Posted on 06/21/2016 12:32:44 PM PDT by Phillyred
VATICAN CITY (AP) - Pope Francis is amplifying his opposition to capital punishment, saying it's an offense to life, contradicts God's plan and serves no purpose for punishment. In a video message to an anti-death penalty congress in Norway, Francis declared: "The commandment 'Thou shalt not kill' has absolute value and applies both to the innocent and to the guilty."
Francis has gone beyond his predecessors and traditional Catholic teaching in saying there is simply no justification for the death penalty today. He said Tuesday that rather than rendering justice, it fosters vengeance. Church teaching allows for recourse to capital punishment when it is the only way to defend lives "effectively" against an aggressor.
Francis said: "It must not be forgotten that the inviolable and God-given right to life also belongs to the criminal."
(Excerpt) Read more at philly.com ...
LOL. Maybe that is why he keeps saying these things. The Vatican has linked a generator to Peter’s tomb to keep the lights on.
That quote is relevant but so is the context. First, it predates Mosaic Law by centuries. Second, it was a command given by God immediately after He destroyed the earth by water.
I.e.: the sinfulness of mankind had reached such a level that God destroyed all but Noah and his immediate family. After bringing the survivors out of the Ark, and in preparation for the Covenant of the Rainbow, God issued His command that whoever shed blood, by man’s hand his blood should be shed.
Should we not take the command of God seriously in the immediate aftermath of the destruction of all but eight souls?
Almost shocking. His Eminence either doesn’t know the full counsel of scripture or does and disregards the true meaning of the commandment to satisfy his earthly allegiance to political correctness. Either way it’s an amazing thing to see from the exulted seat of what is purportedly the original author’s divinely appointed rep on Earth. Shaa! Right!
I believe you’re right but catholicism seems to ignore the original languages in favor of Latin.
Creepy old communist Francis taking a break from celebrating the Muslim Rape of Europe to spout some different lies and nonsense.
On the bright side, Pope Francis is showing that anybody can become Pope, just like Obama has shown that anybody who can read a teleprompter can become president. /sarc
Note that the Pope’s misguided comments about the death penalty blindly ignore that G-d established the death penalty as punishment for ancient Israelites who broke certain Levitical laws for example.
Creepy old communist Francis taking a break from celebrating the Muslim Rape of Europe to spout some different lies and nonsense.
That about summs it up.
I MISS JOHN PAUL.
I’m pretty certain that the Commandment says “Thou shalt not MURDER”, murder being the unjustified, intentional taking of the life of an innocent.
The taking of the life of a violent aggressor in the act of assaulting another with clear intent to do grievous bodily harm or KILL is NOT MURDER.
What is the solution to some fool imposing his own ideosyncratic theology onto the Church? Having a hundred fools do it? Or a million? What is Francis doing that Luther didn't already do before him?
Sorry, but there's a simpler answer. If the Pope thinks his personal opinions have more weight than the Church's teaching from time immemorial, then *he needs to be deposed*. Publicly. Visibly. And definitively.
How about the millions of people killed by communism and socialism in the past hundred years?
Or the newest deaths in Venezuela caused by idiots who believe in socialism? Does our ‘dear’ Pope give a damn about those deaths?
He’s backpedaling on Just War Theory as well.
I’m afraid we’re going full-pacifist here.
“Well, he’s going to have to re-write the Catechism then.”
And the Bible, for that matter. The Hebrew word translates to “murder,” not “kill.”
Large difference.
Because he's actively creating huge rifts in the church. He's single-highhandedly done more damage than any atheist ever tried to do.
The Hebrew word in the Commandment means “Thou shalt not MURDER.”
I thought Jesuits studied the ancient Bible languages...that’s why it supposedly takes them so long to graduate.
You missed the point. I said the Reformation teachers and their scriptural TEACHINGS. Add to them the resulting Protestant Ethic coupled with resulting broad literacy and we were all advanced. But for the Reformation and the Doctrine of Sola Scriptura we would all be ignorant and enslaved by priest craft.
That’s an interesting and novel take...and novel meaning, “this position has never been articulated by the RC church before ...ever.”
Oh, well, I guess tradition doesn’t matter so much.
Hey, umm, Pope, you’re not reading the 10 Commandments the right way. Maybe you need to brush up on your Hebrew. The 6th Commandment says, “Thou shalt not murder.”
Murder is not killing. Yes, a murder victim is also killed, by definition, but murder is an unlawful killing. The Hebrew Bible contains numerous prohibitions against unlawful killing, but also contains prescriptive imperatives for the lawful killing in the context of warfare, capital punishment, and self-defense.
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