[TradicalRC]

Let us remember that Notre Dame University invited speakers who profess views favoring capital punishment, contraceptives, etc. and there was no outrage. Nothing is more sobering than a little dose of hypocrisy.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church does not forbid capital punishment.

[kosta50]

The Catechism of the Catholic Church does not forbid capital punishment

False. The Catechism is very explicit (and correct)

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

As long as you can lock someone away, the Catechism does not support execution. Critical reading is of critical importance for critical understanding, dear friend. The Catholic church does not condone killing except in extremis as the last and only resort left.

And even this is an innovation (of St. Augustine's) that was never accepted in the East. The early Church did not allow any killing under any circumstance, even when justified!

This includes +Justin Martyr (100-165 AD), Dialogue with Trypho 110, where he says their swords were changed into ploughs. And in his Apology 1.39, where he says

"We who formerly used to murder one another do not only now refrain from making war upon our enemies, but also, that we may not lie nor deceive our examiners, willingly die confessing Christ.”

The same sentiment comes from +Clement of Alexandria (150- c. 211 AD) who writes

“For it is not in war, but in peace, that we are trained ,” The Instructor 1.12

“Above all, Christians are not allowed to correct with violence the delinquencies of sins,” Fragments: Maximus, Sermon 55

Tertullian (160-225 AD), who coined the term Trinity and the first to say that life begins at conception, writes

“But how will a Christian war, nay, how will he serve even in peace without a sword, which the Lord has taken away? For albeit soldiers had come unto John, and had received the formula of their rule; albeit, likewise, a centurion had believed, still the Lord afterward, in disarming Peter, unbelted every soldier,” On Idolatry 1 9

“In our case, murder being once for all forbidden, we may not destroy even the fœtus in the womb,” Apology 9

“Shall it be held lawful to make an occupation of the sword, when the Lord proclaims that he who uses the sword shall perish by the sword? And shall the son of peace take part in the battle when it does not become him even to sue at law? And shall he apply the chain, and the prison, and the torture, and the punishment, who is not the avenger even of his own wrongs?” The Chaplet 11

Athenagoras of Athens (c 180 AD)

“We cannot endure even to see a man put to death, though justly,” A Plea for the Christians 35

Origen of Alexandria (185-254 AD) writes

“And as we by our prayers vanquish all demons who stir up war, and lead to the violation of oaths, and disturb the peace, we in this way are much more helpful to the kings than those who go into the field to fight for them… And none fight better for the king than we do. We do not indeed fight under him, although he require it; but we fight on his behalf, forming a special army – an army of piety – by offering our prayers to God,”  Against Celsus 8.73

Cyprian of Carthage (250 AD) 

“The whole world is wet with mutual blood; and murder, which in the case of an individual is admitted to be a crime, is called a virtue when it is committed wholesale. Impunity is claimed for the wicked deeds, not on the plea that they are guiltless, but because the cruelty is perpetrated on a grand scale,” Epistle 1.6

 Athanasius of Alexandria (296-373 AD) says 

“And this is at least incredible, inasmuch as even now those Barbarians who have an innate savagery of manners . . . and cannot endure to be a single hour without weapons; but when they hear the teaching of Christ, straightway instead of fighting they turn to husbandry, and instead of arming their hands with weapons they raise them in prayer, and in a word, in place of fighting among themselves henceforth they arm against the devil and against evil spirits, subduing these by self-restrains and virtue of soul. Now this is at once a proof of the divinity of the Saviour, since what men could not learn among idols they have learned from him,” On the Incarnation of the Word 52.2-4

This is what the early Church believed. There is no such thing as acceptable killing. The problem I encounter with many Catholics is that everything they know seems to come from the superficial reading of the  Catechism, never mind the Fathers. If the Church followed what seems to be the American Catholic mind set Kolo was addressing, the Church would would have had no martyrs and no saints who died without lifting a finger, imitating the Lord to the very end, but a whole bunch of Jewish-like rebels who fought to the end.