situations where it is acceptable to apply the death penalty, how long before it is determined that there are absolutely no situations where lethal self defense is necessary?
 
As a protestant working my way to being a Catholic, this confuses me. Does the catechism then change its stance of self defense if the attacker never loses their dignity and inviolability??
 
The human dignity justification is strange to me as well. I think the idea is that “violating human dignity” is not the same as “is intrinsically evil”. There are certain acts which may violate one’s dignity without being intrinsically evil, or evil in other circumstances. Killing is such an act.

At least, this is what one must take from Evangelium Vitae and the old CCC language if we assume these texts are coherent. But then the human dignity language in its commonly assumed absoluteness must be re-examined. Otherwise you have people (like many of your new natural law theorists), saying the capital punishment is intrinsically evil.
 
Rhubarb said:
My /personal/ view is that Church teaching is above political distinctions and that there are certain matters that liberal policy supports better, and certain matters that conservative policy supports better
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Agreed. I was trying to state that the church should accept both liberal and conservative views that support its social justice position. I was saying it was wrong for the church to be 100% for/against conservative positions such as low taxes or gun policy or 100% for/against liberal positions such as social welfare, thus I brought up for the church to have an absolute intolerance towards low taxes allowing people to do with their money as they see fit as something wrong for the church to weigh in on. But I wasn’t trying to say you said that.
 
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While I understand that first world countries should remove the death penalty, the wording of the revised catechism is cause for confusion. Not everyone lives in a first world country. A large majority of countries in this world are third world countries. They can’t afford the security measures or housing most first world countries can afford.

And even then, I highly doubt a lot of first world countries will be sticking around for much longer. What happens when they split and fall? Will the death penalty still be inadmissible when there are fewer people and less security? How do you know when it will be moral to use it or not?

This contradicts past Catholic teaching.
 
Cyrano said:
Does the catechism then change its stance of self defense if the attacker never loses their dignity and inviolability??
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No. Why would this change the teaching on self-defense? The Church doesn’t teach that self-defense is justifiable because the attacker has lost their human dignity. The Church never taught that those on death row have forfeited their human dignity either. Every human being has dignity. That has always been the case and always will be.
 
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misstherese said:
Not everyone lives in a first world country. A large majority of countries in this world are third world countries. They can’t afford the security measures or housing most first world countries can afford.
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I keep seeing this point raised. And I’ll plainly admit that I have no knowledge of third world prison systems. But is this a big issue in third world countries? Do third world countries routinely execute dangerous criminals simply because they have no means of incarcerating them?
 
misstherese said:
While I understand that first world countries should remove the death penalty, the wording of the revised catechism is cause for confusion. Not everyone lives in a first world country
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I think its sanctimonious to say that first world countries should remove the death penalty. I don’t think States that have the death penalty are any better/worse morally than States that reject the death penalty. That’s because even with the most secure prisons doesn’t guarantee that a prisoner cannot conspire to commit murder, rape, kidnapping, or torture from inside prison. If you could guarantee that an individual couldn’t commit crimes from inside of prison, than I’d agree that the death penalty would have been a thing of the past. The problem is that prisons are filled with gangs and it’s just not true that life imprisonment is a satisfactory punishment and prevents society from crime being imposed on them from inside the prison.
misstherese said:
And even then, I highly doubt a lot of first world countries will be sticking around for much longer. What happens when they split and fall? Will the death penalty still be inadmissible when there are fewer people and less security? How do you know when it will be moral to use it or not?
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This is a real problem. Just because they’re first world countries now doesn’t mean they will remain as such or have stable regimes that can guarantee the implementation of justice and the sentence imposed.

In first world countries and third world countries alike, you do have the problem of prisoners being released for political reasons at least thru the pardon by a president of a country or the governor of a state or territory.

For instance, Morsi (in Egypt) could be released by the Muslim Brotherhood if they gained power so the death penalty would be appropriate.
 
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it also has nothing to do with criminal justice—it is about Divine Justice.
 
Dacinom said:
100 years ago in rural America, if a serial murderer we’re caught there might be difficulty guaranteeing the communities safety. This is why the Catholic Church permitted the death penalty in some cases for public safety.

In today’s modern society with cameras in jails, cameras everywhere, GPS systems, microchips and state of the art prisons… society is really not at risk of an escape. Therefore the death penalty has no place.

So yes, it is true that the modernization of society has changed this morality.
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Modernization of which society? This is certainly true in America and wealthy countries, yes. But what about third world countries (or regions of such countries) without adequate prison systems?

As I asked above… Shall we have one catechism for the poor countries, and one for wealthy countries? Are Catholics in a rural area of a third-world country morally obligated to oppose the death penalty for, say, a serial killer, when the jails in their country or region are not secure enough to guarantee that they will be safe from the serial killer? If they support the death penalty for the serial killer or any other murderer/rapist/serious criminal, are they heretics or mortal sinners?

Those really are serious questions.
 
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