Support the Death Penalty?

[Ender]

The teaching on the death penalty is prudential and not binding.

Wow !
I will not be walking this road with you.

Would it change your mind some to know that I am taking the same road being traveled by BXVI, Cardinal Avery Dulles, and the USCCB? The comment above is not my interpretation, it is theirs.

Ender

 

[Ray_Scheel]

You answered the question !!!

Why are you acting as if this was a new thing, as I first referenced the non-culpability of the executioner under the conditions you specified previously back in post 150, which was about 1/3 of the thread ago. Thank you for finally noticing.

Error one if the executioner knows the individual to be innocent he must refuse the duty. If the executioner does not know the individual to be innocent he is shielded. If the executioner is under duress he may be shielded.

There is a substantial difference between knowing someone is innocent versus your original wording (in post 146) which was a much lower bar of simply not believing their guilt had been reasonably established. Under the US system of law, someone with that sort of direct knowledge of the crime wouldn’t be allowed that kind of access to that particular convict anyway.

Error 2 Natural law covers the information in error 1, Natural Law does not allow a state such authority, Natural Laws reduces state authority.

How am I in error with a position that Natural Law defines the scope and limit of authority, or that the Church has identified that temporal authority - including the authority to make a determination of how to best serve the common good - is the sole domain of the State?

The state is allowed what men agree to and that agreement cannot contradict Natural Moral Law so the killing of innocent people cannot be a state right.

Which brings you right back to a statement made as an absolute that is immediately contradicted by the concept of Just War, which the Church indicates is compatible with Natural Law, even when indiscriminate ordinance is used. I’ll cede that the State has no authority to intend to bring about the deaths of innocents, but double effect applies. If the State was intending to execute an innocent party, that is an altogether different thing from a moral perspective than doing so in error despite a reasonable attempt to make that determination in a just manner.

The YOU SHALL NOT KILL (Murder) is in Natural Moral Law and thus cannot be given to a state. When a man knows or believes another man to be innocent he is under Natural Moral Law not to murder.

The misuse of the term murder when applied to a capital sentence imposed by the State was addressed long ago, with those attempting to misuse the term making no effort to defend that usage. No person or group has the authority to murder, but the Church agrees that the State has the authority to impose a capital sentence. Therefore, it is a false equivalence to equate application of the Death Penalty with “murder”.

 

[Texas_Roofer]

The teaching on the death penalty is prudential and not binding.
Would it change your mind some to know that I am taking the same road being traveled by BXVI, Cardinal Avery Dulles, and the USCCB? The comment above is not my interpretation, it is theirs.

Ender

The catechism section would. Would you post BXVI and USCCB …(?)…opposing…(?) the catechism?

 

[Texas_Roofer]

…The misuse of the term murder when applied to a capital sentence imposed by the State was addressed long ago, with those attempting to misuse the term making no effort to defend that usage. No person or group has the authority to murder, but the Church agrees that the State has the authority to impose a capital sentence. Therefore, it is a false equivalence to equate application of the Death Penalty with “murder”.

The Nazi’s were the state government, and applied the death penalty to 6 million Jews. It was murder, murder I tell you.

 

[Ray_Scheel]

The Nazi’s were the state government, and applied the death penalty to 6 million Jews. It was murder, murder I tell you.

Yes, the Nazi regime is an excellent example of misusing State authority with the intent to bring about the deaths of innocents. Considering there were no trials, that genocide program clearly doesn’t have common ground with the application of the Death Penalty in criminl justice systems generally regarded as operating on just principles, because such a system was unjust on its face.

 

[Texas_Roofer]

Yes, the Nazi regime is an excellent example of misusing State authority with the intent to bring about the deaths of innocents. Considering there were no trials, that genocide program clearly doesn’t have common ground with the application of the Death Penalty in criminl justice systems generally regarded as operating on just principles, because such a system was unjust on its face.

Wow, now the claim is the individual must oppose a state rendered death penalty! (Albeit under some not all conditions.) Those executions were processed in a method good enough for the state. The state accepted the judicial process as adequate. Where did the state’s authority go? It seems now the state no longer has the authority it had last week.

BTW – it is not just Germany in the ‘30-‘40’s or the US in the 50’s-60’s (concerning blacks), these issues are inherent to people.

Thank you for discussing this issue

 

[Ender]

The catechism section would. Would you post BXVI and USCCB …(?)…opposing…(?) the catechism?

• Ratzinger - July 2004, Letter to Cardinal McCarrick on Worthiness to Receive Holy Communion:

• “**There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty”

holyhillcross.com/WORTHINESS%20TO%20RECEIVE%20COMMUNION.htm

• USCCB - Nov 2005: A Culture of Life and the Penalty of Death

• "*The death penalty arouses deep passions and strong convictions. People of goodwill disagree. In these reflections, we offer neither judgment nor condemnation…"

usccb.org/sdwp/national/penaltyofdeath.pdf

• Cardinal Avery Dulles - April 2001: Catholicism and Capital Punishment
  *“Like the Pope, the bishops do not rule out capital punishment altogether, but they say that it is not justifiable as practiced in the United States today. 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.”

leaderu.com/ftissues/ft0104/articles/dulles.html

Ender

 

[Ray_Scheel]

Wow, now the claim is the individual must oppose a state rendered death penalty! (Albeit under some not all conditions.)

As far as I can tell, that has always been your position. My position has always been that the state had the authority to utilize capital punishment provided it did so with the intent to protect society. When you brought up the Nazi’s, I suspected that you were attempting to introducing yet another false equivalence, namely that state sponsored genocide was indistinguishable in application from the conditions the Church has laid out allowing use of capital punishment. You now appear to be making yet another attempt to (falsely) imply my position shifted in post 233 when it had not in order to try to keep that false equivalence in play:

Those executions were processed in a method good enough for the state. The state accepted the judicial process as adequate. Where did the state’s authority go? It seems now the state no longer has the authority it had last week.

There was no judicial process in the extermination of the Jew by the Nazi regime. There was not even an allegation of any particular guilt. The people in charge of the resources of the State attained that level of power by ignoring the limits to the authority it had been granted. There was in fact every intent to not act in the interest or the common good of the population of that state as a whole. Trying to draw an equivalence between that and applying the death penalty when the guilty party’s identity and responsibility have been fully determined is nonsensical on its face

The conditions necessary for a just application of the death penalty have been consistently supported by those of us who disagree with JP II’s assessment of the abilities of modern prisons as they exist today, to the point that any implication otherwise can only be construed as an attempt by you to construct yet another straw man to attack as a distraction to the multitude of points you have abandoned or the deliberate misrepresentations you show no qualms about making one after another.

BTW – it is not just Germany in the ‘30-‘40’s or the US in the 50’s-60’s (concerning blacks), these issues are inherent to people.

Yes, this is yet another case where the State did not address the interst of the common good of those under authority and deliberately facilitated the systematic imposition of injustice. I suspect you are introducing this in an attempt to present yet another false equivalence that you will abandon as soon as its challenged.

 

[Texas_Roofer]

As far as I can tell, that has always been your position. My position has always been that the state had the authority to utilize capital punishment provided it did so with the intent to protect society. When you brought up the Nazi’s, I suspected that you were attempting to introducing yet another false equivalence, namely that state sponsored genocide was indistinguishable in application from the conditions the Church has laid out allowing use of capital punishment. You now appear to be making yet another attempt to (falsely) imply my position shifted in post 233 when it had not in order to try to keep that false equivalence in play:

There was no judicial process in the extermination of the Jew by the Nazi regime. There was not even an allegation of any particular guilt. The people in charge of the resources of the State attained that level of power by ignoring the limits to the authority it had been granted. There was in fact every intent to not act in the interest or the common good of the population of that state as a whole. Trying to draw an equivalence between that and applying the death penalty when the guilty party’s identity and responsibility have been fully determined is nonsensical on its face

The conditions necessary for a just application of the death penalty have been consistently supported by those of us who disagree with JP II’s assessment of the abilities of modern prisons as they exist today, to the point that any implication otherwise can only be construed as an attempt by you to construct yet another straw man to attack as a distraction to the multitude of points you have abandoned or the deliberate misrepresentations you show no qualms about making one after another.

Yes, this is yet another case where the State did not address the interst of the common good of those under authority and deliberately facilitated the systematic imposition of injustice. I suspect you are introducing this in an attempt to present yet another false equivalence that you will abandon as soon as its challenged.

Who are you to say that? Who are you to judge when the state met or did not met the criteria. Who are you to abondon the position if the state having the authority to decide? It seems you wish to agrue you can decide not the state.

 

[Amolibri]

“conditions necessary for a just application of the death penalty”

Can you not accept that there are those who believe there is NO such thing?

 

[Ray_Scheel]

“conditions necessary for a just application of the death penalty”

Can you not accept that there are those who believe there is NO such thing?

I accept that there are people who do not accept the consistent position of the Church on a great number of moral issues. That does not give them license to re-write what the Church has stated within its authority to suit their personal opinion. In this particular case, the citations where the Church has spelled out those conditions have been repeated in recent posts.

 

[Ray_Scheel]

Who are you to say that? Who are you to judge when the state met or did not met the criteria. Who are you to abondon the position if the state having the authority to decide? It seems you wish to agrue you can decide not the state.

There is not a single sentence in this post of yours that does not contain a previously exposed false allegation or rest on a false implication about what my position has been. This entire post of yours can be construed as nothing other than a deliberate personal attack, and as such, I accept your de facto admission that you have abandoned any attempt to defend your position with philosophically tenable means.

 

[Amolibri]

I accept that there are people who do not accept the consistent position of the Church on a great number of moral issues. That does not give them license to re-write what the Church has stated within its authority to suit their personal opinion. In this particular case, the citations where the Church has spelled out those conditions have been repeated in recent posts.

What ARE you talking about? This is a position about the state’s license to kill. Tell me what sin I’ve committed in opposing the state’s killing of a person on death row.

 

[melensdad]

I’ve been looking over and over this thread. I participated in it early but have lately been just watching.

Seems to me this whole thread is based on a couple things. First there are people who believe that there is NO VALID use/reason for the Death Penalty and they believe that the Church supports their position. Those people are wrong, based on the CCC.

Second, there are people who believe there are PLENTY OF VALID uses/reasons to support the Death Penalty and they believe the Church supports their position. Those people are also wrong, based on the CCC.

The truth, if my reading of the CCC and other Church position papers is somewhere in the middle.

• The Church clearly allows for the death penalty.
• The Church clearly does not like the application of the death penalty in the vast majority of cases.

Therefore, we should, as good Catholics, be very careful when we encounter the application of the Death Penalty. We should probably lean in favor of opposing it until it can be shown that there is an absolute need to impose it for the safety of the society. One thing that we should also consider, is the safety of the society INSIDE of prison. That society MUST be protected from extremely dangerous criminals in the same way that the general society must be protected, we are morally obligated to protect prisoners and keep them as safe as possible from transgression. Doesn’t mean we have to coddle them or provide them with luxuries, just means we can not let them setting things among themselves.

 

[Ray_Scheel]

What ARE you talking about? This is a position about the state’s license to kill. Tell me what sin I’ve committed in opposing the state’s killing of a person on death row.

There is no sin in disagreeing with the prudential judgment of the Church on exercising the death penalty. Ender just posted some quotations to that effect, and the relevant parts of the CCC and E.V. have been pasted in several times as well. Since I have not claimed that there was sin in someone personally “opposing the state’s killing of a person on death row”, I don’t know why you are demanding I prove as much.

The error would be saying that certain individuals voicing their own prudential judgment translates into a mandate for all Catholics to accept that position as being correct. What I have objected to is others falsely claiming that personal opinions on particular instances regarding this matter constitute binding Church teaching.

 

[Texas_Roofer]

There is not a single sentence in this post of yours that does not contain a previously exposed false allegation or rest on a false implication about what my position has been. This entire post of yours can be construed as nothing other than a deliberate personal attack, and as such, I accept your de facto admission that you have abandoned any attempt to defend your position with philosophically tenable means.

Actually, I stand by everything I have stated. I find your post as comical. You have accused me of many things, all without reason or accurate grounds. I know you do not see the irony in this and many other posts, however it is present. Who were you to judge? I have no “de facto admission” but you may see one. Seeing what is not there is called …

 

[adrift]

actually it did, because the numbers are minuscule it is not obvious however it is present
I cannot do a lot to help you with mass conspiracies

There is no way that you can prove they are minuscule.
I know many who are in the prison system. What I said happened. The prisoner was beat over the head and his death was reported as natural. It was not nor will it be the last time that such deaths are covered up by politicians. Working in prisons, is very dangerous and is not helped by people who wish to look the other way and make up numbers.

 

[Ender]

there are people who believe there are PLENTY OF VALID uses/reasons to support the Death Penalty and they believe the Church supports their position. Those people are also wrong, based on the CCC.

There is no argument about what the catechism says regarding the death penalty. Section 2267 has been endlessly posted and discussed and is straightforward in what it says. The issue for me is the nature of that teaching: whether it is ordinary, and therefore binding, or prudential and therefore optional. The reason this is significant is that if the teaching is prudential then it is not correct to say: “this is what the Church teaches, end of discussion.” Since the strongest argument against the death penalty is “this is what the Church teaches”, a determination that it is prudential is a substantial blow against the argument that the death penalty should not be used.

Ender

 

[melensdad]

The issue for me is the nature of that teaching: whether it is ordinary, and therefore binding, or prudential and therefore optional. . .

Ender

So is the rest of the CCC “ordinary” or is it “prudential” because it seems to me it is either all one, or all the other. I don’t think that the CCC is a ‘pick and choose’ sort of document where we can believe some of it is one thing and some of it is someting completely different. Basically I’m saying its black & white, no shades of gray.

 

[rpp]

So is the rest of the CCC “ordinary” or is it “prudential” because it seems to me it is either all one, or all the other. I don’t think that the CCC is a ‘pick and choose’ sort of document where we can believe some of it is one thing and some of it is someting completely different. Basically I’m saying its black & white, no shades of gray.

Have the other people been looking at the wrong section of the Catechism? If so, please post what you are referring. And when you do, please explain why our current pope said to Americans it is a matter of legitimate disagreement. (He was not Pope when he said that in 2004.)

Look, if you feel the death penalty is a bad thing, that is up to you and is not inconsistent with the Catholic faith. However, to claim the Church teaches it is wrong is incorrect.

It would be **equally wrong **to claim the Church encourages countries to implement a death penalty.