So what's the Catholic position on what Roeder did?

[distracted]

Has anyone heard what the pope has to say about this, if anything?

just wondering… always wondering…

my position is well known by many here… I believe Roeder was guilty of, not murder (by a LONG shot) but “unauthorized capital punishment”.

“murder” is a word used when one is referirng to killing the innocent… Tiller could hardly be called innocent.

The Church is in favor of capital punishment when there is no other way for society to keep a murderer from murdering again… In other words, we must protect the innocent…

… wondering if anyone in the Vatican has attempted to get Pope Benedict’s opinion on this???

or is this something that’s not in the pope’s “job description”?

 

[Prof_K]

Has anyone heard what the pope has to say about this, if anything?

just wondering… always wondering…

my position is well known by many here… I believe Roeder was guilty of, not murder (by a LONG shot) but “unauthorized capital punishment”.

“murder” is a word used when one is referirng to killing the innocent… Tiller could hardly be called innocent.

The Church is in favor of capital punishment when there is no other way for society to keep a murderer from murdering again… In other words, we must protect the innocent…

… wondering if anyone in the Vatican has attempted to get Pope Benedict’s opinion on this???

or is this something that’s not in the pope’s “job description”?

From my perspective the question is a very tough one both morally and theologically. While Tiller was far from innocent, we also live in a society with what the Church recognizes as a legitimate political authority. While the Cathechism confirms each individual’s right to self defense (2264-2265) it does not automatically grant us the right to defend others with the use of force except when in a state of “just war,” which requires legitimate international authority to conduct war (2309).

Granting your point that Tiller wasn’t innocent (he was actively killing children) still doesn’t then give individuals the right to kill him in turn without clear authority granted by the legitimate authority. While the Church does grant the right to punishment, again this is limited to the state, and as argued in the Catechism “If bloodless means are sufficient to defend human lives against an aggressor and to protect public order and the safety of persons, public authority should limit itself to such means…” (2267). In short, if we treat this as analogous to a “Just War” in which all other means must first be expended, unless we have done all we can financially and political to legally stop abortion/killing, I doubt the Church would condone the use of extra legal means, particularly the use of the violence which we ironically seek to end.

Thus while Catholics may understand the logic of, and even sympathize with, those who seek to use violence to stop abortion, I don’t think we can find evidence in Church teaching to condone their actions.

Again, I grant that this is a difficult issue, but I don’t think the Pope has, will or should speak in support of such actions. Nor, to answer your other question, has the Pope been directly asked this question, so maybe I am way off base.

Prof K

PS. I teach courses on terrorism and the killing of Tiller is a classic definition of terrorism. It is the use of violence (killing Tiller) to cause fear (among abortionists) to achieve a political gain (a decrease in the number of abortions and possibly and end to the practice). If we have an objective definition of terrorism, we may agree with a terrorists objectives, but still condemn his means. The question then is do the ends justify the means?

PSS. The Catechism speaks about killing, but appears to avoid the term murder. In my dictionary (The New World Dictionary) it defines murder as the “unlawful killing” and makes no reference to the guilt or innocence of the victim. Thus one arsonist killing another is still murder.

 

[Feanor2]

Has anyone heard what the pope has to say about this, if anything?

just wondering… always wondering…

my position is well known by many here… I believe Roeder was guilty of, not murder (by a LONG shot) but “unauthorized capital punishment”.

“murder” is a word used when one is referirng to killing the innocent… Tiller could hardly be called innocent.

The Church is in favor of capital punishment when there is no other way for society to keep a murderer from murdering again… In other words, we must protect the innocent…

… wondering if anyone in the Vatican has attempted to get Pope Benedict’s opinion on this???

or is this something that’s not in the pope’s “job description”?

Do you think that someone as scholarly and thoughtful as the Holy Father would take time to discuss one common criminal?

I think he has better things to do with his time.

 

[Luke65]

Here is the Church’s position:

Romans 13 (NIV)

1Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. 2Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. 3For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and he will commend you. 4For he is God’s servant to do you good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing. He is God’s servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. 5Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also because of conscience. 6This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants, who give their full time to governing. 7Give everyone what you owe him: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor.

---

And no one can say that St. Paul wrote this at a time when there was good government! The only exception is if a law causes you to sin, then you are not to obey that law; or if a law is unjust, you should peacefully protest against it. Here is the relevant part of the Catechism (Part V).

Personally, I pray for Mr. Roeder that he will realize the error of his ways and repent. It is not his to avenge, it is God’s to avenge. I won’t pray for Mr. Tiller, nor are we required to (1 John 5:16). Instead I pray for all those who have the blood of the innocents on their hands, and let God have mercy on whom He will mercy. :bowdown:

 

[Godfollower]

Has anyone heard what the pope has to say about this, if anything?

just wondering… always wondering…

my position is well known by many here… I believe Roeder was guilty of, not murder (by a LONG shot) but “unauthorized capital punishment”.

“murder” is a word used when one is referirng to killing the innocent… Tiller could hardly be called innocent.

The Church is in favor of capital punishment when there is no other way for society to keep a murderer from murdering again… In other words, we must protect the innocent…

… wondering if anyone in the Vatican has attempted to get Pope Benedict’s opinion on this???

or is this something that’s not in the pope’s “job description”?

He’s guilty of murder. And it’s not even a difficult question – not by a long shot.

He killed another human being. That’s gravely immoral. I assume he’s claiming the right of “defense of others” – but there wasn’t anyone in immediate danger at the time (the abortionist was in church; he wasn’t about to perform an abortion). So his claim is patently false.

Killing in the name of “defense of others” requires as a fundamental presupposition the need of the killer to use deadly force to prevent an immediate death of another. Whom was Tiller immediately about to kill? Answer: no one. He was in church, not his abortion clinic.

If you want to claim that Tiller could legitimately be killed because at other times in other places he sinned and therefore wasn’t innocent, then almost anyone can be killed at any time, because none of us is innocent (I suppose we’d all be safe immediately after baptism or confession, until we reached the age of reason, and once we become incompetent, but that’s it).

Seriously, you’re really trying to define “murder” as “killing the innocent”? That is most decidedly not Catholic theology. “Murder” is killing another human being without justification. So what’s the justification? He sinned gravely the previous week? That doesn’t count.

To draw an analogy: I don’t know exact numbers, but there were approximately 6,000,000 people killed during the Holocaust because they were Jewish. But, statistically, not all of those 6,000,000 people were completely innocent; surely some among them were guilty of grave sins, probably including murder. Do you contend that the Nazi regime was guilty of fewer than 6,000,000 murders? Of course not; it killed those 6,000,000 people for being Jewish – plainly not a legitimate justification. So the regime was guilty of 6,000,000 murders, even if some of those people were themselves murderers!

To draw another analogy: in A Fish Called Wanda, Ken runs over Otto with a very slow-moving steam-roller (Otto survives, but let’s assume we all think he won’t). If you were standing there, could you kill Ken to prevent him from killing Otto? Not according to Catholic theology: there are other means available to protect Otto without having to kill Ken (jump up on the steam-roller, take the key, etc.). Shooting him would be immoral – specifically, it would be the grave sin of murder (killing a human being without justification, since the claimed justification – protecting a third person – was not actually present).

Your claim that Tiller could be executed because he was an abortionist – and that his killer isn’t guilty of murder because Tiller did bad things – is totally outside Catholic theology. It basically boils down to, “There are some humans it’s okay to gun down, even if they aren’t threatening anyone at the time.” That’s totally wrong. Tiller’s killer committed the mortal sin of murder of a fellow human being.

And, if Tiller would’ve repented later in life but can’t now because he’s dead, his killer will answer for it at the last judgment (yes, Tiller will have some explaining to do himself, but that doesn’t justify murdering him; the ends simply do not justify the means).

Capital punishment is limited to the state when it has no other means to protect its members; Tiller’s killer isn’t the state, so he doesn’t get that excuse. Even if he did, he had other options available to him. He deliberately chose the most extreme means available to him, when he could’ve chosen other means instead that did not require Tiller’s death.

And, by the way: the pro-life cause has been set back another 5-10 years by this incident. And it gets worse every time someone who claims to be “pro-life” defends murder.

(Caveat: None of us knows what really happened in the real-life case; perhaps the person accused of killing Tiller isn’t actually the one who did it; perhaps he was insane or incompetent; perhaps Tiller wasn’t actually an abortionist; perhaps whoever committed whatever sin was able to obtain forgiveness from God before dying; who knows? My points are limited to the what-if assumptions as stated in the OP).

 

[Prof_K]

What started as a rather unusual, but apparently sincere, question has turned into a very informed discussion. Thanks to my fellow posters. I started with the Catechism, but many of you brought in important arguments and sources. Thanks for an enlightening discussion.

 

[Dtmccameron]

If I may, let’s imagine for a moment that things transpired differently. Let’s pretend that this Roeder fellow confronted Tiller, not in his church, but rather, in his abortion…ahm, clinic? Or the hospital, wherever they perform abortions. So let’s say he confronts this Tiller with his ice pick, coat-hanger, vacuum cleaner, whatever they use nowadays to murder…Tiller, ready to strike…If Roeder had shot him then… would we still call it murder?

Or the defense of an innocent?

As to that Romans 13 quotation, would you be able to take that so far as to say the freedom fighters and partisans of WW2 were wrong in resisting a legitimate authority, further, that the war they waged was unjust as they lacked “legitimate international authority”? I mean, hey, it’s not like the early Christian’s resisted being fed to the lions are anything, and I can’t deny the Christ-like nature of not resisting torture and death…

"I**f bloodless means are sufficient to defend human lives against an aggressor **…

With millions every year, thousands every day, and hundreds just in the time I’ve been typing, how are those bloodless means working out for ya in the defense of the innocent, eh?

No, at best you parade about the front of a clinic and stop a few. Maybe the few adds up, but in a system of legislated murder, I think you’re snipping at the tail, when you ought to be aiming for the head. ahem I’d say with whatever you please, but I’m not really so bloodthirsty or cynical.

 

[Godfollower]

If I may, let’s imagine for a moment that things transpired differently. Let’s pretend that this Roeder fellow confronted Tiller, not in his church, but rather, in his abortion…ahm, clinic? Or the hospital, wherever they perform abortions. So let’s say he confronts this Tiller with his ice pick, coat-hanger, vacuum cleaner, whatever they use nowadays to murder…Tiller, ready to strike…If Roeder had shot him then… would we still call it murder?

Or the defense of an innocent?

That’s exactly my point. You never hear about these people killing an abortionist just as s/he’s about to commit an abortion; it’s always later – in their homes, churches, what have you – which proves that they are not acting in defense of others. They’re simply committing murder.

As to that Romans 13 quotation, would you be able to take that so far as to say the freedom fighters and partisans of WW2 were wrong in resisting a legitimate authority, further, that the war they waged was unjust as they lacked “legitimate international authority”? I mean, hey, it’s not like the early Christian’s resisted being fed to the lions are anything, and I can’t deny the Christ-like nature of not resisting torture and death…

The Nazi army wasn’t a legitimate authority; it was an invading force.

With millions every year, thousands every day, and hundreds just in the time I’ve been typing, how are those bloodless means working out for ya in the defense of the innocent, eh?

No, at best you parade about the front of a clinic and stop a few. Maybe the few adds up, but in a system of legislated murder, I think you’re snipping at the tail, when you ought to be aiming for the head. ahem I’d say with whatever you please, but I’m not really so bloodthirsty or cynical.

Maybe the prolife side would be getting better results if its advocates weren’t out there supporting terrorism. Prof K is right; Roeder’s act was an act of terrorism – indistinguishable from the various terroristic acts carried out by Muslim extremists in Iraq and other places except for the number of people killed by the terrorists.

Any time a pro-choice advocate wants to undermine the prolife position, s/he need only point to comments like we see above in this thread: “See? A respected Catholic forum defending Catholic theology, and they all support the murder of abortionists. Don’t pay attention to them; they aren’t really prolife.” And people who would’ve at least listened to the Catholic speaker become just that much more unwilling to listen.

When a Muslim speaker gets up and says that the-acts-of-September-11-were-wrong-but-it’s-understandable-how-those-martyrs-felt-given-the-way-the-West-is-so-evil, we discount that speaker’s position because of its hypocrisy. When an allegedly prolife person says the-killing-of-Tiller-was-wrong-but-it’s-understandable-how-that-martyr-felt-given-the-way-the-country’s-support-of-abortion-is-so-evil, that person gets discounted because of his or her hypocrisy.

Roeder’s murder of Tiller was anti-life. It also hurt the prolife cause. So does every comment made in support of his act.

 

[Dtmccameron]

… Prof K is right; Roeder’s act was an act of terrorism –

I agree. Though, a fairly pathetic one, imho. “You shot him…in his church? That just not cricket, mate!”

Any time a pro-choice advocate wants to undermine the prolife position, s/he need only point to comments like we see above in this thread… So does every comment made in support of his act.

Just so we’re clear, I don’t support his, nor anybody’s use of violence. I do wonder though how deep the pro-life movement is willing to allow the ocean of blood to get. (Obviously, killing abortionists wouldn’t lower the “sea level”!). I mean, c’mon! It’s been hundreds just while I’ve been thinking about what to type! And my tax dollars are paying for it! In my lifetime, I’ve more blood on my hands than Hitler or…Well, I want to say combined with some other dictator, but those numbers add up really fast…

The Nazi army wasn’t a legitimate authority; it was an invading force.

I could see “invading force” for to countries they invaded, but what about the one that they were duely set up in?

 

[distracted]

From my perspective the question is a very tough one both morally and theologically. While Tiller was far from innocent, we also live in a society with what the Church recognizes as a legitimate political authority. While the Cathechism confirms each individual’s right to self defense (2264-2265) it does not automatically grant us the right to defend others with the use of force except when in a state of “just war,” which requires legitimate international authority to conduct war (2309).

Granting your point that Tiller wasn’t innocent (he was actively killing children) still doesn’t then give individuals the right to kill him in turn without clear authority granted by the legitimate authority. While the Church does grant the right to punishment, again this is limited to the state, and as argued in the Catechism “If bloodless means are sufficient to defend human lives against an aggressor and to protect public order and the safety of persons, public authority should limit itself to such means…” (2267). In short, if we treat this as analogous to a “Just War” in which all other means must first be expended, unless we have done all we can financially and political to legally stop abortion/killing, I doubt the Church would condone the use of extra legal means, particularly the use of the violence which we ironically seek to end.

Thus while Catholics may understand the logic of, and even sympathize with, those who seek to use violence to stop abortion, I don’t think we can find evidence in Church teaching to condone their actions.

Again, I grant that this is a difficult issue, but I don’t think the Pope has, will or should speak in support of such actions. Nor, to answer your other question, has the Pope been directly asked this question, so maybe I am way off base.

er.

this is all i have time to read of your post for now…

but … i feel that society has done all it can to try to use “bloodless means” to stop the killing of the unborn… & i feel we ARE in a war… How can you call it anything but?

more later…

 

[distracted]

Here is the Church’s position:

Romans 13 (NIV)

1Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. 2Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. 3For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and he will commend you. 4For he is God’s servant to do you good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing. He is God’s servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. 5Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also because of conscience. 6This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants, who give their full time to governing. 7Give everyone what you owe him: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor.

---

And no one can say that St. Paul wrote this at a time when there was good government! The only exception is if a law causes you to sin, then you are not to obey that law; or if a law is unjust, you should peacefully protest against it. Here is the relevant part of the Catechism (Part V).

Personally, I pray for Mr. Roeder that he will realize the error of his ways and repent. It is not his to avenge, it is God’s to avenge. I won’t pray for Mr. Tiller, nor are we required to (1 John 5:16). Instead I pray for all those who have the blood of the innocents on their hands, and let God have mercy on whom He will mercy. :bowdown:

i don’t like when scriptures are taken and given as a sole reason for believing in any given thing…

there are other scripture psgs and then there is the Church teachings…

In anohter passage it says that we are to obey God and not man…

and when laws are unjust it is one thing to tolerate them… and not fight them. when they are laws concserning anything but murder…

but murder of the totally innocent and helpless is the ultimate crime…

Jesus said that whatever is done to the least of his brethren is done to him… Who is more his brethren than those who have never sinned?

 

[distracted]

He’s guilty of murder. And it’s not even a difficult question – not by a long shot.

He killed another human being. That’s gravely immoral. I assume he’s claiming the right of “defense of others” – but there wasn’t anyone in immediate danger at the time (the abortionist was in church; he wasn’t about to perform an abortion). So his claim is patently false.

Killing in the name of “defense of others” requires as a fundamental presupposition the need of the killer to use deadly force to prevent an immediate death of another. Whom was Tiller immediately about to kill? Answer: no one. He was in church, not his abortion clinic.

If you want to claim that Tiller could legitimately be killed because at other times in other places he sinned and therefore wasn’t innocent, then almost anyone can be killed at any time, because none of us is innocent (I suppose we’d all be safe immediately after baptism or confession, until we reached the age of reason, and once we become incompetent, but that’s it).

Seriously, you’re really trying to define “murder” as “killing the innocent”? That is most decidedly not Catholic theology. “Murder” is killing another human being without justification. So what’s the justification? He sinned gravely the previous week? That doesn’t count.

To draw an analogy: I don’t know exact numbers, but there were approximately 6,000,000 people killed during the Holocaust because they were Jewish. But, statistically, not all of those 6,000,000 people were completely innocent; surely some among them were guilty of grave sins, probably including murder. Do you contend that the Nazi regime was guilty of fewer than 6,000,000 murders? Of course not; it killed those 6,000,000 people for being Jewish – plainly not a legitimate justification. So the regime was guilty of 6,000,000 murders, even if some of those people were themselves murderers!

To draw another analogy: in A Fish Called Wanda, Ken runs over Otto with a very slow-moving steam-roller (Otto survives, but let’s assume we all think he won’t). If you were standing there, could you kill Ken to prevent him from killing Otto? Not according to Catholic theology: there are other means available to protect Otto without having to kill Ken (jump up on the steam-roller, take the key, etc.). Shooting him would be immoral – specifically, it would be the grave sin of murder (killing a human being without justification, since the claimed justification – protecting a third person – was not actually present).

Your claim that Tiller could be executed because he was an abortionist – and that his killer isn’t guilty of murder because Tiller did bad things – is totally outside Catholic theology. It basically boils down to, “There are some humans it’s okay to gun down, even if they aren’t threatening anyone at the time.” That’s totally wrong. Tiller’s killer committed the mortal sin of murder of a fellow human being.

And, if Tiller would’ve repented later in life but can’t now because he’s dead, his killer will answer for it at the last judgment (yes, Tiller will have some explaining to do himself, but that doesn’t justify murdering him; the ends simply do not justify the means).

Capital punishment is limited to the state when it has no other means to protect its members; Tiller’s killer isn’t the state, so he doesn’t get that excuse. Even if he did, he had other options available to him. He deliberately chose the most extreme means available to him, when he could’ve chosen other means instead that did not require Tiller’s death.

And, by the way: the pro-life cause has been set back another 5-10 years by this incident. And it gets worse every time someone who claims to be “pro-life” defends murder.

(Caveat: None of us knows what really happened in the real-life case; perhaps the person accused of killing Tiller isn’t actually the one who did it; perhaps he was insane or incompetent; perhaps Tiller wasn’t actually an abortionist; perhaps whoever committed whatever sin was able to obtain forgiveness from God before dying; who knows? My points are limited to the what-if assumptions as stated in the OP).

i’ve read only 1/4 of this post… I’ve heard all this rationalization before… (that’s one thing i call it… )…

i’m not going to repeat my position… Roeder committed only an unauthorized act of justice (in the eyes of God, the only ones view i care about)…

You obvoiusly don’t believe abortion is really murder… probably voted for you know who…

sorry but don’t have time for this…

 

[distracted]

I agree. Though, a fairly pathetic one, imho. “You shot him…in his church? That just not cricket, mate!”

Just so we’re clear, I don’t support his, nor anybody’s use of violence. I do wonder though how deep the pro-life movement is willing to allow the ocean of blood to get. (Obviously, killing abortionists wouldn’t lower the “sea level”!). I mean, c’mon! It’s been hundreds just while I’ve been thinking about what to type! And my tax dollars are paying for it! In my lifetime, I’ve more blood on my hands than Hitler or…Well, I want to say combined with some other dictator, but those numbers add up really fast…

I could see “invading force” for to countries they invaded, but what about the one that they were duely set up in?

i suppose you would have decried Hitler being assasinated if he had been in a church…

(wasn’t in a Catholic Church, in the Real PResence… anyway)

 

[distracted]

That’s exactly my point. You never hear about these people killing an abortionist just as s/he’s about to commit an abortion; it’s always later – in their homes, churches, what have you – which proves that they are not acting in defense of others. They’re simply committing murder.

The Nazi army wasn’t a legitimate authority; it was an invading force.

Maybe the prolife side would be getting better results if its advocates weren’t out there supporting terrorism. Prof K is right; Roeder’s act was an act of terrorism – indistinguishable from the various terroristic acts carried out by Muslim extremists in Iraq and other places except for the number of people killed by the terrorists.

Any time a pro-choice advocate wants to undermine the prolife position, s/he need only point to comments like we see above in this thread: “See? A respected Catholic forum defending Catholic theology, and they all support the murder of abortionists. Don’t pay attention to them; they aren’t really prolife.” And people who would’ve at least listened to the Catholic speaker become just that much more unwilling to listen.

When a Muslim speaker gets up and says that the-acts-of-September-11-were-wrong-but-it’s-understandable-how-those-martyrs-felt-given-the-way-the-West-is-so-evil, we discount that speaker’s position because of its hypocrisy. When an allegedly prolife person says the-killing-of-Tiller-was-wrong-but-it’s-understandable-how-that-martyr-felt-given-the-way-the-country’s-support-of-abortion-is-so-evil, that person gets discounted because of his or her hypocrisy.

Roeder’s murder of Tiller was anti-life. It also hurt the prolife cause. So does every comment made in support of his act.

you’re obviously not pro-life…

i guess i should have directed the question at practicing Catholics and other devout christians…

 

[distracted]

He’s guilty of murder. And it’s not even a difficult question – not by a long shot.

He killed another human being. That’s gravely immoral. I assume he’s claiming the right of “defense of others” – but there wasn’t anyone in immediate danger at the time (the abortionist was in church; he wasn’t about to perform an abortion). So his claim is patently false.

OP).

godfollower??

oh how we humans tend to create God in our own image…

oh our need for strict adhereence to that most worthy of instituttions that teaches absolute truth… the RCC…

 

[distracted]

“If bloodless means are sufficient to defend human lives against an aggressor and to protect public order and the safety of persons, public authority should limit itself to such means…” (2267).

If the pope were to speak out on this Tiller thing, i believe he would (seem to) dance around the issue because he would not wnt to be misunderstood (if he were to be more/less supportive of what Roeder did)… He would probably quote this part of the catechism and leave it for us to decide whether or not the criterion is met…

, I don’t think we can find evidence in Church teaching to condone their actions.

Again, I grant that this is a difficult issue, but I don’t think the Pope has, will or should speak in support of such actions.

i doubt the Church would condemn them either… In fact, i’d go so far as to say i KNOW it wouldn’t… I doubt the Church is going to make an official stand on this… again, possibly because she could be misunderstood (etc)… but then, God knows what the Church will do…

PS. I teach courses on terrorism and the killing of Tiller is a classic definition of terrorism. It is the use of violence (killing Tiller) to cause fear (among abortionists) to achieve a political gain (a decrease in the number of abortions and possibly and end to the practice).

this is inconsistent with what you have said before… so i am disappointed… with you… I don’t like it when people contradict themselves…

we have an objective definition of terrorism, we may agree with a terrorists objectives, but still condemn his means.

defending - no, protecting - the innocent is NOT terrorism…

The question then is do the ends justify the means?

now you seem to be back to your old self… and the answer is: In this case: YES… because legal means have not worked for 36 yrs… How many babies have to die before anything is done??? 50 milliion is not enough??? .

ONE was too many…

PSS. The Catechism speaks about killing, but appears to avoid the term murder. In my dictionary (The New World Dictionary) it defines murder as the “unlawful killing” and makes no reference to the guilt or innocence of the victim. Thus one arsonist killing another is still murder.

well maybe someone needs to revise the Catechism…

In law, murder is defined as killing an innocent person…

 

[DL82]

In law, murder is defined as killing an innocent person…

In law, murder is defined as deliberate killing of any person. Even in self defence, if you deliberately kill someone when it would have been just as easy to incapacitate them in some other way, (like say someone attacks you with a knife, you take the knife from their hand and slit their throat with it - it would have been enough to take the knife from their hand and then walk away) it’s murder.

In cases where someone kills out of revenge, sometimes a court will be lenient on the grounds of temporary insanity - the person taking revenge on the killer of their wife/child/friend was so out of their mind with grief that they weren’t acting rationally. That’s not the same as taking account of the other person’s guilt. If they calmly planned their revenge, that’s murder.

Innocence does not come into it.

 

[distracted]

Do you think that someone as scholarly and thoughtful as the Holy Father would take time to discuss one common criminal?

I think he has better things to do with his time.

that’s your opinion…

John Paul II not only did “take the time” to deal with a “common criminal” (who, uh… by the way, are HUMAN too… )… but actually ***visited ***the man who tried to murder him…

 

[distracted]

In law, murder is defined as deliberate killing of any person. Even in self defence, if you deliberately kill someone when it would have been just as easy to incapacitate them in some other way, (like say someone attacks you with a knife, you take the knife from their hand and slit their throat with it - it would have been enough to take the knife from their hand and then walk away) it’s murder.

it.

your story about the knife is way off… THAT is murder…

protecting someone from a murderer is NOT murder…

 

[Prof_K]

this is all i have time to read of your post for now…

but … i feel that society has done all it can to try to use “bloodless means” to stop the killing of the unborn… & i feel we ARE in a war… How can you call it anything but?

more later…

I think that this is where we fundamentally disagree. I for one can and should do more to stop abortion. Even if everyone who claimed they would oppose abortion would vote on this principle are political system would be fundamentally altered. If say 50% of people believe abortion is wrong (polls differ on the point) refused to vote for pro-Choice politicians, then neither party would be pro-Choice. Our political parties are not logical, or ethical creations, they are practical coalitions of often contradictory groups trying to put together winning solutions.

If all so-called pro-life people consistently voted this way, much would change. Those of us who do vote consistently pro-life certainly could do more to persuade others. Yes, I am horribly troubled by the fact that innocent lives are being lost while we debate, but until the Church says violence is justified, I will focus on the other means I believe remain. My faith in Jesus suggest that if we trust in him and work harder we can end abortion without resorting to the violence which characterizes the abortion industry. Thus I share your goals. I even share your caveat that force may be justified when other methods are exhausted. I just don’t share your assessment that all non-violent means have been exhausted. If the Pope declares that to be the case, I will be one of the first to arm the barricades. But how many of us even picket? How many commit a large portion of our funds to pro-Life causes? I for one can and should do more. I believe I am not alone among those of use who are pro-life.

PS. According to international law a war is a military action undertaken by a legally recognized sovereign government. Ironically, the Vatican (which possesses, land, a people and a recognized government) is one such government. It has the legal right to declare war if it should so desire.