Why does the US and so many of its citizens continue to support the death penalty?

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Annie said:
If anything, i would say that there is more of an inverse co-relation.
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It is true I think that the more “progressive”-oriented by and large favour abortion and oppose the death penalty, though a significant number favour both.

The more “conservative”-oriented oppose abortion but I suspect are quite divided on the death penalty.

This is just my qualitative assessment.
 
Ironic, you accuse a small portion of contributers of pushing an agenda when you, yourself, are pushing an anti-death penalty agenda.
 
FrancisFan43 said:
Ironic, you accuse a small portion of contributers of pushing an agenda when you, yourself, are pushing an anti-death penalty agenda.
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Yes, the same anti-death penalty agenda that the Catholic Church has been pushing for half a century.
 
I think outside the US, throughout the developed world, one finds lots of support for legalized abortion and lots of anti-CP feeling.

This is why all the developed nations, who are so civilized as to have gotten rid of CP so we should follow in their footsteps, also have legalized abortion.
Emeraldlady said:
Any sense of a supreme or divine ‘right to kill’ is the antithesis of the genuine prolife position.
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I don’t know what a “supreme ‘right to kill’” means. The whole divine right idea was a Protestant thing dreamed up by King James I of England, authorizor of the King James Bible. The Catholic justification for the use of CP precedes and does not resemble this line of thinking at all, being based instead on a theory of justice that renders to murderers their due.

As to the prolife position, pro-life is a termed coined for the purpose of describing the anti-abortion movement, a movement dedicated to protecting the lives of the innocents who were being killed.

There are people (me among them) who do not believe that there is a corelation between people who commit horrific crimes and those innocent of any act save that of existing in their mothers’ wombs, that to preserve human dignity it is sometimes necessary to take the life of someone so thoroughly opposed to human dignity that he murders for his own selfish reasons, and that this is just in the sense of rendering unto each his due.
 
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do_justly_love_mercy said:
What I am asking is, rather, whether anybody can provide an explanation for why the United States, almost uniquely among comparably developed countries, persists in its use of the death penalty.
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Because the United States is unique.

The United States does what is right for the US, and what other countries do is utterly irrelevant. If you are going to argue against Capital Punishment, citing what other countries do won’t work; make an argument based on the unique culture and history of the United States.
 
do_justly_love_mercy said:
Yes, the same anti-death penalty agenda that the Catholic Church has been pushing for half a century.
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The church is supposed to present the truth, not push an agenda. There is no doubt that for the last quarter century church leaders have opposed the use of capital punishment; that’s not disputed. The question has always been whether that opposition represents new doctrine or personal judgment, and how one answers that question will determine how one responds to that “agenda”.
 
Ender said:
The question has always been whether that opposition represents new doctrine or personal judgment, and how one answers that question will determine how one responds to that “agenda”.
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The “personal judgement” of, at least, the last three Popes?? Wouldn’t the fact that said judgement has been the same for the last three Popes make it…not a personal judgement?
 
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Ender said:
And does that “Agendae of Truth” not state that capital punishment is of commensurate severity with the crime of murder?
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It’s been recently revised… Care to post it?

I don’t know if any in the USA have been executed since its revision?

22 total in the USA - I believe were in 2019…

Connected . The much farther afield ABORTION … is indeed Murder.

Just saying…
 
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1Lord1Faith said:
The “personal judgement” of, at least, the last three Popes?? Wouldn’t the fact that said judgement has been the same for the last three Popes make it…not a personal judgement?
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Actually, no.
Ender: And does that “Agendae of Truth” not state that capital punishment is of commensurate severity with the crime of murder?
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EndTimes said:
It’s been recently revised… Care to post it?
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That point was not addressed by the recent revision., but given that the severity of neither the crime of murder nor the punishment of death can ever change, if that punishment is not commensurate now it was not commensurate before, and the church not only supported but engaged in unjust punishment for 2000 years. Is that a position you’re comfortable taking?
 
EndTimes said:
I take what’s in the CCC as being my position…
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This is evasive. My position is also based on what’s in the catechism. Clearly our interpretation of what the catechism actually says is different - and is also the very difference the OP doesn’t wish to have discussed on this thread.

I will go back to my earlier point, however, and reiterate that the “American” position in support of capital punishment largely corresponds with what the church unambiguously taught prior to the very end of the last century, after which things became decidedly ambiguous.
 
Another reason to be in favor of the death penalty:

Any crime victim doesn’t have to worry about the killer escaping from prison, or being released. Here’s a short snippet from one of Ted Bundy’s survivors, about the day he was executed:
'When the district attorney called Kleiner to tell her that Bundy was dead, she began wailing and rocking back and forth, as Rubin tried to hold her. Margaret and Lisa were flashing through her mind. As she wept, she felt something change. “All the angst…I felt it lifting,” she says. “I felt so clean.”'
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I have read this from other victims as well - - even if they didn’t support the criminal getting the death penalty, it felt as though a weight was lifted once the criminal was dead, and they didn’t have to worry about him anymore.

Loading…

www.rollingstone.com
 
Ender said:
That point was not addressed by the recent revision., but given that the severity of neither the crime of murder nor the punishment of death can ever change, if that punishment is not commensurate now it was not commensurate before, and the church not only supported but engaged in unjust punishment for 2000 years. Is that a position you’re comfortable taking?
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Justice or otherwise is not the matter under revision by the Popes.
 
Rau said:
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Ender:
That point was not addressed by the recent revision., but given that the severity of neither the crime of murder nor the punishment of death can ever change, if that punishment is not commensurate now it was not commensurate before, and the church not only supported but engaged in unjust punishment for 2000 years. Is that a position you’re comfortable taking?
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Justice or otherwise is not the matter under revision by the Popes.
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Exactly. The Popes job is to address the dignity of the human being and the moral health of the society he lives in.
 
Yes, Church teaches Death Penalty has two justifications
(1) retribution (Catechism of Council of Trent)
(2) to protect the public (recent CCC)

Only (2) was modified by recent Pope Francis change, not (1). Thus, (1) is still valid Catechism justification for DP.
 
Ender said:
I will go back to my earlier point, however, and reiterate that the “American” position in support of capital punishment largely corresponds with what the church unambiguously taught prior to the very end of the last century, after which things became decidedly ambiguous.
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Do you believe that Popes going back 150 years should have been publicly ‘correcting’ all those countries who’ve abolished the death penalty?
 
Emeraldlady said:
Do you believe that Popes going back 150 years should have been publicly ‘correcting’ all those countries who’ve abolished the death penalty?
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You’re confusing a justification to impose the DP with a requirement mandating the DP. The former (Church teaching) just provides a justification for DP should a State impose it. The latter mandates all States impose it. Apples and oranges.
 
Aquinas11 said:
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Emeraldlady:
Do you believe that Popes going back 150 years should have been publicly ‘correcting’ all those countries who’ve abolished the death penalty?
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You’re confusing a justification to impose the DP with a requirement mandating the DP. The former (Church teaching) just provides a justification for DP should a State impose it. The latter mandates all States impose it. Apples and oranges.
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I’m not confusing anything. I’m asking Ender for clarity.
 
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