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Mirdath
Guest
So moral goods are different, therefore moral ills are different, therefore morality changes, therefore you’re espousing moral relativism.
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LJN21
Guest
That’s not what I said at all.
Are you saying since they didn’t have lethal injection yet the death penalty was immoral? So the Catholic Church that has been teaching for 2k years that the death penalty is moral when in fact it wasn’t?
What were the norms of execution when St. Thomas Aquinas wrote the Summa?
Heck, What were the norms of execution when St. Paul wrote Romans 13?
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BelFarfalla
Guest
Are you saying since they didn’t have lethal injection yet the death penalty was immoral? So the Catholic Church that has been teaching for 2k years that the death penalty is moral when in fact it wasn’t?
What were the norms of execution when St. Thomas Aquinas wrote the Summa?
Heck, What were the norms of execution when St. Paul wrote Romans 13?
Burning was the punishment under ancient Roman punishment for treason after crucifixion had been abolished in the fourth century. It was consequently used by the Holy Roman Empire to deal with traitors and heresy was widely seen as a particularly serious kind of treason. Although the church never specifically sanctioned burning once a heretic had been ‘relaxed’ to the secular arm, it was always perfectly well aware that this would be the result. If the heretic confessed after sentence had already been passed then it was usually commuted to strangulation by the executioner before the pyre was lit. In any case the victim often suffocated before the flames reached them although a skilled executioner could prevent this if instructed. In some jurisdictions burning was not the punishment used, for example the Venetians drowned traitors and heretics).
The English used “hanged, drawn and quartered” as punishment for treason. It was used extensively in the execution of Catholics in the Protestant Inquisition.
- Dragged on a hurdle (a wooden frame) to the place of execution. (This is one possible meaning of drawn.)
- Hanged by the neck for a short time or until almost dead. (hanged).
- Disemboweled, and the genitalia and entrails burned before the condemned’s eyes
4.**** ****Beheaded and the body divided into four parts (quartered).
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drawing_and_quartering
Which way would you choose to be executed? It’s only in the last century or so that people have actually started to worry about not hurting the condemned while killing them.
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KarenNC
Guest
So you believe that in Medieval Europe they considered burning people alive was a reasonable and humane way to execute? I would buy beheading (after all the guillotine was originally a humane reform because it killed more swiftly and surely than beheading with an axe), but not burning alive.
Sorry, there is no context, now or in human history, in which one can sanely say that burning someone alive is anything less than deliberately cruel. It has nothing to do with “today’s prison and execution systems.”
Yes indeed 
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Keikiolu
Guest
Sometimes being “deliberately cruel” was the POINT of the punishment.
There were many periods, including now in some parts of the world, where the mob would be just as happy to kill the PERSECUTOR if they DIDN’T punish the “offender” with maximum deliberate cruelty.
In such a situation, the “difficulty” of doing the right (moral) thing goes up several magnitudes.
Is the cruel punishment still cruel? Yes. Is it still immoral? Yes.
Is cruel punishment more likely to occur under those conditions? Yes.
That’s why God reveals these things to us over time. So that we can change our conditions so that the moral choice gets easier to choose.
The sins of those who inflict cruel punishment create a counter reaction in good men to change the world so that it’s harder to commit that sin in the future.
Mahalo ke Akua…!
E pili mau na pomaika
i ia oe. Aloha nui.
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Singinbeauty
Guest
Gee… I am REALLY glad that the catholic church isn’t comprised of people who ALL think the same as some of these posts… Whew…
If it wasn’t so bad and it was justified why would the Pope, the highest HUMAN position in the catholic church, apologise for these executions and other tragedies?
If it wasn’t so bad and it was justified why would the Pope, the highest HUMAN position in the catholic church, apologise for these executions and other tragedies?
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mercygate
Guest
I agree. Now if only the Queen would apologize for the Catholics the English crown burned at the stake, we would start to get somewhere. But who could apologize for the other Protestant governments who burned Catholics and other religious dissenters for “heresy?”Gee… I am REALLY glad that the catholic church isn’t comprised of people who ALL think the same as some of these posts… Whew…
If it wasn’t so bad and it was justified why would the Pope, the highest HUMAN position in the catholic church, apologise for these executions and other tragedies?
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KarenNC
Guest
Read the history of the guillotine
europeanhistory.about.com/cs/frenchrevolution/a/Guillotine.htm
There has been concern for a lot longer than the last century.
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LilyM
Guest
Not moral goods, social mores and other surrounding circumstances. And they have always partially determined the morality or immorality of any act.
Cold-blooded murderous killing of a person is precisely the same physical act as killing in self-defence, yet the first is universally condemned and always has been, and the second is fine and always has been.
So executing heretics when you’ve sworn to uphold the faith - or taken an oath of kingship a time when it was an explicit duty of monarchs to defend the faith in their territories - is totally different to executing heretics when you’ve sworn to uphold a modern constitution forbidding discrimination on the basis of religious opinion.
That’s not to say that some of those charged with the duty of dealing with heretics didn’t go too far, and imprison or execute suspected heretics on insufficient or manifestly inaccurate and coerced evidence. Every government that has prisons or a death penalty should apologise in the same manner as JP2, since they’ve all beyond a doubt imprisoned and executed criminals wrongfully. Doesn’t invalidate the concepts as a whole.
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rr1213
Guest
Well, then, it’s good that Aquinas isn’t in charge of the world, isn’t it?
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BelFarfalla
Guest
The guillotine, by today’s standards is not humane.
If you had read my post, you would have seen that that Romans came to a point at which they considered crucifixion to be inhumane and thus they went started using burning… people die much quicker when burned.
And it is more humane then the method the English loved to use ----- “hanged, drawn and quartered”. I would choose being burned over this grotesque method any day.
Today we give people drugs so that they are so doped up they are not fully aware of what is happening when they are executed.
The current medical consensus is that life does survive, for a period of roughly thirteen seconds, varying slightly depending on the victim’s build, health and the immediate circumstances of the decapitation. The simple act of removing a head from a body is not what kills the brain, rather, it is the lack of oxygen and other important chemicals provided in the bloodstream. To quote Dr. Ron Wright “The 13 seconds is the amount of high energy phosphates that the cytochromes in the brain have to keep going without new oxygen and glucose” (Cited from urbanlegends.com, no longer extant). The precise post-execution lifespan will depend on how much oxygen, and other chemicals, were in the brain at the point of decapitation; however, eyes could certainly move and blink.
This solely technical survival forms only part of the answer; the second question is ‘how long does the victim remain aware?’ While the brain remains chemically alive, consciousness can cease immediately, especially if the victim is knocked unconscious by the force of the decapitating blow. Conversely, an individual could remain self-aware - able to see through their eyes and understand what has happened - for much of the thirteen-second period. There is no consistency in this answer, as the precise length of both actual, and practical, survival will vary depending on the victim. Of course, this applies to many forms of swift decapitation, and not just to the victims of la guillotine.
europeanhistory.about.com/library/bldyk10.htm
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KarenNC
Guest
So you are willing to admit that simply because something was considered moral and acceptable by a religion at one point in time, even enshrined in its revealed Scripture as a requirement, does not mean that it must always be so in light of changing social conditions? That it is possible and, in fact, at times desirable as that change to a different way of viewing an action (even if it is resisted) may be the way that God may be choosing to reveal something that humanity may not have been ready to accept previously because our society was not ready for it?
Hmmm, now that has lots of potential applications…
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LJN21
Guest
Considering Aquinas is a Doctor of the Church his opinion does hold some actual weight.
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rr1213
Guest
I agree. Everything I really need to know I learned in Kindergarten…“Now kiddies, it’s a no-no to burn people alive at the stake!” Oops…looks like some folks didn’t learn that lesson…
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Singinbeauty
Guest
It’s horrible the way that people behave isn’t it?
But the thing that gets me, and this is an honest question here, how can the catholic church claim unity but then disown some of it’s leaders just because of the heinous practices that they held? IF the catholic church is as united and ONE as it claims to be then they would have to take ownership of its leaders and own up to these issues as the Pope did when he apologized.
See, that is why protestants today would not need to apologize for the evil that those men did. For one I don’t believe anyone who loves God and really needs to do the Will of God would do those things so those ‘protestants’ really aren’t good examples of christians are they? If they are christian I leave that to God to know but I don’t believe that the Body of Christ would kill eachother as we humans have. I have no desire to kill catholics because of what they believe nor did Christ believe in killing anyone who didn’t believe. He simply said to tell them the Truth and if they ignore it then leave that town and don’t look back. He didn’t say to wage war or to pray that God would strike the city down. But to plant the seed and leave it up to God.
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Mirdath
Guest
Oh. Well then, considering how our legal code is set up, what’s the fuss over abortion? It’s perfectly in line with American (and, I believe, Australian) law, not to mention the social mores and problems of the day.
And don’t tell me it’s because unborn babies are innocent. Non-Catholics, heretics, and schismatics then were just as innocent relative to their fates, assuming they did not commit other civil crimes.
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Kevan
Guest
I’m afraid I’m not following you here, Keikiolu. I asked you to give us some examples of what the Church HAS done so that we might compare it to the things which its member have done and, hopefully, see the difference you keep insisting on.
You’ve told us repeatedly that the Church didn’t do the things we’re objecting to. Instead, you keep saying, it was only the Church’s members who did them.
So, can you list off a few things that the Church HAS done. If the Church didn’t do the things under discussion, can you tell us some things the Church DID do?
Or is it correct to say that the Church has never done a bloomin’ thing in 2,000 years?
I’m just trying to get a grip on your definitions. So I’ll repeat the question: please give us some examples of things the Church HAS done so that we may compare them to the things that her members have done and, hopefully, understand why the first fall in the first category and the others fall in the other category.
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Zooey
Guest
And the methods of execution were those which were believed to be the most humane at the time…In fact, I think that was required, wasn’t it?
(Please note: I am not arguing for the death penalty here. I am simply agreeing with Valke2, when he points out that Jewish courts were very loath to execute anyone, andd when they did, they wanted it to be a rapid & [relatively] painfree as possible, *at that particular time *).
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BelFarfalla
Guest
I think that what she/he means is that when the Clergy & Church leaders are acting in accordance with the laws and doctrine of the Church they are acting in the way of the Church.
When a member of the Clergy or Church leaders behave in a manner that is inconsistent or breaks Church doctrine and laws, they are acting on their own.
For example if a priest murders someone, it is his own personal sin since he acted in direct contradiction to the doctrine and laws of the church… one of which is the commandment “Thou shall not commit murder.”
Now for something that the Church has done…. For around 2000 years the Church has maintained and education system that has educated billions of people, very often at no cost to the student. This is an act of the Church and it is in line with the Church’s doctrine that it has an obligation to bring the Word to all humanity and to do what it is good for it’s people.
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