Rehabilitation ideology makes the death penalty necessary

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whichwaytogo47

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If you cannot be assured that a murderer will not see life without parole, the death penalty is the only acceptable penalty for those who murder others because our politicians cannot be assured to keep prisoners where they belong, in prison and when necessary, for life.

I don’t mean reckless murder in the commission of a crine or manslaughter but cold-blooded murder, such as when a victim is tortured prior to murder.

Can we hold this view as a Catholic? Is this a valid view to keep society safe? Can we hold different views on the DP based on our trust / distrust of certain capital criminals being contained and where we live?
 
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What about the fact there is no evidence that the threat of death is not actually a deterrent to crime?
Playing the Devil’s advocate here.
 
There are two questions I see. The first is whether holding a belief that the death penalty is correct, and another is if it is acceptable. You asked if one could hold that belief, but then most of your post was about arguing for it. A Catholic must follow the Church in dogma, and should defer to the Church in all matters of doctrine. Applying doctrine to situations, like whether the death penalty is admissible today, or whether carpet bombing is moral, is still Church teaching, but dissenting from that teaching is not as serious. Nonetheless, I think we should always try and understand the mind of the Church when we have these areas of dissent, which pretty much all of us do at one time or another.
 
adamhovey1988 said:
What about the fact there is no evidence that the threat of death is not actually a deterrent to crime?
Playing the Devil’s advocate here
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Great point. Personally I prefer life without parole but if there is the possibility of an arbitrary early release of lots of prisoners, I think some given life w/o parole should get the death penalty instead but only for the most severe murders.
 
pnewton said:
A Catholic must follow the Church in dogma, and should defer to the Church in all matters of doctrine.
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I do think the death penalty is inadmissible as long as the society can be assured of life without parole containment.

I think it becomes admissible when you have politicians who believe in a secular way that a murderer being able to be rehabilitated. For the kingdom yes, but can being rehabilitated justify an early release for the harm that you had done? Life without parole fits the crime.

I wonder if this obeys the teaching both under Francis and John Paul II
 
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Good luck. It sounds like you are asking the right questions. I am sympathetic and tend to agree with your considerations. They were my initial objections as well. I follow Pope Francis on this out of deference to his office. My own opposition to the death penalty takes a little different tack. The risk in not having capital punishment is pretty darn negligible, while the benefits of opposing it as part of a pro-life emphasis on the importance of all life is of greater benefit.
 
pnewton said:
as part of a pro-life emphasis
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While I agree that it’s more consistent in being pro-life if you oppose abortion and oppose the death penalty, I see the first as an innocent child and the second as making the choice to take another human life or at least was accused of taking another life.

That said, not only should we oppose the DP because someone could be innocent but even if they are guilty of killing another person, does that justify killing them in return?

I do think the strongest argument in opposition to the DP is the dignity of every human life, even someone who committed a heinous crime(s).
 
pnewton said:
The risk in not having capital punishment is pretty darn negligible, while the benefits of opposing it as part of a pro-life emphasis on the importance of all life is of greater benefit.
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This is what I think as well. Assuming that a murderer cannot change their ways and find new life in God is to treat them as an object with faulty programming, not as a human being.
 
Punishment is not primarily about being a deterrent or for purposes of protection (although it is also those). It is about the order of justice first, as the CCC notes, “Punishment has the primary aim of redressing the disorder introduced by the offense.” (CCC 2266)

Pope Francis, in the section on the death penalty in Tutti Fratelli, provides this traditional justification for the death penalty before laying out his arguments why, in our times and circumstances and in a spirit of Christian mercy, authorities should choose not to use it:

Pope Franics, Tutti Fratelli
  1. In the New Testament, while individuals are asked not to take justice into their own hands (cf. Rom 12:17.19), there is also a recognition of the need for authorities to impose penalties on evildoers (cf. Rom 13:4; 1 Pet 2:14). Indeed, “civic life, structured around an organized community, needs rules of coexistence, the wilful violation of which demands appropriate redress”.[249] This means that legitimate public authority can and must “inflict punishments according to the seriousness of the crimes”[250] and that judicial power be guaranteed a “necessary independence in the realm of law”.[251]
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I have often pointed to Archbishop Gomez’ explanation of this. After affirming that Scripture and Tradition unambiguously affirm the death penalty as a just and fitting punishment for proportionate crimes (and distinguishing it from actual strict injustices like abortion and euthanasia), he says:

Archbishop Gomez
I respect that many good people will continue to believe that our society needs the death penalty to express its moral outrage and to punish those who commit the ultimate crime of taking human life.

But I do not believe that public executions serve to advance that message in our secular society.

We all need to consider how much violence has become an accepted part of American society and popular culture. There is not only the random violence we see every day in our communities. But we are also a society that permits our children to play video games that involve them “virtually” killing their enemies; much of our popular “entertainment” consists of movies and other programs that involve fictional characters committing heinous murders and other unspeakable acts.

In this kind of society, executing criminals sends no moral signal. It is simply one more killing in a culture of death.

The Church today is pointing us in a different direction.

Showing mercy to those who do not “deserve” it, seeking redemption for persons who have committed evil, working for a society where every human life is considered sacred and protected — this is how we are called to follow Jesus Christ and proclaim his Gospel of life in these times and in this culture.
Statement on changes to the Catechism of the Catholic Church on the death penalty (Paragraph 2267)
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whichwaytogo47 said:
If you cannot be assured that a murderer will not see life without parole, the death penalty is the only acceptable penalty for those who murder others because our politicians cannot be assured to keep prisoners where they belong, in prison and when necessary, for life.

I don’t mean reckless murder in the commission of a crine or manslaughter but cold-blooded murder, such as when a victim is tortured prior to murder.

Can we hold this view as a Catholic? Is this a valid view to keep society safe? Can we hold different views on the DP based on our trust / distrust of certain capital criminals being contained and where we live?
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This is a matter of prudential judgment and discipline based on circumstances, not a matter of revisiting the intrinsic morality of death penalties.
As Catholics, we owe deference to the Church’s prudential judgment and discipline. We are Catholics first, secondarily we are liberal, or conservative, or this nationality or that.

Catholics first.
 
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In the USA for the last few decades, if a person is convicted of an offense that carries the death penalty, and is somehow not sentenced to the death penalty, he gets LWOP (life without parole).

Problem solved.
 
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goout said:
As Catholics, we owe deference to the Church’s prudential judgment and discipline. We are Catholics first, secondarily we are liberal, or conservative, or this nationality or that.

Catholics first.
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I think you worded this very accurately. We are to defer to the judgment of the Church. The reason the OP’s question (one of them) about can a Catholic believe different than the application is that the higher doctrine of the Church, more than application, is primacy of an informed conscience. So we defer to the Church to inform our conscience, which is seldom quick and never instantaneous, but in the end, we follow our sure conscience. This is why we have to be tolerant and understanding with all the Catholics out there that do not as readily grasp what the last few decades of popes have been teaching on the death penalty, as it applies today.
 
Tis_Bearself said:
In the USA for the last few decades, if a person is convicted of an offense that carries the death penalty, and is somehow not sentenced to the death penalty, he gets LWOP (life without parole).

Problem solved.
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While I agree with you on this, the problem is that Pope Francis and some others in the Church have also spoken out against life sentences for criminals (one of his quotes I believe was that life sentences are a “hidden death penalty”). It may not be too long before the Catechism gets a line in it about how life sentences are “inadmissible” as well.
 
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I think that the only way the death penalty might work as a deterrent would be if it were carried out more expeditiously, but even that is not certain. As it is, any person receiving the death penalty in the U.S. can count on living at least ten more years, due to the statutory appeals. It is also more expensive to prosecute than a non-DP case.
 
Tis_Bearself said:
In the USA for the last few decades, if a person is convicted of an offense that carries the death penalty, and is somehow not sentenced to the death penalty, he gets LWOP (life without parole).

Problem solved.
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Agreed, as long as we maintain life without parole and have solitary confinement when needed, the need for the DP largely goes away. The DP than becomes an issue of fitting the punishment to the crime and nothing short of the DP is sufficient. Solitary is sometimes needed to prevent a prisoner from carrying out a hit on the outside. LWOP is necessary to prevent someone from committing murder again while on the outside and provide an adequate punishment for premeditated murder and thus keep society safe.

Only if there was a reasonable risk of LWOP being eliminated would the death penalty once again be an absolute necessity because there would be significant doubts to containment.

In other words, it’s not only the physical capability to contain criminals but also the political will to maintain society’s safety.
 
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No punishment enacted less than 1% of the time is ever a deterrent. The same could be said of a prison sentence. That being said, Singapore which has harsh penalties for criminal behavior and applies the death penalty consistently has an extraordinarily low rate of violent crime. The idea that there is no evidence the death penalty has no deterrent effect is false. The issue is that there are very few examples of nations that actually implement it consistently to evaluate.

Also, the recidivism rate of executed murderers is 0%.
 
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adamhovey1988 said:
What about the fact there is no evidence that the threat of death is not actually a deterrent to crime?
Playing the Devil’s advocate here.
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What about the fact that death is actually a deterrent to crime?
Using common sense here.
 
Weserthy said:
Pope Francis and some others in the Church have also spoken out against life sentences for criminals (one of his quotes I believe was that life sentences are a “hidden death penalty”). It may not be too long before the Catechism gets a line in it about how life sentences are “inadmissible” as well.
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Let’s cross that bridge when we come to it.

I’m not going to waste my time and brain cells worrying about something the Pope might do but hasn’t done it yet.
 
Sid said:
What about the fact that death is actually a deterrent to crime?
Using common sense here
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While it statistically may not deter crime, the DP may be a deterrent to a specific criminal.
 
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