Posted on 11/20/2006 4:25:28 AM PST by goldstategop
*I think there is medication for that. (a joke)
Seriously, if you want a reasoned discussion, why don't you just try to speak plainly. What am I suppose to infer from that story you posted?
Life in solitary is unconstitutional.
How then do we protect other inmates?
Capital Punishment2266 The State's effort to contain the spread of behaviors injurious to human rights and the fundamental rules of civil coexistence corresponds to the requirement of watching over the common good. Legitimate public authority has the right and duty to inflict penalties commensurate with the gravity of the crime. The primary scope of the penalty is to redress the disorder caused by the offense. When his punishment is voluntarily accepted by the offender, it takes on the value of expiation. Moreover, punishment, in addition to preserving public order and the safety of persons, has a medicinal scope: as far as possible it should contribute to the correction of the offender.[67]
2267 The traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude, presupposing full ascertainment of the identity and responsibility of the offender, recourse to the death penalty, when this is the only practicable way to defend the lives of human beings effectively against the aggressor.
"If, instead, bloodless means are sufficient to defend against the aggressor and to protect the safety of persons, public authority should limit itself to such means, because they better correspond to the concrete conditions of the common good and are more in conformity to the dignity of the human person.
"Today, in fact, given the means at the State's disposal to effectively repress crime by rendering inoffensive the one who has committed it, without depriving him definitively of the possibility of redeeming himself, cases of absolute necessity for suppression of the offender 'today ... are very rare, if not practically non-existent.' [68]
Supermax prisons seem to prove that it can be done. But not all prisoners are in supermax prisons, and no system is foolproof. It seems to me that a more likely problem is that a future government will release murderers.
Regardless, the Church acknowledges the right of the State in principle to exact the death penalty. It is up to those in authority to make the determination of whether the death penalty should be applied in a particular case according to the principles described by the Church.
I'd like to see any traditional teaching of the Church that supports the second half of this statement from the CCC:
"...when this is the only practicable way to defend the lives of human beings effectively against the aggressor."
I haven't been able to find any. Does the CCC reference any Church fathers, Scripture, Councils in support of that part of the statement?
“Oh well, alrighty then, lmao.”
Before you unhinge your jaw laughing at others, you should rid your own position of the false moral equivalence.
When aimhigh said that “The church shouldn't be circumventing the government in fulfilling its responsibility to ‘execute wrath on him who practices evil.’ (Romans 13:4),” you restated his position by implication, saying, “The Church doesn't ‘circumvent’ governments.” Well, he didn’t say the Church should never oppose governments; he said the Church shouldn’t circumvent government when they are acting in accordance with the Word of God in this particular matter.
Putting words in a person’s mouth by restating his position to be something other than what he actually said is not honest.
When aimhigh responded, correctly, that the Church circumvents government when it fights against capital punishment for convicted murderers, you came back with a classic false moral equivalence; to wit, “Well, the Church, to use your word ‘fights’ against abortion too, and that's legal.... I guess you're saying that abortion is ok, then, since it is ‘legal?’ ”
Just as there is a difference between pushing a little old lady into the path of a speeding bus and pushing a little old lady out of the path of a speeding bus, there is a moral difference between fighting against the death penalty and fighting against abortion. The first is reprehensible; the second is our duty to God.
LisaFab then cited the CCC, which should pretty much have ended the argument with the conclusion that John Paul II and those who agree with him are just simply wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Mistaken as to fact, and the application of reason to such facts as do exist. Demonstrably, egregiously in error.
I’m not really surprised by this. After all, as a young priest, John Paul II managed not only to survive, but to thrive under the Communists. I think it highly unlikely that his thinking was not to some extent, however slight, affected either by Communism or his (presumed) struggle against it.
The doughty Aquinasfan then advanced the argument that it is possible for the State to imprison murderers for life without them representing a threat to society. I disagree with this position. We do not take the extreme measures that would protect not only society, but his guards and fellow prisoners, from the hardened murderer. Not only do leftist judges let them out to kill again, they escape and kill, and they kill guards and fellow prisoners. Even, therefore, if this argument were valid (which it patently is not), the facts show us that it is not applicable.
Next, murphE did us all a service by noting that it is the men currently in positions of power in the Church who have advanced these “changes,” and not anything in the nature of the Church or its understanding of Scripture.
Your reply, “If you can form a cogent argument, go right ahead, but your current ‘opinions’ don't cut it,” would seem to indicate that you failed to understand murphE’s extremely trenchant point. It appears that you skipped over the excerpt from the Catechism of Trent entirely, which is a shame. Church history did not begin with Vat II.
Having already descended to referring to murphE’s restatement of the Church’s position as his ‘opinion,’ a debate ploy more at home at Daily Kos or DU than here, you resort to the despicable, loathsome, and puerile “lmao” as a substitute for an argument you weren’t up to making.
Goldstategop is correct: “To deny the death penalty is to insist on life for evil. If the most hardened criminal goes unpunished, we adhere to a system that denies life to those whose persons were violated. This grants life to those who commit evil acts.”
The only way to show that we regard the proscription against murder with adequate gravity is to levy the ultimate punishment. Otherwise, the evil know that we’re just not serious about it.
That statement of course is just pure editorial, certainly not binding Church teaching.
By the way, Catholics throughout history have been of the opinion that knowing the date of your death is a grace. When forced to contemplate the 4 last things many criminals receive the grace to repent/convert, receive absolution. Then they are able to accept and offer the pain of their just punishment as penance for their sins. This is something the victims of murder are most often denied.
The technology that makes it possible in some societies to imprison murderers for life, without risk to society, was not available or even imaginable at the time of the Council of Trent, so it's hard to imagine the bishops saying, "but if it becomes technically possible someday to imprison murderers for life... etc."
This is a refinement of doctrine, not a change in doctrine. The Church is not repudiating the right of the State to execute murderers.
It's not doctrine at all. It's editorial opinion that many well meaning, pious Catholics have been misled into believing is doctrine.
Thanks for link - I did read the story. This man received fair justice and will not be put to death for a crime he supposedly did not commit, perhaps through help of divine intervention for all we know. However, it also mentions "various other offenses" he has committed elsewhere in Florida etc. so let's not go out and have a pity party for him and pretend he is white as snow.
That actually is a traditional Catholic argument supporting the death penalty.
I wonder how likely it would have been for Dismas (the good thief) to repent had he been given 3 meals a day, a cot, health care and cable TV for the rest of his life as punishment instead of the death penalty. Hmmm.
bump
How about the 10 commandments ?
What would Jesus have done ?
When truth is open to interpretation,justice can be shaped and formed by persons who have control of the means of communication. This control is often not based on any commitment to good,truth or beauty,or any moral absolutes,but rather is based on whichever person or group has been powerful enough to wrest control of a society or nation and what they determine to be in their best interest.
Consequently, there could be a great concern among some of the good prelates that in the near future,the death penalty could be carried out arbitrarily,capriciously and even whimsically. So it could be that they see this on the horizon and believe that caution may be the better,nobler path to follow.
Looking at the world today,I think they may be right although it is not my personal preference at all. I certainly hope they make no more changes in Church teaching on the subject. They have gone as far as they can to prevent the above scenario from happening and enough is enough.
I think that's giving the bishops a little too much credit for forethought! Actually, I don't think it would matter, because no one has ever defended applying the death penalty on a whim or under unjust circumstances; just that there were certain grave crimes (murder, etc.) for which society had the right to permanently evict that person from human society and exact a penalty that would make him face his crime and (hopefully) repent. One of the things that bothers me about the glossing over of crimes by making their punishments so trivial is that the person is never called to repent. I can't remember who it was, but somebody said something to the effect that nothing clarifies a man's mind like the prospect of imminent death. Furthermore, I think people have forgotten that the worst thing is not physical death, but the death of the soul, and people aren't even worried about it anymore.
I suppose it would be possible, if the bishops were thinking ahead, that they might feel that preventing the death penalty in general would prevent an unjust society from enacting it; but in reality, nothing prevents an unjust society from doing anything it wants. If our society were to become Muslim tomorrow, it would be subject to Islamic law, where the death penalty is imposed for just about everything, and I doubt that the imams would be worrying about what the (late) bishops said.
I think the problem with most bishops is not that they are outright heretics or even convinced but secret unbelievers; most of them are simply cowardly. They want to be liked, they want the press to like them, they want their priests to like them for never making them do or teach anything hard, they just want to get along. So I think they tend to adopt any position pushed by the liberal mainstream press and consider it divinely revealed.
The fact that the Pope is moving towards making them take a more forthright anti-abortion stand now must really be keeping them awake at night worrying about what their hometown liberal rag will say. We've seen how people like McCarrick tried to wriggle away from the issue.
Of course, historically, when one looks back, the bishops have always taken the course of least resistance. There was only one bishop in England who refused to go along with jolly King Henry.
Justice is His -- not yours.
As much as Saddam may deserve death, it might be wiser to let him live out his natural life in solitary confinement.
So much evil loses its luster when it fades with barely a whimper.
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