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Holly3278
Guest
This is good. I also hope that there is an end to the death penalty someday soon. Hopefully it happens within my lifetime.
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sallybutler
Guest
China has also been known to execute business people for producing bad products that hurt and/or kill others.
In some countries, the raped are executed for the sin of having been raped, while the rapers may or may not be punished.
Each state makes their own rules about what constitutes a valid condition for execution.
I think the Church is saying fine, make your own rules. But include in that criteria a reasonable expectation that there is no other punishment that will still allow incarcerating the criminal until the natural end of their life.
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Monte_RCMS
Guest
Have you all read Joshua?
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Ender
Guest
Clement: His statement is not relevant as it commented on those who persecuted the righteous and had nothing to do with punishing the sinful.
Athenagoras: He did not say that Christians “are forbidden to kill anyone for any reason”, at least not in the section you cited (A Plea For the Christians, Ch 35).
Tertullian: I grant this one.
Hippolytus: I couldn’t find the comment attributed to him. I need a better reference.
Origen: I dispute this one. I don’t believe your interpretation is an accurate reflection of what he said.
As I said earlier, according to the (several) sources I cited, Tertullian and Lanctantius were the only two Early Fathers who explicitly opposed capital punishment, and that, over all, the Fathers were “virtually unanimous” in their support of it.
Ender
Athenagoras: He did not say that Christians “are forbidden to kill anyone for any reason”, at least not in the section you cited (A Plea For the Christians, Ch 35).
Tertullian: I grant this one.
Hippolytus: I couldn’t find the comment attributed to him. I need a better reference.
Origen: I dispute this one. I don’t believe your interpretation is an accurate reflection of what he said.
As I said earlier, according to the (several) sources I cited, Tertullian and Lanctantius were the only two Early Fathers who explicitly opposed capital punishment, and that, over all, the Fathers were “virtually unanimous” in their support of it.
Ender
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karaleigh
Guest
Joshua. Why do you ask?
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LittleSoldier
Guest
You’re not being inadverdently dense about anything. I believe that plagiarism is against forum rules and should be reported to the moderator.
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archangel04
Guest
I would agree 100% if ALL countries in the world had the resources to keep murders locked up without the chance of escape and could guarantee the safety of the citizens, correctional officers, prison staff, and the other inmates as well. Only then would I agree with the complete end of death penalty. Many talk about how safe our American society is from dangerous prisoners due to our state of the art “high-tech” prisons, and for that reason we no longer need the death penalty. I only ask you to visit Cook County jail in Illinois and you will rethink your views. Many forget that prison staff and other inmates are in immediate danger from these dangerous criminals.
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archangel04
Guest
I wonder is these state allow conceal and carry? Studies show that area that allow conceal and carry for their citizens have lower crime rates.
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LittleSoldier
Guest
Do you have some links or other references to back up this claim? Thanks!
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archangel04
Guest
I wish I did. I found these research about 2 years ago for a project in my sociology class. Unfortunately I don’t have the time to be digging through old work at the moment. But if you are interested go ahead and use google I am sure you wont have a problem finding them there.
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LittleSoldier
Guest
Fair enough. If I find anything I’ll post it.I wish I did. I found these research about 2 years ago for a project in my sociology class. Unfortunately I don’t have the time to be digging through old work at the moment. But if you are interested go ahead and use google I am sure you wont have a problem finding them there.
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archangel04
Guest
Fair enough. If I find anything I’ll post it.
although it may seem that I have time because I am on here I really don’t. I work two jobs and commute 45 minutes almost every day, and I just finished the semester.
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LittleSoldier
Guest
Hey, it’s OK! I’m disabled and except for my menagerie of seven cats and a dog I live alone. I can’t work and have much more time than most people have to research. As long as I’m feeling OK I’m happy to google and bing.
I hope you had a productive semester. I have to admit that I’m a bit jealous. I love school but I got hurt and my plans for an M.D. or Ph.D. went down the tubes.
Sometimes I can remember something I read but have no idea where. I’ll still post the info even though I don’t have a link. I know that makes some people angry but you can’t please everyone.
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Monte_RCMS
Guest
Just flip through it quickly … and then come on back.
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LittleSoldier
Guest
First of all, I am completely in agreement with Church teaching regarding absolutely everything. But what concerns me is due process. I’m beginning to believe that due process does not really exist and that what we see in our judicial system is a poor approximation of due process - at best. There is just so much room for unethical behavior, game playing, racism, sexism, ability to buy a dream team defense or be subject to an inexperienced public defender…
There is absolutely no way that we, as human beings, can determine absolute guilt (which includes culpability). We have to do the best we can and I don’t think that God expects more of us than that. But I don’t see us doing the best we can. I am becoming more and more disgusted and saddened by what I perceive as “due process.” And when it comes to taking the life of one of God’s lambs, we have to be oh so careful.
So what do we do? We can never use an evil means, even to justify a good end. We can’t be executing innocent people - not even to save every other person in the world.
We need to fix our broken judicial system.
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Kathryn_Ann
Guest
I’ve read, as some have mentioned here, that the death penalty is not working as a deterrent in most cases.(One could, to be fair, argue that it does manage to deter that one person who is executed, from escaping and killing again.)
I believe a major concern is that of overcrowding in jails, where some dangerous criminals have been released early, or received light sentences, then gone out and murdered for the first time in a drug crazed spree. If we could somehow reach people before their criminal/sociopathic tendencies developed, what a world that would be. We seem to spend exorbitant amounts of money in jailing people, and perhaps not nearly enough on some (not all) of the causes: mental illness, child abuse, and addressing what makes people so evil in the first place: is it merely environmental or a combination of upbringing and lack of other opportunities in life? But then we have criminals who seem to be intelligent, from all manner of backgrounds. Still, the majority of people imprisoned, I would only guess, are not from loving family backgrounds. And there we have perhaps the crux of the problem, lack of love added to lack of alternative opportunities in some cases.
I believe that the Holy Father will lead us in the right direction. I can see the argument that if a person is locked up for life, that would be a way to ensure the safety of society. I don’t know the statistics on how many people escape from jail at the level of being on death row. It’s the other end of the scale that is worrisome: violent criminals being released early or escaping from local or privately run prison systems. And I worry about juvenile jails…do they make the youth offenders worse? “Penitentiaries” were so named, in the past, to be places where a person could actually be made to feel penance, to turn him from his criminal ways. They were often very cruel and inhumane places, though. I’m not sure it is possible, in most cases, to truly reform, but if the death penalty is taken away, I would not be as worried about that as I am about the numbers of violent criminals getting lesser sentences or escaping.
I believe a major concern is that of overcrowding in jails, where some dangerous criminals have been released early, or received light sentences, then gone out and murdered for the first time in a drug crazed spree. If we could somehow reach people before their criminal/sociopathic tendencies developed, what a world that would be. We seem to spend exorbitant amounts of money in jailing people, and perhaps not nearly enough on some (not all) of the causes: mental illness, child abuse, and addressing what makes people so evil in the first place: is it merely environmental or a combination of upbringing and lack of other opportunities in life? But then we have criminals who seem to be intelligent, from all manner of backgrounds. Still, the majority of people imprisoned, I would only guess, are not from loving family backgrounds. And there we have perhaps the crux of the problem, lack of love added to lack of alternative opportunities in some cases.
I believe that the Holy Father will lead us in the right direction. I can see the argument that if a person is locked up for life, that would be a way to ensure the safety of society. I don’t know the statistics on how many people escape from jail at the level of being on death row. It’s the other end of the scale that is worrisome: violent criminals being released early or escaping from local or privately run prison systems. And I worry about juvenile jails…do they make the youth offenders worse? “Penitentiaries” were so named, in the past, to be places where a person could actually be made to feel penance, to turn him from his criminal ways. They were often very cruel and inhumane places, though. I’m not sure it is possible, in most cases, to truly reform, but if the death penalty is taken away, I would not be as worried about that as I am about the numbers of violent criminals getting lesser sentences or escaping.
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Swiss_Guy
Guest
Bravo! (Plus, we spend a ton of money on the death penalty.)
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LittleSoldier
Guest
I second that Bravo!
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Dolores49
Guest
“Can The Church Ban Capital Punishment?” by Christopher Ferrara.
crisismagazine.com/2011/can-the-church-ban-capital-punishment
Excerpt:
“A reversible Magisterium would be no Magisterium at all, but rather a human agency bereft of the promises of Christ—like the Protestant sects which have abandoned doctrine after doctrine over the centuries since Luther began the process of abandonment. And so it is with Catholic teaching on the morality of capital punishment. According to the constant teaching of the Church, God Himself has ordained that legitimate civil authority shall have the right and duty to punish deliberate murder (and other grave crimes) with the penalty of death. Capital punishment honors the Fifth commandment, because it vindicates the sanctity of human life.”
Statements made by the pope, the bishops are just that: statements. Nothing has changed.
I notice a post on here worrying about prison escapees. Friend, you need to worry about activist death penalty abolitionist judges, defense lawyers, and governors!
It was a judge who got cop killer Mumia Abu-Jamal off death row.
Maureen Faulkner, the victims’ widow, has written in her book “Murdered By Mumia” that she finds the future prospect of Jamal out of prison frightening.
Excerpt:
"I was asked if, given all the time that had passed, it wouldn’t be better for me and my family if the Third Circuit decided to give Abu-Jamal life in prison (Life Without Parole or LWOP) and have this all end. This idea was not new. In the past I had often thought of or been asked by friends about the same thing. I had never been asked this question in public, but I knew my answer before the reporter had finished the question.
“I explained that I was wise enough to know that in our legal system, LWOP is not what it seems. I explained to the reporters that unless Jamal is executed, my family and I will have to live every day of the rest of our lives knowing that a future governor could set Jamal free with the stroke of a pen, and that I had no doubt that Jamal’s misguided and uninformed supporters and friends would relentlessly lie about the facts to future generations in order to perpetuate the myth that Jamal is a victim of a racist justice system, then demand his release. To support this idea, I noted that over the years I had repeatedly seen governors commute the sentences of murderers – especially those who had grown old in prison – simply because they cut a sympathetic image of a harmless old man, a grandfatherly type . . ., a person who committed a crime in a bygone day who had been ‘punished enough.’
“I told them I wanted to be certain that Jamal could never be free again – that he would die alone in prison away from his family like Danny had died alone on the street on December 9, 1981. I told them that in my heart, I firmly believe that a person who knowingly and violently takes the life of another person, especially a police officer, should forfeit their own life. We owe that to our law enforcement officials…
"After the press conference, I walked away feeling uplifted by the fact that I had not only expressed my desire to see Jamal executed, but that I had a chance to explain why I felt that way. I also felt good about expressing my feelings, as a survivor, about capital punishment and why my family and I need to see Jamal executed.
"I had thought long and hard about these things and I was comfortable with my feelings and my rational need for CLOSURE that ALL SURVIVORS have.
“There is nothing more frightening to me than the thought of Mumia Abu-Jamal alive and maybe even walking the earth a free and dangerous man, and in Danny’s name, I will never allow that to occur.”
emphasis added.
crisismagazine.com/2011/can-the-church-ban-capital-punishment
Excerpt:
“A reversible Magisterium would be no Magisterium at all, but rather a human agency bereft of the promises of Christ—like the Protestant sects which have abandoned doctrine after doctrine over the centuries since Luther began the process of abandonment. And so it is with Catholic teaching on the morality of capital punishment. According to the constant teaching of the Church, God Himself has ordained that legitimate civil authority shall have the right and duty to punish deliberate murder (and other grave crimes) with the penalty of death. Capital punishment honors the Fifth commandment, because it vindicates the sanctity of human life.”
Statements made by the pope, the bishops are just that: statements. Nothing has changed.
I notice a post on here worrying about prison escapees. Friend, you need to worry about activist death penalty abolitionist judges, defense lawyers, and governors!
It was a judge who got cop killer Mumia Abu-Jamal off death row.
Maureen Faulkner, the victims’ widow, has written in her book “Murdered By Mumia” that she finds the future prospect of Jamal out of prison frightening.
Excerpt:
"I was asked if, given all the time that had passed, it wouldn’t be better for me and my family if the Third Circuit decided to give Abu-Jamal life in prison (Life Without Parole or LWOP) and have this all end. This idea was not new. In the past I had often thought of or been asked by friends about the same thing. I had never been asked this question in public, but I knew my answer before the reporter had finished the question.
“I explained that I was wise enough to know that in our legal system, LWOP is not what it seems. I explained to the reporters that unless Jamal is executed, my family and I will have to live every day of the rest of our lives knowing that a future governor could set Jamal free with the stroke of a pen, and that I had no doubt that Jamal’s misguided and uninformed supporters and friends would relentlessly lie about the facts to future generations in order to perpetuate the myth that Jamal is a victim of a racist justice system, then demand his release. To support this idea, I noted that over the years I had repeatedly seen governors commute the sentences of murderers – especially those who had grown old in prison – simply because they cut a sympathetic image of a harmless old man, a grandfatherly type . . ., a person who committed a crime in a bygone day who had been ‘punished enough.’
“I told them I wanted to be certain that Jamal could never be free again – that he would die alone in prison away from his family like Danny had died alone on the street on December 9, 1981. I told them that in my heart, I firmly believe that a person who knowingly and violently takes the life of another person, especially a police officer, should forfeit their own life. We owe that to our law enforcement officials…
"After the press conference, I walked away feeling uplifted by the fact that I had not only expressed my desire to see Jamal executed, but that I had a chance to explain why I felt that way. I also felt good about expressing my feelings, as a survivor, about capital punishment and why my family and I need to see Jamal executed.
"I had thought long and hard about these things and I was comfortable with my feelings and my rational need for CLOSURE that ALL SURVIVORS have.
“There is nothing more frightening to me than the thought of Mumia Abu-Jamal alive and maybe even walking the earth a free and dangerous man, and in Danny’s name, I will never allow that to occur.”
emphasis added.
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Swiss_Guy
Guest
Sorry to not quote the rest, but it was a long post.
But something has changed. that thing is the world we live in. The death penalty is justifiable if there is no other way to protect society from a mass-murderer or something. But today, in our society it is (nearly) impossible to justify the death penalty. It’s similar with regards to charging interest on a loan. It’s not that the Church changed its mind that it once wasn’t ok and now is, but what changed was the monetary system and the endless opportunities for profit and investment. Capitalism changed how we view money. It’s no longer consumable, but now it’s fruitful. In the same way, it’s not that the Church has a different view on the death penalty, it’s just that society has changed so we shouldn’t have to use the death penalty any more. This is why the pope and the bishops are calling for an end to the death penalty. Plus, as I mentioned before, we waste millions on death penalty trials to make sure the person is guilty, when that money could be put to good use (or our taxes cut
) and still give the person a chance to believe in Christ and have a chance to become saved.- Status