I’ve always been under the impression that the Catholic Church supported the pro-life movement, which supposedly includes several stances: anti-abortion, anti-euthanasia, anti-death penalty. It’s always bothered me that republican candidates will be opposed to abortion, but not the death penalty. However, I recently learned that Catholic Church is not completely opposed to the death penalty either, though the Catechism would suggest that it’s use is almost never justified in the United States. How does all of this fit together?
What does it actually mean to be pro-life?
- Thread starter Mavzylor
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dmelosi
Guest
A person either believes what the church teaches or they don’t. I follow the church’s teaching on the death penalty.
The party of death has changed what pro-life means to make it easier for Catholics to vote for their party of death. They keep trying to change what pro-life actually means to ease their conscience for their open support of abortion through their party.
I’m not sure what you are suggesting here. Are you saying the pro-life movement was changed to include “anti-death penalty”?
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Vonsalza
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I guess you do have to qualify and grade it, like most everything else.
For example, I don’t support abortion-on-demand. So I’m “pro-life” in that regard.
But the local man (true story) that was arrested for raping a beautiful four-year-old girl, I could throw the switch on his electric chair and be fully confident that I was doing the Lords good work. I wouldn’t miss a wink of sleep over it.
So in that way, I’m not pro-life.
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dmelosi
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I am saying that democrats have changed the meaning of pro-life. Their claim is that the democratic party more supports other issues that they label as pro-life, to ease their conscience. They claim that government give outs are also considered pro-life simply to ease their conscience for supporting this party of death.
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Della
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It fits in the same way waging a just war fits with justified killing. The prohibition against killing in the Ten Commandments is against murder–the unjustified killing of another human being, not any and all killing of fellow human beings. This doesn’t mean that the death penalty is always the best option, but means that the death penalty is not inherently evil, as is the deliberate killing of innocent persons.
The death penalty is the business and right of governments in their efforts to protect their citizens against violent persons murdering others. So, it is up to governments to decide what crimes rise to that level of implementation.
The Church is merely cautioning governments to apply mercy whenever possible and firstly, before applying the death penalty–an extreme form of justice which cannot be reversed. Some say, OTOH, that a life of 30 or 40 years in prison is worse than knowing when one is going to be executed–I tend to agree with this, although I wouldn’t want to deny anyone a life sentence for this reason.
The death penalty ought to be used with great prudential judgment and never for revenge. Still, it’s not up to the Church to decide who should/shouldn’t come under the sentence of death. Most countries have limitations in place, such as age or mental health.
Considering it’s criminals who are being executed and not the innocent, and that, especially in our times when criminal investigations are so sophisticated the number of executions is minimal, it doesn’t rise to the same level of concern as abortion, where the number of innocent babies destroyed through legalized abortions is truly horrendous–the true holocaust of our times.
This is why voting for pro-life candidates who are against abortion but not the death penalty is the wise thing to do, as opposed to pro-death candidates who play on people’s abhorrence of the death penalty to get elected.
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Sy_Noe
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No the govt give outs as you call them actually are pro life in instances where such social programs can result in a woman not feeling she needs to choose to end her pregnancy.
Well the way to vote has never been an issue for me when weighing 60 million deaths to abortion vs a few thousand to capital punishment. I just don’t understand why republican candidates, even Catholic ones, never seem to have the same stance as the Church on the death penalty. The way I understand the Catechism, the death penalty is meant to only be used as a last resort to protect society, in rare cases like maybe where a criminal can’t adequately be detained and has the clear intent to harm others. Otherwise, it seems people should be given the opportunity to repent and seek redemption.
In the U.S. I can’t think of time when the death penalty is appropriate by the Catechism standards. Executing someone that has already been imprisoned for so long, and therefore successfully prevented from posing a threat to society, is cold blooded murder. There have even been a couple cases where people on death row have show a clear change of heart, full of regret, and willing repentance, that are still executed. Why don’t even the Catholic candidates like Marco Rubio and Rick Santorum speak on the death penalty in this way?
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dmelosi
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I agree that the government has a duty to protect and help those that need it, but the party of death use give outs to make people dependent on them and keep them under their thumb. Your party is going more and more towards full socialism.
I really encourage you stop calling it the party of death. Even if warranted, it is just antagonizing and counterproductive to having conversations. Would you be willing to listen to what someone has to say while they are referring to you as anti-woman’s rights? It’s best to just use the labels people identify as so as not to distract them from your message.
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Vonsalza
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The “party of death” is just keeping these people alive.
Their jobs went to Mexico in the last two decades and others have not popped up to replace them.
The money you saved on free trade just got redirected into taxes to feed the Americans that used to make your stuff.
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dmelosi
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I had thought that before, but the conversation when not calling it what it is, always seems to allow people to get comfortable with their argument. The bottom line is that it is the intentional and brutal killing of the most innocent of human beings. When people actually accept that, they may change they way they become apologists for their party.
Look how their arguments have been refined over the years to dumb down the fact of what it actually is.
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dmelosi
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Sorry, I didn’t follow this. Keeping what people alive? How are they keeping them alive?
Who is trying to change where jobs are? Who is trying to replace the lost jobs?
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Sy_Noe
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:clapping: But unfortunately CAF has always allowed this. It has occurred on the World News subforum frequently.
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dmelosi
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Do you disagree that abortion is the intentional killing of the most innocent and which party fully supports that?
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dmelosi
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As you can see by another posters response, that calling it anything other than what it is, only allow them to become more entrenched. It eases their conscience to call it other than what it is.
Would you say the same thing to Jews who do not want the holocaust to be forgotten, because they keep reminding people what it actually was?
Fair point as far as I’m concerned.
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Joe_5859
Guest
In popular parlance, being “pro-life” is most commonly understood as being against abortion.
The problem is (as is the case with many things) is that different people want to define terns differently. Some people want to use the “pro-life” label only to apply to being against abortion. Other people want to expand the meaning of being “pro-life” to encompass not just abortion, euthanasia and the death penalty, but also environmental issues, poverty issues, economic issues, and everything else under the sun. Others fall somewhere in between. Still others want to abandon the use of the “pro-life” category entirely.
It would be a mistake to look to the Church to approve a particular movement, but then look to politicians to define what that movement is thereby leaving the Church holding the bag to approve whatever the politicians want to retroactively define the movement to be about.
For us as Catholics, the important thing is to know and adhere to the Catholic teaching on all moral issues. Catholic teaching is all “pro-life” in a certain respect because it is all about getting us to know and love God and be with Him forever. It is about fulfilling our ultimate destiny to live life according to God’s plan and be fully alive with Him for eternity. That is life as it is meant to be lived. You can’t get more pro-life than that.
Don’t expect any political party to be in lock step with Catholic teaching. Which is not to say that certain political parties and/or certain candidates come closer than others.
I tend to just use the term in regards to abortion because that is what immediately comes to mind for most people when they hear the term. But I’ll use it however people want depending on the topic of conversation.
I think we need to be careful to avoid two tendencies with related to the discussion of what it means to be “pro-life.” The first is the tendency to ridicule or dismiss pro-life people as being only against abortion and not caring one whit about [fill in the blank with favorite political cause and/or social justice issue].
The second tendency (which is somewhat related to the first one) is to seek to then expand the term to be used so broadly as to necessitate constant caveats and tangents to simultaneously address all these issues all at once. As in “I’ll consider what you’re saying about abortion after you prove you are fully ‘pro-life’ and tell me how you also plan to end the death penalty, stop all wars, end world hunger, and adopt foreign special needs orphans.”
Both tendencies tend to be designed to stall discussion of ending abortion by implying that pro-life people aren’t really “pro-life.”
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Sy_Noe
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What I disagree with is the view that abortion can not be a much more complex issue. I believe women’s lives and the lives of their family members are also sacred. And I’m not in every woman’s shoes to know how the Catholic position of having the government to force her to make the decision to carry to term a pregnancy such as one occurring by the horrific crime of rape might affect a woman’s life. Or how if a pregnancy is detrimental to a woman’s health or to her own life, how that might affect her and her family members including the children she might already have. I also know if the Republican Party is successful in overturning Roe v Wade, there will still be states where abortion will remain legal and women will travel to those states for an abortion. And poor women who can not afford to travel could still procure an illegal abortion. And abortion rates have dropped for decades regardless of, for instance, which party has been in the WH. And I also know it was Republican justices that brought us the Roe ruling. The decision was a 7-2 vote and 5 of the 7 were Republican appointees. I also believe further funding for social programs, nutritional and child care, healthcare, education and so forth are ways to continue the decline in abortion.
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dmelosi
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By calling abortion other than what it really is, allow your arguments above to help others justify their support of abortion. Apologists always bring up the rare instances to justify their vote. Ok, take out those rare instances and condemn it. On one hand you say you are not in a woman’s shoes to know the decision, then you justify that by naming rare instances.
Try putting yourself in the most innocents shoes who is about to be killed and then talk about it.
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