When, if ever, should Capitol Punishment be used?

[LongingSoul]

My goodness! That baby example was a real stretch. As a baby , he or she COULDNT have done anything EXCEPT use a diaper. I don’t need to go into detail!
But… There are plenty of reasons in recent church history and scandals to conclude that the passing of time and lack of common sense and discipline have resulted in the shape the church is in today. **The previous centuries, when the church and Popes and Doctors of the Church all thought it necessary and correct to have the death penalty **, were certainly "before " today, but to automatically conclude that today is better, is that value judgement I have a right not to make. As I have shown, Vatican City had the death penalty until 1969 .

It’s sentences like this that present an image of the Church that I don’t even recognise. It’s one of the things I’ve personally find really odd about the pro death penalty people in particular.

The Church did not ‘invent’ capital punishment. It is not a sacrament or a religious ritual. Death as a penal sentence, has been used throughout civilisation no doubt prior to Noah and certainly outside of any knowledge of Jewish/Christian laws. The Australian aboriginals had such a sentence in their tribal justice and in the Northern Territory within the remote traditional tribes, it was untouched by white mans laws when Australia abolished the death penalty. I’m not sure if it is still retained by them now as people have continued to abandon tribal life.

The point is that natural law allows for the death penalty for the sake of the common good. The Church has always recognised this and confirmed that it is divinely permitted for the sake of justice.

The world has now moved towards abolishing the death penalty as not being in keeping with human principles. Mans sensitivities to societies wellbeing is reflected in many new ways. As I said, the idea of social welfare and anti discrimination laws, but also accessible health care and education for all etc etc. In many ways we are a better world than we were before. That’s the natural trajectory of caring for the wellbeing of each and every citizen as public policy. Hopefully society will continue to re examine its attitudes towards things like abortion and euthanasia and abolish those ideas also as their destructiveness becomes more evident. But for now the world is abandoning the death penalty as something no longer in keeping with the wellbeing of society… the common good.

The Church in turn, recognises that movement as godly. She is not situated to create human laws. It isn’t correct let alone her place to say that God loves the death penalty, the world must keep it regardless of the common good. It’s perfectly natural that she convey the moral rightness of this humane decision to let the death penalty go just as it was perfectly natural that she conveyed in the past that human law that employed it in the interests of the common good, had no divine impediment. That’s the doctrine. What matters most to God, is that the life of man as His special creation is valued highly and that is reflected in mans care for one another and human laws that promote this.

 

[d97c]

“The world has now moved towards abolishing the death penalty as not being in keeping with human principles”…is what you said.
OH well, because the “world” is moving this way, lets get on the band wagon. Going with the world is what Christ would want??? The “world” effect on the church is something we need to avoid.
The “world” is moving toward homosexual marriage. Is that progress?? The modern "worldly"church produced a bankrupt Diocese of Milwaukee because of sexual abuse. There is nothing magic about the passage of time. Newer is not necessarily better. Reduction of parishes, number of priests and seminaries down, just try to find a nun to teach in a school, reduction of number of people going to confession, Catholics voting for a pro abortion President like Obama??etc. I’d say the modern thought is certainly not as valuable as Aquinas, Augustine and the centuries of Doctors and Popes and Catachisms which said that the infliction of the death penalty is the only proportional response to a Timothy McVeigh , who bombed the Oklahoma City Fed Building. Under your theory, we keep him alive and let tax payers feed and clothe and get him color tv and a weight room !!

 

[d97c]

The Catechism of the Council of Trent declared:

“Again, this prohibition (against taking a life)does not apply to the civil magistrate, to whom is entrusted the power of life and death, by the legal and judicious exercise of which he punishes the guilty and protects the innocent. The use of the civil sword, when wielded by the hand of justice, far from involving the crime of murder, is an act of paramount obedience to this commandment which prohibits murder. The end of the commandment is the preservation and sanctity of human life, and to the attainment of this end, the punishments inflicted by the civil magistrate, who is the legitimate avenger of crime, naturally tend, giving security to life by repressing outrage and violence.”

As the Tridentine Catechism teaches, the death penalty protects the sanctity of life through legitimate legal vengeance to repress outrage and violence in society. This involves just retribution and deterrence as legitimate aims of penal law.

The Catechism’s reference to the civil sword evokes St. Paul’s teaching on the divine right of civil authority to avenge wrongdoing by the sword: “But if thou do that which is evil, fear: for he beareth not the sword in vain. For he is God’s minister: an avenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil.” Rom. 13:4 Reflecting on this passage, St. Thomas teaches that capital punishment imitates divine justice; for after all, eternal damnation is the ultimate form of capital punishment: “According to the order of His wisdom God sometimes slays sinners forthwith in order to deliver the good, whereas he sometimes allows them time to repent, according as what is expedient to His elect. This also does human justice imitate according to its powers . . .” (ST II-II, Q. 64, Art. 2)

Thus the right of civil authority to punish evildoers by the sword in appropriate cases is a matter of revealed truth, not a changeable prudential judgment. This is not to deny that civil authority can exercise prudential judgment in abstaining from the exercise of its right to impose capital punishment, or even abolish it entirely in keeping with historical circumstances. For example, a few years ago the Governor of Illinois, Pat Quinn, signed an executive ban on the death penalty in his state given the appalling evidence of numerous executions of innocent persons in Illinois based on “forced confessions, unreliable witnesses, and incompetent legal representation.” As a lawyer, I am well familiar with the grave potential in any legal system for catastrophic miscarriages of justice which, in the case of capital punishment, cannot be rectified. The Church has never taught that civil authority must impose capital punishment for murder, but only that it has a divine sanction when it does so.

It must not be forgotten that the death penalty, like any criminal penalty, serves as a form of expiation. That is why prisons were once called penitentiaries. As Saint Thomas observes in the Summa: “Even death inflicted as a punishment for crimes takes away the whole punishment for those crimes in the next life, or at least part of that punishment, according to the quantities of guilt, resignation, and contrition; but a natural death does not.” (Cf. Romano Amerio Iota Unum, 435). Further, in the case of capital punishment the expiatory penalty reflects the sin of one whose grave crime has caused him to lose the right to life. Some 700 years after the Summa, Pope Pius XII repeated the constant teaching of the Church in this regard: “Even when it is a question of someone condemned to death, the state does not dispose of an individual’s right to life. It is then the task of public authority to deprive the condemned man of the good of life, in expiation of his fault, after he has already deprived himself of the right to life by his crime.” (AAS, 1952, pp. 779 et. seq)

 

[LongingSoul]

“The world has now moved towards abolishing the death penalty as not being in keeping with human principles”…is what you said.
OH well, because the “world” is moving this way, lets get on the band wagon. Going with the world is what Christ would want??? The “world” effect on the church is something we need to avoid.
The “world” is moving toward homosexual marriage. Is that progress?? The modern "worldly"church produced a bankrupt Diocese of Milwaukee because of sexual abuse. There is nothing magic about the passage of time. Newer is not necessarily better. Reduction of parishes, number of priests and seminaries down, just try to find a nun to teach in a school, reduction of number of people going to confession, Catholics voting for a pro abortion President like Obama??etc. I’d say the modern thought is certainly not as valuable as Aquinas, Augustine and the centuries of Doctors and Popes and Catachisms which said that the infliction of the death penalty is the only proportional response to a Timothy McVeigh , who bombed the Oklahoma City Fed Building. Under your theory, we keep him alive and let tax payers feed and clothe and get him color tv and a weight room !!

The reason that I emphasised the fact that this movement to abolish the death penalty is evolving within human law, is to remind you that this is how it came to mankind in the first place. Remember Aquinas’ words I posted a few posts ago…

"The Old Law is distinct from the natural law, not as being altogether different from it, but as something added thereto. For just as grace presupposes nature, so must the Divine law presuppose the natural law. "

If Aquinas were alive today, he would have addressed this issue in the same way that he did in his time… in the light of natural law. How does the death penalty serve society? This question goes beyond the immediate vengeance we feel for the criminal and asks us as a society to consider the wider effects. If we were a society that embodies perfect justice at every level, then we could be pretty certain of the state of a criminal’s soul. Our vengeance would then be more like Gods omnipotent, omnipresent vengeance. As it is in this fallen world, we cannot now and never were able to measure the culpability in relation to a person’s soul.

Our measure of culpability in determining the just punishment is in relation to how the crime affects society at large. How it impacts on the common good. When the Church contributes her weight to matters of human law, it is with all respect to man’s relationship to each other and the good of society. She is not there saying ‘we talked to God and this is what he said you have to do’. She addresses our attitudes and corrects our mistaken conceptions of her role.

The point is that when Aquinas and others addressed the issue of capital punishment in their day, it was in the context of its necessity to serving the common good of the day. The bent of the writings and the language served to affirm the doctrine that capital punishment is permitted in serving justice, both by natural and divine law.

Today, we have a highly secure and organised penal system. We have a greater awareness of how the failures of society impact on some groups more harmfully than on others, predisposing them to crime. We feel greater responsibility to each other in a way that makes us naturally more merciful towards those who fall whilst at the same time, keeping us safe from them.

That same Church that Aquinas represented back then, speaks another part of the doctrine in the light of our natural progress. She speaks of mercy as being an important aspect of human justice. She reminds us that mercy is not a failure in human beings to be just… it is a supreme virtue. She reminds us that so long as we address crime with the good of society in mind and the safety of the innocent… a merciful attitude is just according to both natural and divine law.

 

[d97c]

Evangelium Vitae (Pope J P II) moves closer toward the position that there is only one basis—societal self-defense—for imposition of the death penalty. Yet the phrases “defending public order,” “adequate punishment for the crime,” and “redress the disorder caused by the offence” would allow imposition of the death penalty even when the offender can supposedly be “rendered harmless” by other means. EV does not strictly deny this, but rather proposes prudentially to limit application of the death penalty based on an assertion that is patently dependent upon the existence of particular facts: because “modern society in fact has the means of effectively suppressing crime by rendering criminals harmless,” cases in which the death penalty is warranted are “very rare, if not practically non-existent.”

In the first place, the phrase “very rare, if not practically non-existent” offers no real guidance. Who defines “very rare,” and what is meant by “practically” non-existent? The words suggest a prohibition of the death penalty without actually imposing one—because, of course, the Magisterium cannot now prohibit what it has always approved as a matter of revealed truth. Rather, the proposed new limitation on the death penalty is bottomed entirely on the claim that “Modern society in fact has the means of effectively suppressing crime by rendering criminals harmless . . .”

But what are these “means” which modern society has? None other than prisons. Yet there have always been prisons. If it were merely a question of rendering criminals “harmless” by imprisonment, the Church would always have taught that life imprisonment is to be preferred to capital punishment. If anything, life imprisonment 500 years ago was far more likely to be life imprisonment than it is today. EV’s reference to “steady improvements in the organization of the penal system” is of no help. Which “steady improvements” in which “penal system” now make the death penalty unacceptable? May only societies with laggardly penal systems continue to execute convicted murderers in ordinary course? How many “steady improvements” must prisons achieve before the death penalty becomes “very rare, if not practically non-existent”?

In short, the quality of prison systems seems a rather insubstantial moral criterion for deciding application of the death penalty. What about just retribution, expiation, deterrence, and aggravating factors such as the number or tender age of the victims? The Pope has no right to remove these criteria from civil authority’s prudential judgment, nor does EV actually do so.

All of this assumes it could be demonstrated that “modern” imprisonment really achieves even the minimalist penal goal of rendering murderers “harmless.” Quite the contrary, convicted murderers routinely kill each other in prison, or kill guards, or are paroled to claim more victims among the general population. For this reason alone, we are not bound to accept EV’s purely factual assertion that prisons render murderers harmless. This is simply not true. And what about the murderer who does kill again, either in prison or upon release? How many people must a murderer murder before the death penalty becomes appropriate under the nebulous “rare, if not practically non-existent” standard?

Amazingly, EV does not even call for life imprisonment without parole for cold-blooded killers, but rather states that “modern society” should allow even these “the chance to reform” and “be rehabilitated.” Neither the Catechism nor EV provides an answer to a grieving father’s recent lament that if a “rehabilitated” murderer-rapist on parole had been executed—in accordance with traditional Church teaching based on revealed truth—his daughter would be alive today
Your prediction tha Aquinas would feel differently today is quite the stretch. If thats the case, John Paul II would have felt differently during the Council of Trent. NOTHING about the passing of time has changed the need for the death penalty. Nothing makes this era of history and thought more accurate or more holy ! and the addition of “protection” against the** individual criminal **is a new J P II addition in EV…not heretofore mentioned in any prior Catachisms !! and with all due resoect…J P II was not a penologist or crim justice major.

 

[LongingSoul]

The Catechism of the Council of Trent declared:

“Again, this prohibition (against taking a life)does not apply to the civil magistrate, to whom is entrusted the power of life and death, by the legal and judicious exercise of which he punishes the guilty and protects the innocent. The use of the civil sword, when wielded by the hand of justice, far from involving the crime of murder, is an act of paramount obedience to this commandment which prohibits murder. The end of the commandment is the preservation and sanctity of human life, and to the attainment of this end, the punishments inflicted by the civil magistrate, who is the legitimate avenger of crime, naturally tend, giving security to life by repressing outrage and violence.”

As the Tridentine Catechism teaches, the death penalty protects the sanctity of life through legitimate legal vengeance to repress outrage and violence in society. This involves just retribution and deterrence as legitimate aims of penal law.

The Catechism’s reference to the civil sword evokes St. Paul’s teaching on the divine right of civil authority to avenge wrongdoing by the sword: “But if thou do that which is evil, fear: for he beareth not the sword in vain. For he is God’s minister: an avenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil.” Rom. 13:4 Reflecting on this passage, St. Thomas teaches that capital punishment imitates divine justice; for after all, eternal damnation is the ultimate form of capital punishment: “According to the order of His wisdom God sometimes slays sinners forthwith in order to deliver the good, whereas he sometimes allows them time to repent, according as what is expedient to His elect. This also does human justice imitate according to its powers . . .” (ST II-II, Q. 64, Art. 2)

When you read the writings of the Church and the CCC reference regarding capital punishment today alongside the writings and Catechisms of the past, doesn’t that clearly demonstrate the role of the Church in contributing to the civil life? It would be like reading a medical journal justifying the need for mass vaccinations at a time of virulent disease and then reading the same journal urging the end of mass vaccination once the disease was under our control. To continue indefinitely with a solution to one situation… is to actually cause unnecessary harm to the bodies of the citizens. So one journal will be saying one thing while the other is saying something different… but both are actually guarding the same important thing. The ultimate health of society and safety from disease attack. The Church and the Catechisms are not in conflict. They are actually throwing light on the true principle behind the doctrines.

It must not be forgotten that the death penalty, like any criminal penalty, serves as a form of expiation. That is why prisons were once called penitentiaries. As Saint Thomas observes in the Summa: “Even death inflicted as a punishment for crimes takes away the whole punishment for those crimes in the next life, or at least part of that punishment, according to the quantities of guilt, resignation, and contrition; but a natural death does not.” (Cf. Romano Amerio Iota Unum, 435). Further, in the case of capital punishment the expiatory penalty reflects the sin of one whose grave crime has caused him to lose the right to life. Some 700 years after the Summa, Pope Pius XII repeated the constant teaching of the Church in this regard: “Even when it is a question of someone condemned to death, the state does not dispose of an individual’s right to life. It is then the task of public authority to deprive the condemned man of the good of life, in expiation of his fault, after he has already deprived himself of the right to life by his crime.” (AAS, 1952, pp. 779 et. seq)

This point has to be understood for what it is. If I say that eating brussel sprouts provides vitamins and it is also good roughage… that is not saying that brussel sprouts are necessary for roughage. They serve a main purpose in the diet and there is an added benefit that may or may not result.

We don’t have a right to make an ancillary purpose of a thing… the primary purpose. That is an abuse of it and misleading about their nature and how they best serve the ‘diet’ of mankind.

 

[d97c]

It is manifestly impossible for Catholic doctrine on the death penalty to “develop” from an approbation based on revealed truth to a condemnation based on the teaching of the last Pope. And, if we are not discussing the immorality of capital punishment in itself, when all is said and done it is not a question of “development” of doctrine, but only the debatable application of a morally legitimate penalty. Here Catholics, and civil authorities, remain free to make their own prudential judgments.
Hopefully someone will read this debate and then be able to take the info and show some Social Justice Parish Council member at a church, who insists that the person has to buy the line of “development”----and then that person can argue that the death penalty is not only centuries old, but it is also something a Catholic in 2014 can legitimately support.

 

[LongingSoul]

It is manifestly impossible for Catholic doctrine on the death penalty to “develop” from an approbation based on revealed truth to a condemnation based on the teaching of the last Pope. And, if we are not discussing the immorality of capital punishment in itself, when all is said and done it is not a question of “development” of doctrine, but only the debatable application of a morally legitimate penalty. Here Catholics, and civil authorities, remain free to make their own prudential judgments.
Hopefully someone will read this debate and then be able to take the info and show some Social Justice Parish Council member at a church, who insists that the person has to buy the line of “development”----and then that person can argue that the death penalty is not only centuries old, but it is also something a Catholic in 2014 can legitimately support.

It doesn’t need a Parish Council to argue that. It has been expressed by Pope Benedict that a Catholic is allowed to support a death penalty and still be in good standing with the Church. What he can’t do is deny that the State has the legitimate right to abolish the death penalty if it is not in keeping with the common good.

 

[d97c]

… And of course the other half of Pope Benedict’s statement is that a Catholic does not have the right to urge abortion or euthanasia… And remain Catholic. You did read how the Holy Father treats the death penalty different, did you not?? Just checking.

 

[djames99]

When, if ever, should Capitol Punishment (execution) be used as a punishment for a crime?

Should rapists/pedophiles be executed?
Should murderers be executed?
Should war-criminals, mass murderers, or those who commit genocide or other crimes against humanity be executed?

Why or why not?

None of the above. While serving the maximum sentence of life in prison, (which is the only sanctioned maximum sentence), but all the same proves while there to endanger the lives of others around him. I would say escape is in that category, but others may disagree.

 

[d97c]

As a Catholic, I can, and do, urge the state to, after conviction and appeal, apply the maximum and the only proportional penalty for murder…like lets say, Hitler did when killing 6 million Jews. The only proportional punishment to killing 6 million Jews was the death penalty, if he had been caught. I reject the current church’s attitude against the death penalty because for CENTURIES, the Popes and Catachisms affirmed the death penalty…over and over again.
What do you do to a guy who is in the pen for murder and has life in prison as a sentence, and then kills a prison guard??..and is convicted?? Give him another life in prison? Wow, that’s punishment for him !!

 

[Marty_E]

When, if ever, should Capital Punishment (execution) be used as a punishment for a crime?

In Catholic teaching there are four reasons for levying any punishment:

Rehabilitation

Defense against the criminal

Deterrence

Retribution

In his definitive discussion of the Church’s teaching on the use of capital punishment

firstthings.com/article/2001/04/catholicism-amp-capital-punishment

the late Avery Cardinal Dulles discusses the history of the Church’s teaching on punishment and cites the application of each of these four reasons in considering capital punishment.

The Catholic magisterium does not, and never has, advocated unqualified abolition of the death penalty.

St. John Paul II made a special emphasis in discussing capital punishment of the Church’s teaching on defense against the criminal, which falls into the broad category of self-defense, that only sufficient force should be used to accomplish the defense, which today in most modern societies would seem to preclude using capital punishment.

The most likely reason to levy the death penalty would be retribution, which is the State’s duty under Natural Law to administer justice. There are some crimes for which the argument is and has been made that nothing less than the death penalty would accomplish justice. Timothy McVeigh’s 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building which killed 168 people, including 19 children in the day care center on the second floor, and injured 450 others would be one example.

No Catholic is obliged in conscience to advocate unqualified abolition of the death penalty.

.

 

[Marty_E]

Evangelium Vitae (Pope J P II) moves closer toward the position that there is only one basis—societal self-defense—for imposition of the death penalty. Yet the phrases “defending public order,” “adequate punishment for the crime,” and “redress the disorder caused by the offence” would allow imposition of the death penalty even when the offender can supposedly be “rendered harmless” by other means. EV does not strictly deny this, but rather proposes prudentially to limit application of the death penalty based on an assertion that is patently dependent upon the existence of particular facts: because “modern society in fact has the means of effectively suppressing crime by rendering criminals harmless,” cases in which the death penalty is warranted are “very rare, if not practically non-existent.”

If you read the article of Avery Cardinal Dulles cited in my previous post, you’ll note that the Church lacks the authority to eliminate the other three reasons for levying the death penalty since they are part of the Revelation, in particular of the Natural Law.

The assertion that “modern society in fact has the means of effectively suppressing crime by rendering criminals harmless” is a prudential judgment, not a teaching, and cannot bind any Catholic. It may be true, it may not be true; it may be true there, but not true here; it may be true today, but not tomorrow. The making of prudential judgments in the application punishments for crimes belongs strictly to the competent authority, not the Church.

.

 

[Marty_E]

I reject the current church’s attitude against the death penalty because for CENTURIES, the Popes and Catachisms affirmed the death penalty…over and over again.

The Church’s teaching remains unchanged.

It remains unchanged despite the fact that people who should know better grab you by the collar and insist it has.

.

 

[Marty_E]

Pope Benedict wrote that the virtue of Justice is grounded in mercy. The Gospel is about forgiveness of sins.

The State’s administration of justice is about justice, not mercy.

Mercy is a virtue influencing one’s will to have compassion for, and if possible, to alleviate another’s misfortune.

The Scholastics considered it to be referable to the quality of justice mainly because, like justice, it controls relations between distinct persons. This is what Pope Benedict referred to.

But the State is not a person. We do not wish it to be a person because we expect from it impartiality, not personal whims, wishes, or influence. Justice is portrayed as blindfolded because pure justice gives each his due - and only his due - without being influenced by other considerations.

To temper justice with mercy we add the right of the King, President, Governor, or other execute to - as a person - grant clemency, pardon, and commutation.

So, let’s write and enforce laws that administer justice, and provide compassion after that is accomplished.

.

 

[LongingSoul]

The State’s administration of justice is about justice, not mercy.

Mercy is a virtue influencing one’s will to have compassion for, and if possible, to alleviate another’s misfortune.

The Scholastics considered it to be referable to the quality of justice mainly because, like justice, it controls relations between distinct persons. This is what Pope Benedict referred to.

But the State is not a person. We do not wish it to be a person because we expect from it impartiality, not personal whims, wishes, or influence. Justice is portrayed as blindfolded because pure justice gives each his due - and only his due - without being influenced by other considerations.

To temper justice with mercy we add the right of the King, President, Governor, or other execute to - as a person - grant clemency, pardon, and commutation.

So, let’s write and enforce laws that administer justice, and provide compassion after that is accomplished.

.

You seem to be saying that natural law does not allow for any phenomenon that equates to mercy in the administration of justice. That capital punishment is universally the only just punishment for some crimes (Timothy McVeigh) regardless of any other contributing human factors.

How do you explain people arriving at the standards of justice prior to and outside of Jewish Christian revelation? Isn’t it true that prior to the emergence of what we know as ‘the State’ or organised civil guardianship, that tribal existence had an appreciation of the ‘common good’ in determining standards of justice for themselves.

Our society is fairly strongly influenced by Judeo Christian perspectives and biblical models for our civil standards, however as from a previously posted quote from Aquinas… ‘divine law presupposes natural law’. It builds on natural law.

So we know that outside of that religious tradition, people arrived at just standards and penal sentences that accorded with the common good of their community. The wellbeing of that community dictated the type of punishment fitting for the crime. There was no divine command justifying it outside of the needs of the common good.

Card. Dulles in his essay makes a strong point of this modern problem of some Christians to wrest the retributive purpose of capital punishment away from the States capacity to act on it in accord with the common good … and insist that the common good is a minor factor in justice. He writes…

"Retribution by the State has its limits because the State, unlike God, enjoys neither omniscience nor omnipotence. According to Christian faith, God “will render to every man according to his works” at the final judgment (Romans 2:6; cf. Matthew 16:27). Retribution by the State can only be a symbolic anticipation of God’s perfect justice.

For the symbolism to be authentic, the society must believe in the existence of a transcendent order of justice, which the State has an obligation to protect. This has been true in the past, but in our day the State is generally viewed simply as an instrument of the will of the governed. In this modern perspective, the death penalty expresses not the divine judgment on objective evil but rather the collective anger of the group. The retributive goal of punishment is misconstrued as a self-assertive act of vengeance."

That makes it all the more imperative that as Christians we allow the State the right to govern according to the good natural to mankind and not permit it to mistake itself for God.

 

[djames99]

Hitler had a mother, and I see she was oppressed in her lifetime and had low esteem. She had an overbearing husband that had her pretty much in servitude. She was Catholic and probably was determined to set an example to become a good housewife as much as she can. She may have not even wanted Hitler at all.

In this influential environment she did what she could to educate her son. She may have prayed he would become a good person. So this is all we can do today but to bequeath to this lady after going to her death, to add to her hopelessness in seeing her son make one mistake after another and become the prime example of social hatred?.

If this is all there is to Catholicism, where charity gives way to presumption, where we become selective and do not submit to Authority, then I’m tempted to go to protestism, as I will find the same instrument that caters to my whims and hatred. At least they admit to being selective as to what they believe.

I visualize a Hitler sentenced to life in prison praying. All his prayers are refused. Then one day a miniscule part of that prayer is given consideration, and a person is healed or a
death not happening.

If I could tell my son in prison that I disown him because he set a great evil in the world, then I could also do so at this moment by setting a condition that I WILL do so if he does. But I can’t visualize any conditions to my love for him. I can’t even conceptualize not loving him.

So I guess I’m a fool and will always remain one.

At a murder trial where a girl was tortured and murdered, and the offender was found guilty, the judge asked the mother of the girl if she had anything to say. She got up and said to the offender, “I forgive you”, and turned to the judge and said, “I don’t want him executed”. The Catholic Church seems to lean in this direction in this precept. But it is not something imposed on the faithful out of a whim, but in this example and others plays out in the consciences of the people of God.

I find comfort at times when I find I’m not alone.

 

[Marty_E]

You seem to be saying that natural law does not allow for any phenomenon that equates to mercy in the administration of justice.

I have certainly not said that. What I have said is that the competent minister of justice is the State, and the competent minister of mercy is a person.

If mercy is to be given, it must be given personally by a human being.

How do you explain people arriving at the standards of justice prior to and outside of Jewish Christian revelation? Isn’t it true that prior to the emergence of what we know as ‘the State’ or organised civil guardianship, that tribal existence had an appreciation of the ‘common good’ in determining standards of justice for themselves.

That may be, but it really is not relevant to the discussion, which deals with the administration of justice, not the origin of law in pagan cultures. I certainly don’t share their pagan belief that taking crippled children up on the mountain or into the jungle and abandoning them serves justice, though it might suit their idea of “common good”.

Our society is fairly strongly influenced by Judeo Christian perspectives and biblical models for our civil standards, however as from a previously posted quote from Aquinas… ‘divine law presupposes natural law’. It builds on natural law.

Which means justice should be blindly administered by the State, and mercy dispensed by persons. Gutting the justice system so that justice cannot be administered doesn’t make any sense.

There was no divine command justifying it outside of the needs of the common good.

That’s clearly not true. Some commands make no sense to us at all and it is hard to imagine how the common good was served by some of the offenses that demanded stoning.

"Retribution by the State has its limits because the State, unlike God, enjoys neither omniscience nor omnipotence. According to Christian faith, God “will render to every man according to his works” at the final judgment (Romans 2:6; cf. Matthew 16:27). Retribution by the State can only be a symbolic anticipation of God’s perfect justice.”

That is correct. No human agency can be infallible. That does not preclude the State from administering justice. In the case of very harsh punishments it certainly would seem to behoove the State, and us as citizens of the State, to work to ensure good systems, good prisons, reasonable laws, and so on.

For the symbolism to be authentic, the society must believe in the existence of a transcendent order of justice, which the State has an obligation to protect. This has been true in the past, but in our day the State is generally viewed simply as an instrument of the will of the governed.

I hope not. If the State is simply an instrument of the governed, then we have mob rule. That’s how we’re getting same sex marriage and abortion in the USA. Good laws do not arise from the combined whim of people. Hobbling the law so that when required to, as in the case of Timothy McVeigh or the Nazi war criminals, it cannot provide retributive justice works against the Natural Law and should not be the goal of any Catholic.

Oddly the repeal of capital punishment and the rise of abortion and other abominations have worked together in Western Europe and the Commonwealth because both disconnect laws from the Natural Law.

In this modern perspective, the death penalty expresses not the divine judgment on objective evil but rather the collective anger of the group. The retributive goal of punishment is misconstrued as a self-assertive act of vengeance."

That’s an assertion but it is not a fact. The ignorance or stupidity of some is not a rational reason to subvert the Natural Law by hobbling the State so it cannot provide justice. In order for it to provide justice it requires that it have the laws to provide the full range of appropriate punishments, up to and including the death penalty.

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[estesbob]

Never

 

[LongingSoul]

I have certainly not said that. What I have said is that the competent minister of justice is the State, and the competent minister of mercy is a person.

If mercy is to be given, it must be given personally by a human being.

So why is it impossible that that be reflected by the law? Abolishing the death penalty as a sentence in civil law… is not abolishing justice. It makes a law that reflects justice and mercy.

That may be, but it really is not relevant to the discussion, which deals with the administration of justice, not the origin of law in pagan cultures. I certainly don’t share their pagan belief that taking crippled children up on the mountain or into the jungle and abandoning them serves justice, though it might suit their idea of “common good”.

We recognise that the lawmakers of those cultures had a natural right to make those laws according to the common good as they knew it. We can’t be self righteous about the blessing of knowledge and faith we’ve been given, that have shed light on the esteemed nature of man in Gods eyes. We can really only measure the moral culpability of our contemporaries in that way.

The point that I was making though is that through the OT prophets and then Christ, we have clearer sight of mans worth and dignity which is what justice serves. We in turn incorporate this knowledge into the natural justice to more perfectly serve the common good. Augustine and Aquinas constantly referenced the cause of ‘the common good’ in their treatment of justice. It was never eliminated or trumped by an idea of divine retribution. It was enhanced by the light of revelation. It remains the concrete end of civil justice.

Which means justice should be blindly administered by the State, and mercy dispensed by persons. Gutting the justice system so that justice cannot be administered doesn’t make any sense.

I don’t believe you could state that “justice should be blindly administered by the State”. It’s Lady Justice that wears the blindfold, not the State. She represents the highest of human virtues. In all that she asks of us, we are to strive for what serves the common good. Aquinas says… “It is in this sense that justice is called a general virtue. And since it belongs to the law to direct to the common good, as stated above (I-II, 90, 2), it follows that the justice which is in this way styled general, is called “legal justice,” because thereby man is in harmony with the law which directs the acts of all the virtues to the common good. “

It makes sense that if a general law is damaging the relationship of one to another, it is no longer serving the common good and is unjust. The State has a duty and a right to make laws that serve the common good. This is justice.

Your other comments related to the Card. Dulles article regarding retribution, that you had earlier cited in your own argument.

In this modern perspective, the death penalty expresses not the divine judgment on objective evil but rather the collective anger of the group. The retributive goal of punishment is misconstrued as a self-assertive act of vengeance."

That’s an assertion but it is not a fact. The ignorance or stupidity of some is not a rational reason to subvert the Natural Law by hobbling the State so it cannot provide justice. In order for it to provide justice it requires that it have the laws to provide the full range of appropriate punishments, up to and including the death penalty.

You simply have a skewed understanding of natural law here. Death as a penal sentence has served a purpose in the societies of our species. It was never an absolute necessity of justice like air or food is to human life (although it may have appeared so by the natural lack of knowledge). As Aquinas stresses, justice belongs to the relationship between one person and another. Each persons human rights and needs are balanced against each other in arriving at just laws and principles. This is an evolving ideal that is constantly listening to the people that it serves. Death as a sentence for a crime is not a staple of justice to human beings.