This is not what the Church teaches. The Church teaches:The punishment of crimes is a requirement of a just state. The state has not just the right to punish crime but a positive obligation to do so and the severity of the punishment must be proportional to the severity of the crime and the Church has from the very beginning recognized the right of the state to execute criminals for severe crimes. The question of punishment goes to the issue of justice and the primary objective of punishment is the restoration of the disorder caused by the sin, that is, retribution.
Ender
.Punishment has the primary aim of redressing the disorder introduced by the offense. When it is willingly accepted by the guilty party, it assumes the value of expiation. Punishment then, in addition to defending public order and protecting people’s safety, has a medicinal purpose: as far as possible, it must contribute to the correction of the guilty party
Capital punishment is not killing for vengeance, however the victim’s family members may think of it as that. It is removal of a murderer from society permanently.Killing for vengence is sinful.
[T]he Church teaches that capital punishment is reserved for cases where necessary to protect society. That is a situation that is increasingly rare.Capital punishment is disfavored for several reasons - one is that it can prevent the correction of the guilty party. By killing someone soon after their crime, we lessen his opportunity for salvation.
[/QUOTE]Capital punishment is not killing for vengeance, however the victim’s family members may think of it as that. It is removal of a murderer from society permanently.
Whether we give a person one day less or twenty years less, we should not bar anyone from approaching the Lord.
I take it you have little or no experience with “hard time” prisons. It is very easy for a killer to continue to kill there.I know, but that is an entirely seperate topic. We cannot justify killing because we have bad prisons, or because better prisons would be expensive.DaveBj
How about we justify executing murderers because that’s what God said to do with them?snip
I know, but that is an entirely seperate topic. We cannot justify killing because we have bad prisons, or because better prisons would be expensive.
Yes, this is exactly what I said. You disagree that this is what is meant by retribution. In a lengthy article on capital punishment Cardinal Avery Dulles makes this statement:This is not what the Church teaches. The Church teaches: * Punishment has the primary aim of redressing the disorder introduced by the offense* CCC 2266
This is what is contained in the catechism. It is, however, the prudential judgment of JPII (from his encyclical Evangelium Vitae) and does not rise to the level of an ordinary teaching of the Magisterium. It is a suggestion, not a command and I disagree with it. The protection of society is a secondary aspect of punishment and cannot be the determining factor in whether capital punishment is appropriate; that determination must lie with the primary objective - retribution.the Church teaches that capital punishment is reserved for cases where necessary to protect society.
Because it is not what God said to do with them.How about we justify executing murderers because that’s what God said to do with them?
DaveBj
OK, I will stick with the Catechism and the Pope on this one.Yes, this is exactly what I said. You disagree that this is what is meant by retribution. In a lengthy article on capital punishment Cardinal Avery Dulles makes this statement:
The purposes of criminal punishment are rather unanimously delineated in the Catholic tradition. Punishment is held to have a variety of ends that may conveniently be reduced to the following four: rehabilitation, defense against the criminal, deterrence, and retribution.
leaderu.com/ftissues/ft0104/articles/dulles.html
It is quite clear that Dulles is equating retribution with “redressing the disorder” and I am using the term in that context.
This is what is contained in the catechism. It is, however, the prudential judgment of JPII (from his encyclical Evangelium Vitae) and does not rise to the level of an ordinary teaching of the Magisterium. It is a suggestion, not a command and I disagree with it. The protection of society is a secondary aspect of punishment and cannot be the determining factor in whether capital punishment is appropriate; that determination must lie with the primary objective - retribution.
Ender
It would appear that this is precisely what God said:Because it is not what God said to do with them.
This is a reasonable position. It in no way answers any of my objections but I certainly don’t blame anyone who takes this path. I have been objecting to faulty arguments and in fact this is the only one that isn’t faulty. So long as you don’t try to defend the logic of their position, which I think is faulty, your ground is pretty unassailable. What started this thread were the arguments of the Washington bishops against capital punishment and as I said in my first post, their arguments were pitiful.OK, I will stick with the Catechism and the Pope on this one.