Pope revises catechism to say death penalty is 'inadmissible'

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And yet, some how you fail to see how the end of the death penalty is the fulfillment of Christ’s teachings to us…
 
Yes killing innocents has always been wrong. But we aren’t talking about that with the death penalty, we are talking about guilty people. Pope Francis’ argument is that the death penatly violates inviolable human dignity. If that is the case, then the death penalty is always wrong.
 
Then surely the next step is to abolish prisons? Justice doesn’t matter right? Only mercy?

I’ll stand with scripture, I’ll stand with Augustine, Aquinas, st Paul and countless others over millennia.

If you see no contradiction with this development, then that’s fine. But as much as it saddens me , this has put me off joining the Catholic Church. Maybe I’m wrong, I pray God shows me if I am. But my time in the wilderness continues.
 
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repentant2 said:
Ok, and what of the inmate that kills fellow inmates,attacks guards, etc.?
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I’m assuming you’re American right? Just for arguments sake, you are coming—just as I am—from a completely different view point. In Australia, we don’t have so many (or any?) for-profit privately run prisons. Our prisons are generally well run. They may be strict and we do have revolts every now and again, but we also don’t have a huge prison population (it’s around 40k).

In Australia they would be moved into a more secured unit or they would move into a higher security prison. They still don’t deserve to die.
 
Well I think it’s wonderful news. Pope Francis, believe it or not, might actually know some things that the learned bunch of theologians here at CAF do not.
 
mere_christian said:
Then surely the next step is to abolish prisons? Justice doesn’t matter right? Only mercy?
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That’s hyperbole.

Imprisonment works only if you try to rehabilitate and educate. The risk of reoffending is lower. Which is what we all want, right?
 
mere_christian said:
Then surely the next step is to abolish prisons? Justice doesn’t matter right? Only mercy?
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A life for a life is not justice. Every sin is forgivable. If God will forgive us even up to our last breath, how is it just to deny someone the opportunity to repent by cutting their life short?
 
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I’m sorry I don’t know what to tell you. The teaching that usury was now acceptable was already a problem. The teaching on capital punishment now is. The teaching on slavery is likely to be the next change in teaching. A lot of words will be offered in defense of these changes but none of them make any sense.
BartholomewB said:
You mean there is one Catechism for the prosperous first-world countries and a different Catechism for everyone else?
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The old version was already geared towards wealthy western countries. Most countries in the world don’t have reliable legal systems or prisons. Actually not even the US does. Plenty of prisoners actually continue to kill in prison. The teaching conflicts with facts.
 
mere_christian

Roseeurekacross
10m
Yes and I know the holy spirit doesn’t contradict itself, it doesn’t make mistakes. Hence my sadness because it is evident that at some point the church has made a mistake on this topic. Either in the past, or now. In which case it can not have been a product of the holy spirit.

Then you obviously don’t know that the Catholic church has the authority…given by Jesus Christ…“whatever you bind on earth will be bind in heaven…whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven”…it is a teaching that has evolved over time…who are you to imply that the church is in error and has not been guided by the Holy Spirit…you are not Catholic…this revision of the Catechism is for Catholics worldwide…not just here in the US where the death penalty is still applied…the US is the only western country that still has the death penalty…even some states here have done away with it…you may disagree with it…I’m sure quite a few Catholics here in the US…and here on CAF don’t agree with the revision…they make their own prudential judgments…doesn’t change the fact the church has the authority to change the teaching…so they are outside the authoritative teaching of the church…many Catholics fall into that category.
 
When did prison become about rehabilitation? No its a punishment for those who break the law, it is a deterrent to prevent others breaking the law. But i suppose chastisement and punishment violate human dignity also.
 
The letter to the bishops regarding the revision states the following:
“no matter how serious the crime that has been committed, the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and the dignity of the person.”[11]
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The question being asked by several people here is whether or not this is a contradiction of prior Church teaching.

Can anyone provide a quote from previous Church teaching that shows that the Church previously taught something contradictory to this statement?
 
Wesrock said:
Was the death penalty ever formally justified by the idea that the criminals had forfeited their dignity? My understanding is that it’s not that their dignity was forfeited but that it was consistent with human dignity and justice due, in order to safeguard society and prompt the criminal to penance and making peace with God before death.
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Yeah, it is a straw man argument. It isn’t an honest argument.
Roseeurekacross said:
Our understanding is what’s changed. The church is guided taught gifted knowledge and wisdom by the Holy Spirit.
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Really? People didn’t understand what the death penalty did in the past? People didn’t understand justice in the past?

I have no problem with saying we should try to avoid the death penalty. But to try to make some argument against it based on development just seems dishonest.
 
mere_christian said:
When did prison become about rehabilitation? No its a punishment for those who break the law, it is a deterrent to prevent others breaking the law. But i suppose chastisement and punishment violate human dignity also.
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Many countries use it to rehabilitate. I would say the US is one of the few Western countries that doesn’t in it’s entirety. It’s about giving prisoners the means not to reoffend—that can be helping them get their schooling finished, taking courses, learning a trade and much more.

How is that not a good thing? 🌷
 
Homosexuality is not a mortal sin…acting out on that practice is…whether you want to unbind anything is your decision…
 
The document doesn’t explain anything really. It even contains factual errors on which the decision is based.
Modern society in fact has the means of effectively suppressing crime by rendering criminals harmless without definitively denying them the chance to reform
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Plenty of people in prison still harm or even kill people. This statement is a lie.
 
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The question being asked by several people here is whether or not this is a contradiction of prior Church teaching.

Can anyone provide a quote from previous Church teaching that shows that the Church previously taught something contradictory to this statement?>
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Yes
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 the unjust aggressor.
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If “the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and the dignity of the person.”

then that would mean it is never permissible , ever, because that’s what inviolable means.It means that under no circumstances, past, present or future. The section of the catechism i quoted above clearly states that even though the circumstances are very rare in which it is permissible. It is still permissible.
 
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