Pope Seeks End To Death Penalty

[Jaime]

[quote name='Socrates' timestamp='1325981053' post='2364668']
Yet somehow it still happens nonetheless, including from maximum security prisons.
[/quote]

You have a better chance of winning the lottery than escaping a maximum security prison. And there have been no escapes from supermax's

[Jesus_lol]

we should probably compare number of people who escape from supermax, or even max security prisons, to the number of innocent people put on death row.

[KnightofChrist]

[quote name='jaime' timestamp='1324013545' post='2352054']
Good grief. Do you even read what you are quoting????

From Evangelium Vitae supra note 56



Your own notation goes directly against your entire argument about it primarily being retributive. Honestly KFC do you not read or do you assume that none of us will read what you are referencing?? You think you can just randomly throw out references in hopes that we won't call you on it?

Let's continue




You use this to argue that the PRIMARY purpose is punishment is retributive yet the Catechism talks about what first? THE SAFEGUARD OF THE COMMON GOOD! And where does it use the word retributive? Can you find it because I can't! Redressing the disorder is not synonymous with retributive. Retributive justice is not spoken about in any of the documents you quote. Yet you use them to support a failed opinion.

Stop making stuff up.
[/quote]


Yes I do read what I reference. But my reading is tempered with reason, logic and in this case Sacred Tradition. Therefor I am able to tell the difference between prudential judgment which is not Church teaching per se and actual Church teaching. You have shown us the current prudential judgment of Church leaders, and I have show the Traditional and actual teaching of the Church on this subject.

My own notation does not go against my argument in any degree. However if we look at this thread we can see clearly there is a break, conflict, contradiction in what the Church has always taught and what the Church is said to teach now. Otherwise there would not be such heated disagreement between those that believe what the Church has always taught on Capital Punishment and those that believe what the Church is said to teach now. The trouble is cause by those that try and make a prudential judgment actual Church teaching. If we do that then Evangelium Vitae contradicts itself as well as the CCC. The primary purpose of punishment is to redress the disorder caused by the offense. Public safety, and rehabilitation are secondary purposes. Making John Paul II's prudential judgment into something it is not turns what the Church has always taught about punishment on its head. The secondary purposes become primary and the primary becomes secondary. It is a logical contradiction. Someone is punished justly when the punishment redresses the disorder caused by the offense. It is not just to punish someone primarily because of crimes they may commit or because there's no safe place to put them in prison for life.

Here's some interesting reading on how to understand the difference between prudential judgment and actual Church teaching on the Capital Punishment.

[quote]"Those who have gone before us . . . [b]remembered that this power was granted by God; and on [u]account of the punishment of the guilty[/u],[/b] the sword was permitted; a[b]nd that the punisher in such a case is given as a function of God.[/b] [b]How then were they to condemn a deed which they see to be granted by God as its author? Concerning these things, therefore, we uphold what has been observed until now, lest we be seen either to overturn teaching, or to act contrary to the authority of the Lord.[/b]" - Pope Saint Innocent I[/quote]

[quote]
[url="http://Can%20the%20Church%20Ban%20Capital%20Punishment?Christopher%20A.%20Ferrara"][size=4]Can the Church Ban Capital Punishment?[/size][/url]
[size=4]Christopher A. Ferrara[/size]

[font=helvetica,][color=#4061c4][b]...[/b][/color][/font][color=#1C1C1C][font=helvetica,]According to the constant teaching of the Church, God Himself has ordained that legitimate civil authority shall have the right and duty to punish deliberate murder (and other grave crimes) with the penalty of death. Capital punishment [/font][/color][i]honors[/i][color=#1C1C1C][font=helvetica,] the Fifth commandment, because it vindicates the sanctity of human life. Hence, in its teaching on the Fifth Commandment the Catechism of the Council of Trent declares:[/font][/color]
[indent=1]
[color=#1C1C1C][font=helvetica,][size=4]Again, this prohibition does not apply to the civil magistrate, [i]to whom is entrusted the power of life and death[/i], by the legal and judicious exercise of which he punishes the guilty and protects the innocent.[i]The use of the civil sword, when wielded by the hand of justice, far from involving the crime of murder, is an act of paramount obedience to this commandment which prohibits murder. [/i]The end of the commandment is the preservation and sanctity of human life, and to the attainment of this end, the punishments inflicted by the civil magistrate, who is the [i]legitimate avenger of crime[/i], naturally tend, giving security to life by repressing outrage and violence.[/size][/font][/color][/indent]

[color=#1C1C1C][font=helvetica,][size=4]As the Tridentine Catechism teaches, the death penalty protects the sanctity of life through legitimate legal vengeance to repress outrage and violence in society. This involves just retribution and deterrence as legitimate aims of penal law.[/size][/font][/color]

[color=#1C1C1C][font=helvetica,][size=4]The Catechism’s reference to the civil sword evokes St. Paul’s teaching on the divine right of civil authority to avenge wrongdoing by the sword: “But if thou do that which is evil, fear: for he beareth not the sword in vain. For he is [i]God’s minister[/i]: an avenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil.” Rom. 13:4 Reflecting on this passage, St. Thomas teaches that capital punishment imitates divine justice; for after all, eternal damnation is the ultimate form of capital punishment: “According to the order of His wisdom God sometimes slays sinners forthwith in order to deliver the good, whereas he sometimes allows them time to repent, according as what is expedient to His elect. [i]This also does human justice imitate according to its powers[/i] . . .” ([i]ST [/i]II-II, Q. 64, Art. 2)[/size][/font][/color]

[color=#1C1C1C][font=helvetica,][size=4]Thus the right of civil authority to punish evildoers by the sword in appropriate cases is a matter of [i]revealed[/i]truth, not a changeable prudential judgment. This is not to deny that civil authority can exercise prudential judgment in abstaining from the exercise of its right to impose capital punishment, or even abolish it entirely in keeping with historical circumstances. For example, earlier this year the Governor of Illinois, Pat Quinn, signed an executive ban on the death penalty in his state given the appalling evidence of numerous executions of innocent persons in Illinois based on “forced confessions, unreliable witnesses, and incompetent legal representation.” As a lawyer, I am well familiar with the grave potential in any legal system for catastrophic miscarriages of justice which, in the case of capital punishment, cannot be rectified. The Church has never taught that civil authority [i]must[/i] impose capital punishment for murder, but only that it has a divine sanction when it does so.[/size][/font][/color]

[url="http://Can%20the%20Church%20Ban%20Capital%20Punishment?Christopher%20A.%20Ferrara"]Read More...[/url]
[/quote]




[quote]
[url="http://www.avemarialaw.edu/index.cfm?event=lawReview.issue&lrissueid=28"]HE BEARETH NOT THE SWORD IN VAIN: THE CHURCH, THE COURTS, AND CAPITAL PUNISHMENT[/url]
Patrick M. Laurence, Ave Maria Law Review

...III. THE PRUDENTIALIST READING OF EVANGELIUM VITAE

A. Reconciling Evangelium Vitae with Tradition and with Itself

In the foregoing, I have attempted to explain that the rationale underlying the Evangelium Vitae’s instruction on the death penalty appears problematic both in relation to tradition and in relation to its own principles regarding punishment. This apparent divergence from tradition and principle is at the root of the varying responses to the Church’s current teaching. For Justice Scalia, abandoning the retributive purpose of capital punishment is inconsistent both with tradition and the encyclical’s teaching that retribution is the primary purpose of punishment. Judge Noonan, in contrast, perceives this change as a development of doctrine. Both positions are precluded, however, to the extent that the tradition can explain the current teaching according to its own principles and unaided by any further doctrinal insight.

The traditional understanding of penalty and capital punishment, especially as it is refined and articulated by Aquinas, is remarkably well-equipped to accommodate John Paul II’s current teaching on the death penalty. A review of Aquinas’s doctrine, which is explicitly invoked by the encyclical and the Catechism, readily lends itself to the prudentialist argument, that is, the argument that Evangelium Vitae’s teaching on capital punishment is predicated on circumstantial considerations and does not necessarily presuppose any principles contrary to tradition or prior doctrine. Moreover, the prudentialist argument appears to be the most reasonable interpretation of the encyclical because it is the most capable of resolving the ambiguities within the encyclical and the Catechism.

[url="http://www.avemarialaw.edu/index.cfm?event=lawReview.issue&lrissueid=28"]Read More...[/url]
[/quote]

[Jesus_lol]

[quote name='KnightofChrist' timestamp='1326134455' post='2365719']
But my reading is tempered with reason, logic and in this case Sacred Tradition. Therefor I am able to tell the difference between prudential judgment which is not Church teaching per se and actual Church teaching
[/quote]

So modest and humble, an example for us all!

[KnightofChrist]

[quote name='Jesus_lol' timestamp='1326141929' post='2365828']
So modest and humble, an example for us all!
[/quote]

I was merely defending myself and pointing out my ability to read and reason after it had be called into question. Now I am being insulted again for defending myself. Danged if I do danged if I don't. Heck as you proved on the first page those that stand for what the Church has always taught on this matter do not even have to say anything because you mock/inslut them.

Edited January 9, 2012 by KnightofChrist

[Jesus_lol]

[quote name='KnightofChrist' timestamp='1326143603' post='2365852']
I was merely defending myself and pointing out my ability to read and reason after it had be called into question. Now I am being insulted again for defending myself. Danged if I do danged if I don't. Heck as you proved on the first page those that stand for what the Church has always taught on this matter do not even have to say anything because you mock/inslut them.
[/quote]

oh nothing wrong with defending yourself, i didnt take issue with the rest of your post.

but generally if you actually are being reasoning and logical, you dont need to tell people about it, they figure it out on their own.


funny, how one sentence i wrote 11 pages ago, that just predicted that your argument would soon be made is still a sore spot.

[Ice_nine]

The Church has traditionally said the death penalty may be implemented by state powers or what have you.
The pope would like to see first world nations put an end to the death penalty.

Where the hell is the contradiction? The pope didn't say he was going to ban capital punishment . . . my goodness. He essentially said first world nations should ban it, but it's not an imperative, nor is it taking away the right for nations to carry out that practice.

[Socrates]

[quote name='Ice_nine' timestamp='1326243517' post='2366592']
The Church has traditionally said the death penalty may be implemented by state powers or what have you.
The pope would like to see first world nations put an end to the death penalty.

Where the hell is the contradiction? The pope didn't say he was going to ban capital punishment . . . my goodness. He essentially said first world nations should ban it, but it's not an imperative, nor is it taking away the right for nations to carry out that practice.
[/quote]
Who cares - you're distracting from the debate on liturgical dance.

[Anomaly]

Do beatings, rapes, or murders ever occur in Super-Max prisons?
Is the punishment incurred in S-Max renedered by imprisonment or inmates?
What is the punishment supposed to be, or are prisons supposed to protect soiciety, not punish?

[Socrates]

We just need to put everybody in Super-Maxes, and our problems will all be solved.

[Anomaly]

[url="http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Prison_System/Return_Madhouse.html"]http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Prison_System/Return_Madhouse.html[/url]

Interesting article on super max prisons

[Socrates]

It looks to me that life in a super max prison would be far more inhumane and degrading than being sentenced to death by legal injection, and hardly conducive to repentance and reformation.

[Laudate_Dominum]

[quote name='Socrates' timestamp='1326330943' post='2367262']
It looks to me that life in a super max prison would be far more inhumane and degrading than being sentenced to death by legal injection, and hardly conducive to repentance and reformation.
[/quote]
Peter Singer much?

[Jesus_lol]

[quote name='Socrates' timestamp='1326330943' post='2367262']
It looks to me that life in a super max prison would be far more inhumane and degrading than being sentenced to death by legal injection, and hardly conducive to repentance and reformation.
[/quote]

that sounds a lot like those prochoice arguments about how being born into poverty, and abusive homes is more inhumane than just aborting the kid.

[fides' Jack]

[quote name='Jesus_lol' timestamp='1326340714' post='2367402']
that sounds a lot like those prochoice arguments about how being born into poverty, and abusive homes is more inhumane than just aborting the kid.
[/quote]

I agree.

And hardly conducive to repentance and reformation? I beg to disagree. Or rather, I won't beg, I'll just do it.

What's not conducive to repentance about concrete beds, concrete toilet, concrete water fountain, and concrete walls? Sounds to me like the ideal place for real meditation and prayer. I can't think of a better place to clear out my head for a while to be able to actually listen to God.