Question about the death penalty

[Ray_Scheel]

Nope, not at all, I’m just accepting the clear statements of 2 popes and the USCCB and I find that they are saying that the DP is no longer acceptable.

There have been a lot of qualifiers whenever they’ve indicated it was not longer supportable, but, again, at no point did they stipulate that voicing that opinion should by interpreted as revoking the Catholic understanding of the authority of the State that was the consistent position of the Church until at least 1952.

That idea has been repeatedly introduced as a presumption to interpreting the significance of what has been said, but so far the sole defense of making that presumption appears to be insinuating heresy or disobedience on the part of those who include relevant statements by Church organs from dates prior to Vatican II as part and parcel of their own basis of interpretation.

Or claiming that the God through the Church has given power over the DP to the state and may not now abrogate that?

Considering the multiple citations I provide in post #46, what is your basis from church teaching to show the Church has formally retracted that as its consistent position on that specific topic through at least 1952? The position of the Church has been that the authority to determine the need for the DP belonged to the State even before the Church was formally established; that it is an inherit right of the civil authority.

 

[TMC]

There have been a lot of qualifiers whenever they’ve indicated it was not longer supportable, but, again, at no point did they stipulate that voicing that opinion should by interpreted as revoking the Catholic understanding of the authority of the State that was the consistent position of the Church until at least 1952.

That idea has been repeatedly introduced as a presumption to interpreting the significance of what has been said, but so far the sole defense of making that presumption appears to be insinuating heresy or disobedience on the part of those who include relevant statements by Church organs from dates prior to Vatican II as part and parcel of their own basis of interpretation.

Considering the multiple citations I provide in post #46, what is your basis from church teaching to show the Church has formally retracted that as its consistent position on that specific topic through at least 1952? The position of the Church has been that the authority to determine the need for the DP belonged to the State even before the Church was formally established; that it is an inherit right of the civil authority.

I am only saying three things:

1. The Catechism is the sure teaching of the Ordinary Magisterium.
2. The sure teachings of the Ordinary Magisterium require religious submission of will and intellect.
3. The Catechism teaches that the death penalty is only moral under certain circumstances.

I am not sure anymore if you are disagreeing with all of these statements, or only 3? If all of them - what is disagreeable about 1 & 2? If just 3 - I think you are straining to read the catechism the way you want.

 

[Ray_Scheel]

I am only saying three things:

1. The Catechism is the sure teaching of the Ordinary Magisterium.
2. The sure teachings of the Ordinary Magisterium require religious submission of will and intellect.
3. The Catechism teaches that the death penalty is only moral under certain circumstances.

I am not sure anymore if you are disagreeing with all of these statements, or only 3? If all of them - what is disagreeable about 1 & 2? If just 3 - I think you are straining to read the catechism the way you want.

The new Catechism never reverses what the Catechism of Trent or any of the other sources I cited said about the authority of the State to exercise the Death Penalty. Further, the new Catechism actually only says the use of the Death Penalty cannot be supported in certain - unspecified - regions based on presumptions about certain - unspecified and outside of the scope of faith and morals - capabilities of their prison systems.

Again, though that idea has been repeatedly introduced as a presumption to interpreting the significance of what has been said, but so far the sole defense of making that presumption appears to be insinuating heresy or disobedience on the part of those who include relevant statements by Church organs from dates prior to Vatican II as part and parcel of their own basis of interpretation.

Do you have a statement by a church organ formally reversing the position clearly stated in the Catechism of Trent and explicitly reiterated by a pope as recently as 1952? I am earnestly waiting for you or anyone else who keeps advancing that presumption to substantiate such a radical change in the teaching of the Church regarding the civil authority and the nature of Natural Law.

If not, it is end of story here. Simply suggesting that others are being disobedient for not accepting an unstated presumption you are having to read into the latest revision of the CCC is entirely insufficient (especially when that presumption is actually contradicted by the original, pre-EV, wording of the same section of the CCC - you did realize that, right?)

 

[pnewton]

I have never seen, anywhere, any suggestion that Catholics must not accept the teachings of the Catechism.

I think we need to remember that the Catechism stated that the that the need for the death penalty is rare if not practically non-existence. Even in this statement the possibility is left. Even if the death penalty was restricted to murderers, but applied to every murderer, that would still be a small minority of criminals, and could thus be considered rare. If we restrict this to those who murder and there is evidence that they might kill again, the numbers drop and rarity increases. It was only later that Pope John Paul II made the statement about modern penal systems. Of course we are free to disagree with such a statement of scientific opinion made outside the Catechism. It was not a statement of moral teaching, but a comment on the state of security inside penal institutions, a subject outside the vast expertise of the Holy Father.

 

[Ray_Scheel]

Of course we are free to disagree with such a statement of scientific opinion made outside the Catechism. It was not a statement of moral teaching, but a comment on the state of security inside penal institutions, a subject outside the vast expertise of the Holy Father.

I suspect that this is going to be met with yet another presumption that the scope of papal authority has been extended to purely scientific determinations in this particular instance in an undeclared surgical exception solely because that presumption is required in order to make a claim that his conclusion is binding in obedience even on those people who have sufficient knowledge of the actual status of modern penal systems to raise grave concerns about his judgment on that scientific issue.
…

 

[Texas_Roofer]

Ray it is difficult to read your posts. Frankly they sound like dictator propaganda. The catechism is correct, accurate, and does not contradict historical Catholic teaching. Avery Cardinal Dullas does not oppose the Church, the catechism, the Pope, or the USCCB.

…Do you have a statement by a church organ formally reversing the position clearly stated in the Catechism of Trent and explicitly reiterated by a pope as recently as 1952? I am earnestly waiting for you or anyone else who keeps advancing that presumption to substantiate such a radical change in the teaching of the Church regarding the civil authority and the nature of Natural Law. …

More pronouns and more twisting, it is Ray Scheel who made the statement. When one understands Natural Law rather than simply inserting the term into their writing these problems go away. I ask you again to consider Matthew 19: 7-12, it is not Jesus contradicting Moses

 

[Ray_Scheel]

Ray it is difficult to read your posts.

It seems to be more than just a coincidence that you so frequently claim to have trouble understanding posters starting immediately after it becomes obvious their requests for Church citations backing up the claims you’ve attached yourself to can no longer be ignored or redirected with personal attacks or suggesting heretical opinions on the part of the person challenging your claims with citations of their own.

Frankly they sound like dictator propaganda.

Ad hominem

More pronouns and more twisting, it is Ray Scheel who made the statement.

Ad hominem

Avery Cardinal Dullas does not oppose the Church, the catechism, the Pope, or the USCCB.

I don’t recall citing the good cardinal recently, in fact his last mention was by Ender back in post 28. Further, every time he has been cited, it was to point out his agreement with the consistent Catholic teaching about the authority of the State to exercise the Death Penalty (as a reminder, citations in post 46) that are denied by the interpretations being ascribed by you and others to EV and the post EV CCC modifications in order to claim that the JP II statements must be read as change to the authority of the State under Natural Law .

When one understands Natural Law rather than simply inserting the term into their writing these problems go away.

Argument as nauseum. I’ve cited statements by Pope Pius XII and the Catechism of the Council of Trent directly addressing the nature of the State under Natural Law to support my position. All you do is claim anyone who disagrees with you does not understand Natural Law, but have repeatedly refused to provide any citations o f your own to back up this particular claim of yours. Which of us has the weaker case is rather obvious, as I really doubt you’ve got a better grasp of Natural Law than Pius XII and the writers of the Catechism of the Council of Trent, and this particular issue has not been modified by the CCC (and in fact my position was directly reaffirmed by the pre-EV version of the CCC).

I ask you again to consider  Matthew 19: 7-12, it is not Jesus contradicting Moses

? Irrelevant citation. This is the passage on Jesus rejecting divorce for the casual reasons Moses allowed because of the hardness of the Jew’s hearts in their refusal to pay attention to what has already been revealed to them (again, see post 46).

Edited for clarity and spelling

 

[Texas_Roofer]

It seems to be more than just a coincidence that you so frequently claim to have trouble understanding posters starting immediately after **it **becomes obvious their requests for Church citations backing up the claims you’ve attached yourself to can no longer be ignored or redirected with personal attacks or suggesting heretical opinions on the part of the person challenging your claims with citations of their own.

Actually the request is for others to back up Ray’s claims. This is a signal of the problem

Ad hominem

Ad hominem

**I **don’t recall citing the good cardinal recently, in fact his last mention was by Ender back in post 28.

Exactly! his writting are being paraphrased out of context and inserted into Ray’s post, yet this is being denied

Further, every time he has been cited, it was to point out **his **agreement with the consistent Catholic teaching about the authority of the State to exercise the Death Penalty (as a reminder, citations in post 46) that are denied by the interpretations being ascribed by you and others to EV and the post EV CCC modifications in order to claim that the JP II statements must be read as change to the authority of the State under Natural Law .

Argument as nauseum. I’ve cited statements by Pope Pius XII and the Catechism of the Council of Trent directly addressing the nature of the State under Natural Law to support my position. All you do is claim anyone who disagrees with you does not understand Natural Law, but have repeatedly refused to provide any citations o f **your **own to back up this particular claim of yours. Which of us has the weaker case is rather obvious, as I really doubt **you’ve **got a better grasp of Natural Law than Pius XII and the writers of the Catechism of the Council of Trent, and this particular issue has not been modified by the CCC (and in fact my position was directly reaffirmed by the pre-EV version of the CCC).

? Irrelevant citation. This is the passage on Jesus rejecting divorce for the casual reasons Moses allowed because of the hardness of the Jew’s hearts in their refusal to pay attention to what has already been revealed to them (again, see post 46).

Edited for clarity and spelling

If you would simply like a citation here you go:

Authority
vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P6J.HTM
Natural law
vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P6U.HTM
Magisterium and catechism
vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P74.HTM
Capital punishment

vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P7Z.HTM

 

[Ray_Scheel]

Actually the request is for others to back up Ray’s claims. This is a signal of the problem

This is completely false. I’ve back up my claims (post 46), you make objects implying disobedience on my part in not accepting a bit of conjecture you can’t provide a citation for. You are one of several people claiming that the Church’s understanding of the authority of the State to exercise capital punishment has changed substantially since 1952. I have been asking anyone championing that claim to show where a modern pope has directly and formally indicated a change on that issue, one that does not requite conjecture on the interpretation of statement made about a tangential subject (e.g. that merely stating an opinion on the technical capability of “modern” prisons in certain unnamed locations must magically presume an intent to radically change one of the core divisions of authority under Natural Law).

Exactly! his writting are being paraphrased out of context and inserted into Ray’s post, yet this is being denied

This is a completely false statement on your part, and considering that you did so in a response to a prior misleading claim of yours being pointed out as such can be nothing but an intentional. Since you will not be able to provide a citation of me paraphrasing the good cardinal out of context, a immediate retraction and apology is in order for your repeated retreats to open personal attacks in substitution for on topic citations to back of the claims you keep making to accuse those who don’t agree with you of disobedience…

Also, simply using my name to reference me as if I was not the party you were addressing is effectively turning my name into a pronoun, never mind that there is no logical basis to the suggestion you keep making that using pronouns invalidates an argument.

If you would simply like a citation here you go:

I don’t want another random citation, but one directly stating that the Church has changed its position on the authority of the state to exercise capital punishment that was stated in the Catechism of Trent and reaffirmed by Pope Pius XII in 1952.

 

[Ray_Scheel]

This is completely false. I’ve back up my claims (post 46), you make objects implying disobedience on my part in not accepting a bit of conjecture you can’t provide a citation for.

Not quite sure how I bungled stating this so badly, beyond trying to get it written while supervising getting kids ready to go to school. To restate:

This is completely false. I’ve backed up my claims (post 46), while all you have done is you voice objections implying disobedience on my part in not accepting a bit of conjecture you can’t provide a citation for.

 

[Texas_Roofer]

Here is an example for you

The new Catechism never reverses what the Catechism of Trent or any of the other sources I cited said about the authority of the State to exercise the Death Penalty…
Do you have a statement by a church organ formally reversing the position clearly stated in the Catechism of Trent and explicitly reiterated by a pope as recently as 1952? …

" Avery Cardinal Dulles:

The Catholic magisterium does not, and never has, advocated unqualified abolition of the death penalty. I know of no official statement from popes or bishops, whether in the past or in the present, that denies the right of the State to execute offenders at least in certain extreme cases. http://www.firstthings.com/article.php3?id_article=2175

Second , I do not see where anyone in the forum with a possible acceptation of SpritMeadow has written anything remotely close to your accusation. Even then SpritMeadow’s comments are possibly misinterpreted. You may speak with SpritMeadow about that.

Last and most important concerning the

I don’t want another random citation,…

The citation is the official Catholic Church teachings as posted on the Vatican website, it appears this is the heart of the issue. Since “MY” view is to be consistent with the “Official Catholic View” you seem to feel free to ask “me” to answer for the teaching, which has been done. The official view is “If, instead, bloodless means are sufficient to defend against the aggressor and to protect the safety of persons, public authority should limit itself to such means…”( vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P7Z.HTM)

Hope that helps

 

[Ender]

Exactly! {Cardinal Dulles’s} writting are being paraphrased out of context and inserted into Ray’s post, yet this is being denied

Since I have been quoting Cardinal Dulles I take some offense at this remark. If you had actually read his article you would see that there is no need either to paraphrase his comments or take them out of context as they perfectly support the point I have been making. Here is the entire paragraph where he speaks on the nature of the teaching on the death penalty.

*“In coming to this **prudential **conclusion, the magisterium is not changing the doctrine of the Church. The doctrine remains what it has been: that the State, in principle, has the right to impose the death penalty on persons convicted of very serious crimes. But the classical tradition held that the State should not exercise this right when the evil effects outweigh the good effects. Thus the principle still leaves open the question whether and when the death penalty ought to be applied. The Pope and the bishops, using their **prudential **judgment, have concluded that in contemporary society, at least in countries like our own, the death penalty ought not to be invoked, because, on balance, it does more harm than good.”
*

Actually the request is for others to back up Ray’s claims. This is a signal of the problem

Then I guess if others back up Ray’s claims that must indicate that the problem is resolved. Again, from Cardinal Dulles:

"Summarizing the verdict of Scripture and tradition, we can glean some settled points of doctrine. It is agreed that crime deserves punishment in this life and not only in the next. In addition, it is agreed that* the State has authority** to administer appropriate punishment to those judged guilty of crimes and that this punishment may, in serious cases, include the sentence of death."*

Ender

 

[Ray_Scheel]

Texas Roofer:
You have claimed - more than once - that I had paraphrased the good cardinal and used his statements out of context. Quoting him yourself in reply to me after making that accusation does nothing to establish where I have done so.

This is not the first (or even the third, or fifth) time that you have make a false accusation of this nature, and each time you have pointedly refused to retract or substantiate. In a prior thread you made a similar accusation against Ender, with a similar refusal to cite how exactly Ender using a direct quote with a link to the full document qualified as either a paraphrase on lack of context, and that was also an instance where you had responded to someone pointing out one of your more thinly veiled mischaracterizations with an exaggerated falsehood used in a retaliatory personal attack. If I recall correctly, even TMC challenged the accusation you had leveled against Ender then, and you made it clear there as well that you were not going to retract or apologize for having stooped to such a level.

If you are ceding that the position of the Church on the authority of the state under Natural Law has not been formally abridged since 1952, then there is no basis for claiming Catholics are being disobedient for not complying with JP II’s opinion on what the Church holds to be a civil matter and/or a scientific determination. If takes more than a statement qualified with “If” and “should” regarding a tangential issue to substantiate a presumption that the background framework has been fundamentally altered.

SpiritMeadow, SoCal, and TMC: If you see something Texas Roofer says that you wish me to address, you’ll have to restate it, as I am putting him on ignore until someone lets me know he’s made a public retraction for the deliberate misrepresentation and outright falsehoods he has directed at me personally.

 

[Texas_Roofer]

Since I have been quoting Cardinal Dulles I take some offense at this remark. If you had actually read his article you would see that there is no need either to paraphrase his comments or take them out of context as they perfectly support the point I have been making. Here is the entire paragraph where he speaks on the nature of the teaching on the death penalty.

*“In coming to this **prudential ***conclusion, the magisterium is not changing the doctrine of the Church. The doctrine remains what it has been: that the State, in principle, has the right to impose the death penalty on persons convicted of very serious crimes. But the classical tradition held that the State should not exercise this right when the evil effects outweigh the good effects. Thus the principle still leaves open the question whether and when the death penalty ought to be applied. The Pope and the bishops, using their **prudential **judgment, have concluded that in contemporary society, at least in countries like our own, the death penalty ought not to be invoked, because, on balance, it does more harm than good.”
Then I guess if others back up Ray’s claims that must indicate that the problem is resolved. Again, from Cardinal Dulles:

"Summarizing the verdict of Scripture and tradition, we can glean some settled points of doctrine. It is agreed that crime deserves punishment in this life and not only in the next. In addition, it is agreed that** the State has authority** to administer appropriate punishment to those judged guilty of crimes and that this punishment may, in serious cases, include the sentence of death."

Ender

Thank you however did you properly weigh these statements also?(excerpts in no particular order)

*“Retribution by the State has its limits because the State, unlike God, enjoys neither omniscience nor omnipotence.”

“7) The death penalty should not be imposed if the purposes of punishment can be equally well or better achieved by bloodless means, such as imprisonment.”

“For the symbolism to be authentic, the society must believe in the existence of a transcendent order of justice, which the State has an obligation to protect. This has been true in the past, but in our day the State is generally viewed simply as an instrument of the will of the governed. In this modern perspective, the death penalty expresses not the divine judgment on objective evil but rather the collective anger of the group. The retributive goal of punishment is misconstrued as a self-assertive act of vengeance.”

“It is common knowledge that even when trials are conducted, biased or kangaroo courts can often render unjust convictions. Even in the United States, where serious efforts are made to achieve just verdicts, errors occur, although many of them are corrected by appellate courts. Poorly educated and penniless defendants often lack the means to procure competent legal counsel; witnesses can be suborned or can make honest mistakes about the facts of the case or the identities of persons; evidence can be fabricated or suppressed; and juries can be prejudiced or incompetent. Some “death row” convicts have been exonerated by newly available DNA evidence. Columbia Law School has recently published a powerful report on the percentage of reversible errors in capital sentences from 1973 to 1995. Since it is altogether likely that some innocent persons have been executed, this first objection is a serious one.”

“The Catholic magisterium in recent years has become increasingly vocal in opposing the practice of capital punishment.”

“10) Catholics, in seeking to form their judgment as to whether the death penalty is to be supported as a general policy, or in a given situation, should be attentive to the guidance of the pope and the bishops. Current Catholic teaching should be understood, as I have sought to understand it, in continuity with Scripture and tradition.”*

I do not see error in Avery Cardinal Dulles statements though I have not studied his body of work. I do see repeated attempts to post one side of arguments he is addressing while attempting to avoid the very issue of the argument in depth.

 

[TMC]

The new Catechism never reverses what the Catechism of Trent or any of the other sources I cited said about the authority of the State to exercise the Death Penalty. Further, the new Catechism actually only says the use of the Death Penalty cannot be supported in certain - unspecified - regions based on presumptions about certain - unspecified and outside of the scope of faith and morals - capabilities of their prison systems.

Again, though that idea has been repeatedly introduced as a presumption to interpreting the significance of what has been said, but so far the sole defense of making that presumption appears to be insinuating heresy or disobedience on the part of those who include relevant statements by Church organs from dates prior to Vatican II as part and parcel of their own basis of interpretation.

Do you have a statement by a church organ formally reversing the position clearly stated in the Catechism of Trent and explicitly reiterated by a pope as recently as 1952? I am earnestly waiting for you or anyone else who keeps advancing that presumption to substantiate such a radical change in the teaching of the Church regarding the civil authority and the nature of Natural Law.

If not, it is end of story here. Simply suggesting that others are being disobedient for not accepting an unstated presumption you are having to read into the latest revision of the CCC is entirely insufficient (especially when that presumption is actually contradicted by the original, pre-EV, wording of the same section of the CCC - you did realize that, right?)

I take this post to mean that you disagree with my statement # 3, that the Catechism teaches that the death penalty is only moral under certain circumstances.

You say that the catechism says the death penalty cannot be supported in certain unspecified regions based on unspecified assumptions about penal systems. That is not the case. This is what the catechism says:

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 the unjust aggressor.

If, however, nonlethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people’s safety from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and are more in conformity to the dignity of the human person.

Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an offense incapable of doing harm - without definitely taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself - the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity are very rare, if not practically nonexistent.NT

I’ll take it in reverse order and identify if it contains only unspecified assumptions, or if it contains teachings on morals.

The last statement ("Today, in fact… ") is arguably in the nature of a comment on the proper application of the rules given above.

The second to last statement ("If, however… ") is a restatement of the rule, and I can see an argument that it, too, is a comment on the rule’s proper application.

The first statement, however, is clearly a teaching on the morality of the death penalty. It says that there are two prerequisites that must be met before applying the death penaly is “not excluded.” They are 1) that the party’s identity and responsibilty have been fully determined, and 2) the death penalty is the “only possible way of effectively defending human lives.”

There is obviously a lot of room for opinions on when the death penalty is the only effective way to defend others. But it is clear that using the death penalty for reasons other than protecting human lives is against the Church’s teaching.

Is it your position that the Church has nothing to say about the morality of a State’s application of the death penalty? Is it your position that executing people for jaywalking is allowable? Or that executing a group of three people because at least one of them committed a crime is allowable? Or that executing political prisoners is allowable? If you think those applications are not moral, where does the authority to declare those things immoral come from?

 

[frankadams]

I think we need to remember that the Catechism stated that the that the need for the death penalty is rare if not practically non-existence. Even in this statement the possibility is left. Even if the death penalty was restricted to murderers, but applied to every murderer, that would still be a small minority of criminals, and could thus be considered rare. If we restrict this to those who murder and there is evidence that they might kill again, the numbers drop and rarity increases. It was only later that Pope John Paul II made the statement about modern penal systems. Of course we are free to disagree with such a statement of scientific opinion made outside the Catechism. It was not a statement of moral teaching, but a comment on the state of security inside penal institutions, a subject outside the vast expertise of the Holy Father.

I question your logic here. You correctly note that the Catechism’s statement that circumstances in which the death penalty is an absolute necessity are “rare if non practically non-existent.” You then suggest that executing all murderers meets this criterion. It seems like a self-serving interpretation.


However, the Cathecism does leave itself open to these sort of interpretations. Using your reasoning, one might easily say “all criminals” since criminals make up only a “small minority” of the population.

 

[Ray_Scheel]

There is obviously a lot of room for opinions on when the death penalty is the only effective way to defend others. But it is clear that using the death penalty for reasons other than protecting human lives is against the Church’s teaching.

I’ll draw your attention to the wording of the Catechism of Trent I cited above: “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.”

That statement is FALSE if the death penalty can only be used by the State for protecting human life. Read it carefully, it says that avenging crime represses outrage and violence, and that inflicting punishments (including the death penalty) towards those goals are the legitimate right of civil authority.

Likewise, saying that “it is reserved to the public authority to deprive the criminal of the benefit of life, when already, by his crime, he has deprived himself of the right to live.” (Pope Piue XII, 1952) also cannot** be true** if the criminal’s right to live is based on his future threat rather than the crime for which he has already been convicted.

Is it your position that the Church has nothing to say about the morality of a State’s application of the death penalty?

My position has been made clear, repeatedly, where you are quite frankly stonewalling on an uncomfortable question about a core presumption of your position. Is it your position that the Church has modified its understanding of Natural Law to restrict the authority of the state on that matter at some point after 1952, and if so, where has it formally declared that background framework to have been so changed? We cannot decide what can or cannot be carried by the cart before clarifying the capabilities of the horse pulling it, and it is simply not sufficient to base such conjecture on an “if” and a “should” that themselves involve scientific determinations or other decisions which the Church itself has declared fall outside of its competence.

Is it your position that executing people for jaywalking is allowable? Or that executing a group of three people because at least one of them committed a crime is allowable? Or that executing political prisoners is allowable? If you think those applications are not moral, where does the authority to declare those things immoral come from?

When a state’s use of the death penalty itself becomes an outrage, that would be in violation of the mandate of the state. There are some limitations already, (some outlined in the broader context of the sources I cited in post 46) but they are things that spring from natural law (e.g. the standard of an “eye for an eye” as a *maximum *penalty that could legitimately be assessed) that have been ratified by the Church rather than falling under the authority of the Church to actually legislate.

But one cannot make a claim that the state is no longer the legitimate avenger of crime (inclusive of inflicting the death penalty), or that the criminals right to life cannot deprived on the basis of their crime alone, without saying either the Catechism of Trent and/or Pope Pius XII were wrong about the authority of the state under Natural Law.

 

[SpiritMeadow]

I am only saying three things:

1. The Catechism is the sure teaching of the Ordinary Magisterium.
2. The sure teachings of the Ordinary Magisterium require religious submission of will and intellect.
3. The Catechism teaches that the death penalty is only moral under certain circumstances.

I am not sure anymore if you are disagreeing with all of these statements, or only 3? If all of them - what is disagreeable about 1 & 2? If just 3 - I think you are straining to read the catechism the way you want.

If you go to CA and their apologetics library you can find some sense of where this argument comes from. I’ ve seen articles all over the web, many many on Catholic news sites. Nobody interprets it this way. It assumes that our present Pope, cardinals and bishops are not bright enough to know better. It remains the usual parsing of documents to get them to agree with you. I certainly don’t claim I can understand better, but those who supposedly do, seem rather clear as well as to what both JPII, Benedict and the USCCB meant and mean. Does nobody at the Vatican step forward to correct at least the USCCB in their obvious heresy? LOL…

 

[Texas_Roofer]

I’ll draw your attention to the wording of the Catechism of Trent I cited above: “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.”.

That statement is FALSE if the death penalty can only be used by the State for protecting human life. Read it carefully, it says that avenging crime represses outrage and violence, and that inflicting punishments (including the death penalty) towards those goals are the legitimate right of civil authority…

.
Actually what is states is:

Execution Of Criminals
Another 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.

The catechism is clear in stating the civil authority may use capital punishment when the correct conditions exist without fear of violating the commandment against killing. That version of catechism as todays version did not require any killing, nor give license to kill. So the two versions are not at odds. What has changed is the alternatives to capital punishment. Many societies could not house murders for life which is now readly available in the US and many other places.

There are some limitations already, (some outlined in the broader context of the sources I cited in post 46) but they are things that spring from natural law (e.g. the standard of an “eye for an eye” as a *maximum *penalty that could legitimately be assessed)…without saying either the Catechism of Trent and/or Pope Pius XII were wrong about the authority of the state under Natural Law.

Eye for an Eye is not the base for Natural Law or even an example of such. Natural is based on God’s encrypting our soul with general knowledge of right verses wrong and the human design by which God endowed us to live upon this earth. It states every man knows within his heart what to do and how to live.

 

[pnewton]

However, the Cathecism does leave itself open to these sort of interpretations. Using your reasoning, one might easily say “all criminals” since criminals make up only a “small minority” of the population.

Except the context was in the punishment of crime, so that limits the scope to punishment of crime. I agree that appying the DP to all murder today would be too broad, but not because of this passage. Rather because of the “other means” part. For most criminals, even most murderers, other means is available that is sufficient to protect society. (in my opinion)

edit - BTW I do consider my opinion in this matter an educated ones. I have been dealing with these guys for over two decades and have known murders of the dangerous stripe and the not as dangerous.