Posted on 04/15/2005 8:17:49 PM PDT by Diago
Scalia v. the Pope: Who's Right on the Death Penalty?
Patrick J. Buchanan
February 8, 2002
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia certainly set the cat down among the pigeons the other day at his alma mater Georgetown University. Challenging the views of the pope and the U.S. bishops, the justice urged any Catholic judge who could not in conscience impose a death sentence to get off the bench.
"[T]he choice for the judge who believes the death penalty to be immoral," said Scalia, "is resignation, rather than simply ignoring duly enacted constitutional laws and sabotaging the death penalty."
Within hours of the story hitting the wires, Wolf Blitzer was on the phone. Could I come over to CNN and explain how the justice, a devout Catholic, could openly defy the teachings of his church?
Delighted. For Scalia had not contradicted or defied any Catholic doctrine. Rather, it is the Holy Father and the bishops who are outside the Catholic mainstream, and at odds with Scripture, tradition and natural law. For an exposition of Catholic doctrine, one should pick up the essay by Cardinal Avery Dulles in the April issue of First Things. As Dulles notes, Catholicism has supported the death penalty for 2000 years:
"In the Old Testament, the Mosaic Law specifies no less than 36 capital offenses calling for execution by stoning, burning, decapitation or strangulation. Included in the list are idolatry, magic, blasphemy, violation of the Sabbath, murder, adultery, bestiality, pederasty and incest. The death penalty was considered especially fitting as a punishment for murder, since in his covenant with Noah, God had laid down the principle, 'Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed. ...'
"In the New Testament, the right of the State to put criminals to death seems to be taken for granted. ... At no point ... does Jesus deny that the State has authority to exact capital punishments. In his debates with the Pharisees, Jesus cites with approval the apparently harsh commandment, 'He who speaks evil of father or mother, let him surely die.' ... When Pilate calls attention to his authority to crucify him, Jesus points out that Pilate's power comes to him from above ? that is to say from God. ... Jesus commends the good thief on the cross next to him, who has admitted that he and his fellow thief are receiving the reward of their deeds."
In Christian tradition, "the Fathers and Doctors of the Church are virtually unanimous in their support for capital punishment," adds Dulles, citing St. Augustine in "The City of God": "[I]t is in no way contrary to the commandment 'Thou shalt not kill' ... for the representatives of the State's authority to put criminals to death. ..." To support the State's right to execute, St. Thomas Aquinas invoked Scripture, tradition and reason alike.
"In the High Middle Ages and early modern times, the Holy See authorized the Inquisition to turn over heretics to the secular arm for execution," writes Dulles. "In the Papal States, the death penalty was imposed for a variety of reasons." Until 1969, Vatican City provided for the death penalty for any who might attempt to assassinate the pope.
As the death penalty has been supported by the Catholic Church since the first Pentecost, whence comes this episcopal Catholic opposition?
"The roots of opposition ... are not in Christianity," continues Dulles. "The mounting opposition to the death penalty in Europe since the Enlightenment has gone hand in hand with a decline in faith in eternal life. In the 19th century, the most consistent supporters of capital punishment were the Christian churches, and its most consistent opponents were groups hostile to the churches. When death came to be understood as the ultimate evil rather than as a stage on the way to eternal life, utilitarian philosophers such as Jeremy Bentham found it easy to dismiss capital punishment as 'useless annihilation.'
"The movement to abolish the death penalty in formerly Christian countries may owe more to secular humanism than to deeper penetration into the gospel. When Pope John Paul declared in 1995 that, 'the direct and voluntary killing of an innocent human being is always gravely immoral,' he was careful to insert the word, 'innocent.'"
As Europe has become less Christian, secular opposition to the death penalty has been imposed from above by European elites.
Thus, Scalia was right about church doctrine, and right about the law. No judge morally opposed to the death penalty should sit in a capital murder case. To do so would be an act of moral arrogance and judicial nullification of democratic rule.
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God commands the death penalty.
Would you then be in favor of the death penalty for adultery, on those grounds?
Did you add the subtitle? I love it!
Possibly.
But, I think we are not bound to the civil law in the OT anymore. Nevertheless, the death penalty is of God.
I'm with you one hundred percent. When we start making these incremental judgements about what crime warrants a death penalty or what degree of comatose state justifies euthanasia, or at what age an embryo is actually a human life we are apt to make errors. Best to err on the side of life. For real.
However, I believe that Catholics of good will can come to completely different conclusions as to when a war is just and as to when the death penalty is just .
That said, I think the American bishops squander their teaching authority whenever they say "Catholics should support this school levy," "Catholics must support a Nuclear Freeze," "Catholics must support gun control," "Catholics must support gun control," "Catholics must oppose the Death Penalty." These are all prudential judgments.
I do not care if the death penalty is eliminated. I do care if our bishops state "the death penalty must be eliminated." Dungeons have existed for 2,000 years. Criminals now have trials by juries, endless appeals, fre legal counsel, and DNA testing to prove their innocence. They are a lot better off than the criminals once executed by the Vatican state.
I think our new Pope would understand what I am trying to say this and agrees with me:
Not all moral issues have the same moral weight as abortion and euthanasia. For example, if a Catholic were to be at odds with the Holy Father on the application of capital punishment or on the decision to wage war, he would not for that reason be considered unworthy to present himself to receive Holy Communion. While the Church exhorts civil authorities to seek peace, not war, and to exercise discretion and mercy in imposing punishment on criminals, it may still be permissible to take up arms to repel an aggressor or to have recourse to capital punishment. There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not however with regard to abortion and euthanasia.
Jail should be real punishment though. For rapists, pederasts and murderers you get to leave your cell once a week, or for educational purposes, that's it. Food should be decent, education, literacy should be mandatory, but where convicts can earn their keep, even by chain-gang they should be made to earn their keep. That's good enough for me, I don't need them to be dead. And for people that are mentally retarded, all the rules change. They aren't dealing with full, free will and as such should be confined, but the circumstances should not be as severe or punitive.
AlbionGirl, please read my two previous posts (#48 and #49).
Since the time of Christ, there have always been dungeons. And yet, until JP II, the Church has always supported the death penalty. Of the 265 popes, JP II is the only one to ever speak out against it.
Again, I do not care if no one is ever executed again. However, it bothers if one states that the Magisterium dictates that there be no executions.
The fact is that the Pope's opinion on the death penalty or any thing else before the Supreme Court, matters not one iota.
Well, I agree with you on that. Although I oppose the death penalty in the U.S., on the basis that a government that allows a husband to starve his wife to death cannot be trusted to decide life and death under any circumstances, I am nevertheless concerned about the appearance of the reversal of a constant teaching of the Church.
When a teaching is "developed" to the point that it begins to mean almost precisely the opposite of what it formerly meant, it seems to encourage dissent on other teaching, from those who might hope for similar doctrinal "development."
Point taken, Diago.
When a teaching is "developed" to the point that it begins to mean almost precisely the opposite of what it formerly meant, it seems to encourage dissent on other teaching, from those who might hope for similar doctrinal "development."
AMEN!!!!
B Knotts say it better than I can at #53. Thanks for listening.
My theory, which has been vigorously attacked is that most bishops in this country are primarily concerned with the secular humanist agenda, instead of the Catholic agenda. Thank God for priests like Fr. Pavone.
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