Who is an "unjust aggressor"

[Birdmanman]

In the following teaching from the Catechism, what sort of person is categorized as an unjust aggressor?

2267 Assuming that the guilty party’s identity and responsibility have been fully determined, the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.
vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p3s2c2a5.htm

[Emphasis mine]

While at first glance the Catechism appears to mean only an ‘unjust aggressor’ who threatens human lives with death or murder, can ‘defending human lives’ not include defending human lives from things like indiscriminate torture, or from serious spiritual loss? I consider the loss of one’s faith far more serious and harmful than the loss of one’s life, and anyone who intentionally and decidedly causes another to lose their faith as worse than a murderer.

If anyone has run across commentary from theologians, apologists, or clergy explaining this teaching of the Catechism, I would be very grateful for a link to that information. Thanks!

[This thread is specifically about how to interpret these phrases from this teaching, and is not to be about the death penalty in general].

 

[Starrsmother]

This came up on another thread and I think lots of folks had lots of ideas but no final decision was reached. My personal 10 cents worth is that mentally I support the death penalty in certain cases–but having said that, it would be hard for me personally to vote to to put someone to death --not because they don’t deserve it–but because I’d hate to know I was the one who most probably sent someone straight to hell. As long as they are alive–even in jail for life–there’s always the hope that they might turn their soul around. Having said that though, we have such a problem with lib juges and “life” no longer always means “life”. So, for the ultimate good of society, there may well be cases where the death penalty is the only realistic punishment when one considers the over all public good.

 

[DaveBj]

The problem with this passage is that here, like in several other places in the Catechism, the wording is ambiguous, allowing for at least two disparate interpretations. I don’t know whether or not that ambiguity is intentional, but nevertheless, there it is.

In this case, the phrase “defending human lives against the unjust aggressor” could mean “defending human lives against the aggressor, who is always unjust.” On the other hand, it could mean “defending human lives against any aggressor who might be acting in an unjust way.” My take is the former, but I’m sure there are people who believe that certain types of aggression are not unjust and should not be defended against.

There are also degrees of aggression, starting at the top with genocidal mass murderers and going down the scale to things like 3rd-grade name-calling in the schoolyard, but that’s a different topic.

 

[Reep]

In the following teaching from the Catechism, what sort of person is categorized as an unjust aggressor? . . . I consider the loss of one’s faith far more serious and harmful than the loss of one’s life, and anyone who intentionally and decidedly causes another to lose their faith as worse than a murderer.

I agree with the logic that spiritual murder can be seen as more serious than physical murder, you have some big problems with trying to invoke identical punishments for both.

Most people would understand aggression to be actual or threatened violence, e.g. murder, rape, robbery, etc.

Somehow I expect aggression ought to be something more than the argument out of an atheist’s mouth. I just can see blowing away a couple of missionaries at the front door with my trusty shotgun: “Well, officer, it was self-defense . . . He was reaching for a Book of Mormon.”

If religious belief must be voluntary–and it must–then those who have not yet come to the truth should not be punished for saying what they believe to be true.

If you are hell-bent on punishment, at least limit violent consequences to violent crimes. It’s pretty old Testament, I know (an eye for an eye, as they say), but even that rule or proportionality was given as a mercy.

 

[LongingSoul]

While at first glance the Catechism appears to mean only an ‘unjust aggressor’ who threatens human lives with death or murder, can ‘defending human lives’ not include defending human lives from things like indiscriminate torture, or from serious spiritual loss? I consider the loss of one’s faith far more serious and harmful than the loss of one’s life, and anyone who intentionally and decidedly causes another to lose their faith as worse than a murderer.

If anyone has run across commentary from theologians, apologists, or clergy explaining this teaching of the Catechism, I would be very grateful for a link to that information. Thanks!

The Church has ardently apologised for the misguided zeal of her sons and daughters with this type of attitude in the past. She referred to as “counter-witness and scandal” and made clear the error of “the methods of violence and intolerance used in the past to evangelize”. So we can be absolutely sure that an ‘unjust aggressor’ does not refer to a person of different beliefs or faiths as qualifying for the death penalty. It’s misguided to think this way.

vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_letters/documents/hf_jp-ii_apl_10111994_tertio-millennio-adveniente_en.html

vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/cti_documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20000307_memory-reconc-itc_en.html#John Paul II’s Requests for Forgiveness