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rpp
Guest
No.
Where does it say anything about “immediate danger”? Neither that phrase or anything similar are there.
It does say that the application of the death penalty should be rare.
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Where does it say anything about “immediate danger”? Neither that phrase or anything similar are there.
It does say that the application of the death penalty should be rare.
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SoCalRC
Guest
But it is a comparison of scale. We know that some people convicted and executed were innocent of the charges. He was using hyperbole, certainly, but I think that the point remains valid.
Regarding ‘imminent’, I think that is the wrong question. The issue is, are the risks significant? We have the Magesterium’s position that they are not, and we have data from other industrialized nations suggesting that they are not. Since some innocent lives are claimed, quantifying any impact on societal risk would seem to be relevant.
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Ender
Guest
Apparently there is ambiguity because it is obviously not clear to most people that the teaching on the death penalty is prudential. We may not reject an infallible or ordinary teaching but we are under no obligation to accept prudential ones even when issued by a pope.
Ender
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rpp
Guest
You have completely confused me here. I cannot figure out what the object of the third sentence is. I am not sure what point you are trying to make. Assessing risks?
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melensdad
Guest
While I generally oppose the death penalty, I am in agreement with your interpretation of the Catechism. I believe we over-use the death penalty and I believe when it is used it is never applied in anything remotely swift so therefore I don’t consider it a very viable deterrent. Still, the Church does allow for it to be carried out.
The CCC states that it should be reserved for where there is no other viable way to protect society. It could be argued that in a situation where prison systems are completely over crowded, where the prisons themselves are unsafe for guards and workers, and where even prisoners are at risk, then under those circumstances the use of the death penalty, for a seriously dangerous and rightly convicted criminal, may be justified, especially since the prison is, itself, its own society that must be protected.
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Ray_Scheel
Guest
This claim, that the Magesterium - which will not issue a teaching contrary to prior Magesterial or otherwise infallibly promulgated teaching - has stated a a concrete position has previously been challenged using official church teaching, and the challenge to this point remains unanswered. There is an unpleasant name for publicly and knowingly repeating a claim about Church teaching that one knows currently stands as proven false.
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Texas_Roofer
Guest
The slaughter of the innocents is a bible story, you are being asked if license covered the participants?
Guilt and Not Guilty are legal definitions which are not synonymies with committing the crime. What is a “grave crime”? If you are falsely convicted as in mistaken eyewitness testimony you are guilty. Is that a grave crime? Should you be killed even after others prove you innocent? Being proven innocent does not change the fact you were convicted of a crime? So if you believe the guilty verdict is the key would you kill people known to be falsely convicted? After all they met your standard for death.
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Texas_Roofer
Guest
Let me try to help you. No one has cited a Catholic teaching which allows license to killing people who commited no sin, thus whether your plan kills one or one thousand is not the issue. The issue is you had no permission to kill any innocent people.
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Texas_Roofer
Guest
It is printed for you in Post #186 “authority will limit itself to such means”
You may want to read the cateshim again concern false claims.
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zeke1319
Guest
How do they come to their conclusion? I notice where God often says “surely be put to death” and doesn’t give options, and this has been pointed out in this thread by others.
When God makes an implicit statement like “he shall surely be put to death” that gives the impression that imprisonment is unjust.
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Ray_Scheel
Guest
Simply repeating a reference to the same false equivalence you’ve been endorsing does not address the challenge made to it.
As far as I can tell, no one is denying that the Church has the prerogative to teach that the state should restrict use of the DP if it has other the means to achieve an equivalent level of safety for society while maintaining a balance against its other responsibilities. But that is less than half of what is required for the conclusion you endorse
What you and SoCal have avoided doing is backing up your claims that the Magesterium now officially claims the authority to make that determination for the State and, by extension, that the Church can oblige the State to alter how it spends its resources in a way other than how the State has determined was the best balance for the common good.
Yet another deliberate false statement about what is already in black and white on this thread (there is an unpleasant word for that too). I have recently (post #184) referenced the position of a soldier at war serving at the order of the State, which does allow for taking the lives of the opposing force whether or not the opposition had “sinned”. You are rather obviously trying to tune out the parts of Church teaching that are inconvenient to your interpretations.
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Ray_Scheel
Guest
You made the (false) claim about the conditions necessary for use of capital punishment, thus you get to either back it up or withdraw it.
No one has claimed a necessity for immediate (today) termination of the suspects or even rushing the appeals process used to establish certainty of the sentence, so no one is obliged to address the combination of a straw man with begging the question that you posed here.
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Ender
Guest
You’re doing a good job of arguing your position on the nature of the teaching on the death penalty and obviously I agree with what you’ve said, but I disagree with the comment you made above. It is justice that requires a punishment commensurate with the severity of the crime and I believe there are times when the only punishment that meets that criterion is the death penalty.
The safety of society (including prison guards) is a serious but secondary justification and should not be the concern that determines the extent of the punishment. The primary determinate is the demand of justice.
Ender
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Ray_Scheel
Guest
Which is why I left the “almost” in there, though I am hopeful that as the implementation of criminal justice and medical technology improvements take place that they will more often catch things before the point where the DP was even on the table as a punishment. There will always be the “hard” cases. Though I’m a bit of a pessimist about the current status of the overall social system, I remain an optimist that mankind will eventually improve itself.
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Ender
Guest
We may be haggling over small things but we have different views of justice. Justice is the greatest of the virtues because it applies to all our interactions with others: “the proper matter of justice consists of those things that belong to our intercourse with other men.” (I/II 58-1) It is not at all a matter of “mere” legal remedies but is certainly not separable from them. It applies to everything we do that affects someone else.
**"**Punishment is proportionate to sin in point of severity, both in Divine and in human judgments." (I/II 87-3) The punishment must be proportionate to the action, it may or may not be proportionate to the outcome.
There is no question of evil for evils sake. **“God does not delight in punishments for their own sake; but He does delight in the order of His justice, which requires them.” **
Aquinas addresses the therapeutic affect of punishment. (I/II 87-6) **"**Now evil is privation of good. And since man’s good is manifold, … it happens sometimes that man suffers the loss of a lesser good, that he may profit in a greater good, … for the sake of his soul’s health and the glory of God. In such cases the loss is an evil to man, not simply but relatively; wherefore it does not answer to the name of punishment simply, but of medicinal punishment."
Ender Part I
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Ender
Guest
Voco Pro Tatiano:
Ender Part II
I think the misunderstanding has been ours and I don’t think this is a question of “real politic” - the sinner was no less capable of repentance and healing in Aquinas’ time than in ours. I think we misunderstood the nature of vengeance. As Aquinas defines it it is “the infliction of a penal evil on one who has sinned”, something that is meted out for an offense against another person. This kind of punishment is forbidden to individuals but is required of the state. We think of vengeance as evil but this is true only when it is inflicted by an individual; when it is inflicted by the state it is a necessary aspect of justice.
The Church reveres justice which requires the punishment of the wicked which goes by the name of vengeance.
I hate to get into word games and I fear that’s just where we’re headed. God said that vengeance is his - why would he claim something as his if it were inherently evil? It is crucial to make the distinction between what an individual may do and what a magistrate may do.
No, it is a necessity contained within the concept of justice.
Ender Part II
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SoCalRC
Guest
I’m sorry, but I don’t understand how I’ve made any such claim. The Church has very little control over the State, regardless of a recent flurry of threats towards Catholic politicians. What the Church can do is render its opinion on moral aspects of contemporary issues.
If a person believes in an apostolic Church, then that opinion should carry serious weight. It has not been presented as an infallible teaching, so I have repeatedly noted that I would be hesitant to argue that others are ‘wrong’. However, I have tried to insist that we do not falsely indicate that the Church’s position, in of itself, is unclear. Yes, there are contradictions in Holy Tradition, just as there are some contradictions in Holy Scripture, but, for Catholics, it is the Magesterium that is supposed to use the Gift of Authority to keep us on the right path.
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SoCalRC
Guest
But God, in the form of our Savior, also instructed us to love our enemies and “turn the other cheek”… To really answer your question I would recommend Pope John Paul II’s GOSPEL OF LIFE. In the encyclical he lays out a foundation that all life is precious under our faith and that we have special responsibilties to innocent and defenseless life.
He then presented three teachings as infallible via the Ordinary Magesterium (infallibility of the Church, not papal infallibility). Murder, direct Abortion, and direct Euthenasia are always a grave moral disorder. Let’s look at one. Remember, our ban on direct abortion is absolute, it is gravely sinful even to save the life of the mother.
But you will not find this complete ban supported in Holy Scripture. Even in the encyclical, his Holiness noted that Scripture gives no direct guidance on abortion. Nor will you find it in Holy Tradition. We know that abortions to save the mother were permitted under the Halacha (Jewish law) during Jesus’ time. Similiarly, abortions to save the life of the mother or even of deformed children were supported in Christian writing as early as the 2nd century. You can then trace such exceptions in theological writings through the ages until the end of the 19th century.
But as our understanding of reproduction changed and as things like Eugenics movements started to gain popularity, the Magesterium responded by taking positions on certain things that had previously been deferred to theologians (like protecting the life of the mother). John Paul II re-enforced this by connecting that teaching to our broad responsibilities to life in general, and innocent life in particular.
In a sense, the death penalty is a flip side of this argument. When you propose that innocent and defenseless life one of the closest things to an absolute in our faith, then some issues become more complicated. We know that the DP claims some innocent lives. Innocents who are totally in the power of the state when executed. If this is gravely evil with a fertilized zygote, or with a person in a persistive vegative state, then it is reasonable to argue that it is gravely evil with a concious, fully developed adult.
So, in order to justify this evil, society must have a very strong, compelling reason. Historically, society’s right to self defense has most often been argued (though some, like Ender, argue a compelling need for “justice”). The Pope reiterated that the right to self defense exists, but argued that in a modern society with a modern prison system, it was very likely not compelling enough to justify executing the guilty, let alone occassional innocents.
Remember, even by 1993 when the GOSPEL OF LIFE was written, most western industrialized nations had elliminated the death penalty. So statistical evidence already appeared to back up the Pope’s assertion that societal risk in modern countries is imperceptibly small.
As I have mentioned, I was moved by the encyclical. Some implications, like euthenasia in particular, really resonated with me. The comments on the DP were harder for me to accept. However, for me (and I just mean me, not a judgement of others) it seemed appropriate to accept a ‘hard’ implication as well as ‘easy’ implications. Over time, I have gone from simply obeying to accepting, though, like ‘no exceptions for the life of the mother’ with abortion, it is still a difficult teaching for me.
Best Regards
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Texas_Roofer
Guest
I would say go back and read John 8 Jesus saves the woman caught in adultery why? Remember God’s punishment for Cain. Adam disobeyed God yet he was not punished by death, or David (God refuse the Temple for David). God often choose another means, in both the Old and New Testament. Jesus could have killed many yet he killed none. What did Jesus do when John the Baptist was killed? Jesus said he was not here to break the Law but to fulfill the Law, so why did he appear to break the law, in my opinion (IMO) the real answer to your question is the difference between what inspired men wrote verses God’s actions. *Jesus said because of your hard heart……. *personally I think that applies here.
I hope that helps
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