Pope Francis: Former popes ignored mercy in using ‘inhuman’ death penalty

[Jack4]

35 minutes ago, Josh said:

Slavery is slavery to me.

https://ideas.ted.com/20-words-that-once-meant-something-very-different/

[Guest]

I'm not here for a slavery debate. You and others love slavery and find it acceptable. You have no problem with it being found throughout the Bible. I get it. You're free to think like that. God Bless. Defend slavery and all its forms to the cows come home. I don't give a single.... As for me I am against all forms of slavery. The ones in the Bible and the ones used on black people. All of them. And in late 2018 and going into 2019 so is the Catholic Church. No form of slavery is moral or permissible. The Church changed its teaching on this.

Edited December 21, 2018 by Guest

[Jack4]

4 minutes ago, Josh said:

"I'm against all forms of slavery" "Slavery is slavery"

Sometimes, people guilty of minor crimes are given punishment in the form of 'community service'. Prisoners are made to do jobs like making chapatis. These are not entirely voluntary, but imposed from outside.  What do you think of these cases? Or hired servants who clean the house, cook food, etc? This was slavery in most places.

51 minutes ago, Josh said:

Saint Paul also told slaves to be submissive to their masters. We know that's wrong now too.

Are you denying that Scripture is inspired?

52 minutes ago, Josh said:

The Catechism has changed on the death penalty. You reject the Churches teaching.

You do not take into account my post quoting Ratzinger.

[Jack4]

53 minutes ago, Josh said:

Doctrine develops.

Contradiction is not development. Cardinal Newman explains this perfectly: http://www.newmanreader.org/works/development/

25 minutes ago, Josh said:

I'm against all forms of slavery and so is the Catholic Church in 2018.

Here, you are making a claim on Church teaching. May I have the source, please - that the Church is against the form of slavery as existed in most parts of the world? 

[CatherineM]

I’ve witnessed an execution. There was nothing I saw that day that was merciful, just, or Godly. 

[Jack4]

1) I had said, "Popes had come close to errors on Christology, Beatific vision, etc. The Church has survived them."

Details:

edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2015/11/papal-fallibility.html That Popes may err, and have erred.

https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2018/05/the-church-permits-criticism-of-popes_20.html The Church permits criticism of popes under certain circumstances 

2) You had said that Pope Francis' opposition to DP is "Church teaching" which we have to "accept or don't receive Communion". That was shown to be blatantly wrong. I quote Ratzinger's letter again:

 "f a Catholic were to be at odds with the Holy Father on the application of capital punishment..., he would not for that reason be considered unworthy to present himself to receive Holy Communion... There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about... applying the death penalty"

3) You brought up slavery. You dismissed what I said about several radically different things to which the same word is used by saying "All slavery is slavery" without any argumentation. Democracy in Ancient Greece, Revolutionary France, and in modern USA are different things even though the word Democracy is used for all three. 

I pointed out that meanings of words sometimes change with time. You did not respond to this point. 

4) You claimed that the Church in 2018 is opposed to all forms of slavery. I asked for a source/citation. You failed to give one.

5) I asked whether community service, etc is slavery. You did not respond. 

6) I pointed out that development is not contradiction. You did not respond.

tl:dr) You have not responded to the substance of my posts.

__________

For more Feser on the Catechism change, see

 https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2018/08/pope-francis-and-capital-punishment.html and

https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2018/08/three-problems-with-change-to-catechism.html

[Peace]

On 12/20/2018 at 10:18 AM, KnightofChrist said:

The Church has always condemned slavery as you understand it. As soon as the Pope heard of the enslavement of Africans he condemned the practice. The 'slavery' the Church permitted is not even the same. We've had this discussion before. 

I cannot help you have made Pope Francis an idol god, nor can I help you reject Divine Revelation. Saint Paul guided by the Holy Ghost, makes perfectly clear God Himself gives the state the sword to put the wicked to death. 

Pope Francis cannot overturn God's will. When He returns and changes His teaching I will follow. Of course when He returns there will be no need for punishment after the wicked are condemned to hell. Still, only God can give us a new doctrine. The Pope cannot change teaching only pass it down unchanged.

 

 

1) Your problem seems to be one of pride. You seem to view yourself as more competent to interpret Sacred Scripture and Tradition than the authorities under whom our Lord placed you and me.

Exactly what need is there for a Pope, if a random person on the internet can declare him wrong and follow his own private interpretation of Sacred Scripture and Tradition whenever the Pope disagrees with his private interpretation? 

You seem to be no functionally different than a Protestant, except that you choose to follow the Pope whenever he just so happens to be in agreement with your private interpretation.

2) Could you please provide the verse that where "Saint Paul guided by the Holy Ghost, makes perfectly clear God Himself gives the state the sword to put the wicked to death"?

[Peace]

On 12/20/2018 at 6:28 AM, Jack4 said:

Wrong.

"The individual doctrine which the Catechism presents receive no other weight than that which they already possess." - Then-Cardinal Ratzinger source 

So how much authority does that new CCC para have?  As much as its source - a speech.

Re: Communion, Ratzinger again:

" 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."source

@Jack4, what does your bishop teach concerning the death penalty, and are you following your bishop?

The way that you seem to pick and choose seems to lead to a denial of the development of doctrine, and a denial of your duty of religious submission as it develops. Benedict is not the pope. What he said may have been applicable at the time, but that does not mean that it is applicable now. Francis is the pope and you owe him religious assent with respect to teachings that are not infallible. Do you think that you have given him religious assent? 

It seems to me that with respect to non-infalliable teachings of the church, you simply choose to follow whatever pope who happens to agree with your viewpoint, rather than following the man who currently sits in the chair of St. Peter. Again, I am not sure how this is substantively different than Protestantism. It seems that you are essentially protestant when it comes to matters that have not be infalliably defined, but perhaps you can explain why you are not.

http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19641121_lumen-gentium_en.html

25. Among the principal duties of bishops the preaching of the Gospel occupies an eminent place.(39*) For bishops are preachers of the faith, who lead new disciples to Christ, and they are authentic teachers, that is, teachers endowed with the authority of Christ, who preach to the people committed to them the faith they must believe and put into practice, and by the light of the Holy Spirit illustrate that faith. They bring forth from the treasury of Revelation new things and old,(164) making it bear fruit and vigilantly warding off any errors that threaten their flock.(165) Bishops, teaching in communion with the Roman Pontiff, are to be respected by all as witnesses to divine and Catholic truth. In matters of faith and morals, the bishops speak in the name of Christ and the faithful are to accept their teaching and adhere to it with a religious assent. This religious submission of mind and will must be shown in a special way to the authentic magisterium of the Roman Pontiff, even when he is not speaking ex cathedra; that is, it must be shown in such a way that his supreme magisterium is acknowledged with reverence, the judgments made by him are sincerely adhered to, according to his manifest mind and will. His mind and will in the matter may be known either from the character of the documents, from his frequent repetition of the same doctrine, or from his manner of speaking.

 

But that being said, I am not aware that anyone has said that a varying view with respect to the death penalty would be a reason for denial of communion. I think @Josh went a bit too far with his statement. I don't think it is up to @Josh to be saying who should and should not be receiving communion.

On 12/20/2018 at 5:05 AM, KnightofChrist said:

What the Church has always taught cannot be wrong. Truth does not change.

I'm going to keep receiving communion and believe what the Church has always taught.

 

You are going to continue believing your own private interpretation of "what the Church has always taught."

On 1/9/2019 at 10:36 AM, Jack4 said:

1) I had said, "Popes had come close to errors on Christology, Beatific vision, etc. The Church has survived them."

Details:

edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2015/11/papal-fallibility.html That Popes may err, and have erred.

https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2018/05/the-church-permits-criticism-of-popes_20.html The Church permits criticism of popes under certain circumstances 

2) You had said that Pope Francis' opposition to DP is "Church teaching" which we have to "accept or don't receive Communion". That was shown to be blatantly wrong. I quote Ratzinger's letter again:

 "f a Catholic were to be at odds with the Holy Father on the application of capital punishment..., he would not for that reason be considered unworthy to present himself to receive Holy Communion... There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about... applying the death penalty"

3) You brought up slavery. You dismissed what I said about several radically different things to which the same word is used by saying "All slavery is slavery" without any argumentation. Democracy in Ancient Greece, Revolutionary France, and in modern USA are different things even though the word Democracy is used for all three. 

I pointed out that meanings of words sometimes change with time. You did not respond to this point. 

4) You claimed that the Church in 2018 is opposed to all forms of slavery. I asked for a source/citation. You failed to give one.

5) I asked whether community service, etc is slavery. You did not respond. 

6) I pointed out that development is not contradiction. You did not respond.

tl:dr) You have not responded to the substance of my posts.

__________

For more Feser on the Catechism change, see

 https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2018/08/pope-francis-and-capital-punishment.html and

https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2018/08/three-problems-with-change-to-catechism.html

Bro. Come on now. Do you really think it is cool to enslave people, be it as prisoners of war or otherwise?

Edited January 13, 2019 by Peace

[Jack4]

28 minutes ago, Peace said:

@Jack4, what does your bishop teach concerning the death penalty, and are you following your bishop?

AFAIK my bishop has not spoken about it. In the third world, Bishops do not issue statements on every other thing and make them available on the website. 

[Peace]

1 minute ago, Jack4 said:

AFAIK my bishop has not spoken about it. In the third world, Bishops do not issue statements on every other thing and make them available on the website. 

Fair enough.

[Jack4]

32 minutes ago, Peace said:

The way that you seem to pick and choose seems to lead to a denial of the development of doctrine

Development of doctrine is not contradiction of doctrine. St Vincent's Commonitorium, after speaking at length about orthodoxy, adds:

Quote

 

[54.] But some one will say, perhaps, Shall there, then, be no progress in Christ's Church? Certainly; all possible progress. For what being is there, so envious of men, so full of hatred to God, who would seek to forbid it? Yet on condition that it be real progress, not alteration of the faith. For progress requires that the subject be enlarged n itself, alteration, that it be transformed into something else. The intelligence, then, the knowledge, the wisdom, as well of individuals as of all, as well of one man as of the whole Church, ought, in the course of ages and centuries, to increase and make much and vigorous progress; but yet only in its own kind; that is to say, in the same doctrine, in the same sense, and in the same meaning.

[55.] The growth of religion in the soul must be analogous to the growth of the body, which, though in process of years it is developed and attains its full size, yet remains still the same. There is a wide difference between the flower of youth and the maturity of age; yet they who were once young are still the same now that they have become old, insomuch that though the stature and outward form of the individual are changed, yet his nature is one and the same, his person is one and the same. An infant's limbs are small, a young man's large, yet the infant and the young man are the same. Men when full grown have the same number of joints that they had when children; and if there be any to which maturer age has given birth these were already present in embryo, so that nothing new is produced in them when old which was not already latent in them when children. This, then, is undoubtedly the true and legitimate rule of progress, this the established and most beautiful order of growth, that mature age ever develops in the man those parts and forms which the wisdom of the Creator had already framed beforehand in the infant. Whereas, if the human form were changed into some shape belonging to another kind, or at any rate, if the number of its limbs were increased or diminished, the result would be that the whole body would become either a wreck or a monster, or, at the least, would be impaired and enfeebled.

[56.] In like manner, it behooves Christian doctrine to follow the same laws of progress, so as to be consolidated by years, enlarged by time, refined by age, and yet, withal, to continue uncorrupt and unadulterate, complete and perfect in all the measurement of its parts, and, so to speak, in all its proper members and senses, admitting no change, no waste of its distinctive property, no variation in its limits.

 

Similar points are made by Newman. I have already linked to Newman on this thread in response to Josh when he made the same point you did.

34 minutes ago, Peace said:

Benedict is not the pope.

FWIW he was not the Pope when he wrote what I quoted either. 

[Peace]

1 minute ago, Jack4 said:

Development of doctrine is not contradiction of doctrine. St Vincent's Commonitorium, after speaking at length about orthodoxy, adds:

Similar points are made by Newman. I have already linked to Newman on this thread in response to Josh when he made the same point you did.

Sure, but who has the authority to decide whether doctrine has developed, or whether doctrine has been contradicted? My issue is when laity vest this authority in themselves.

[Jack4]

35 minutes ago, Peace said:

It seems to me that with respect to non-infalliable teachings of the church, you simply choose to follow whatever pope who happens to agree with your viewpoint, rather than following the man who currently sits in the chair of St. Peter. Again, I am not sure how this is substantively different than Protestantism. It seems that you are essentially protestant when it comes to matters that have not be infalliably defined, but perhaps you can explain why you are not.

I do not have much experience with Protestantism. What makes traditionalists different from stereotypical "liberal" Catholics* is that traditionalists believe what Popes traditionally taught, while the latter believe what no Pope taught. 

*I can only generalize too much, and I don't like to use political terms about the Church.

I don't believe anything I want to believe, I believe what Popes have taught.

We can make a distinction between doctrine and discipline. The former does not change and contradict, the latter can. Doctrine must be safeguarded and handed down, as JP2 makes it in clear in the very beginning of the very Constitution by which the CCC was approved. Since doctrine does not change, I can safely affirm what any Pope has said at any point of time (eg  Pope Leo's Christology is still valid). But in discipline, I must look to the latest version (eg Pope Pius' Communion fasting laws are no longer in force).

44 minutes ago, Peace said:

You are going to continue believing your own private interpretation of "what the Church has always taught."

What the Church has always taught can be found in documents. eg the Roman Catechism. JP2 wrote in the Constitution approving the CCC that other, older Catechisms may still be used.

[Peace]

9 minutes ago, Jack4 said:

I do not have much experience with Protestantism. What makes traditionalists different from stereotypical "liberal" Catholics* is that traditionalists believe what Popes traditionally taught, while the latter believe what no Pope taught. 

*I can only generalize too much, and I don't like to use political terms about the Church.

Well, in their opinion they believe what Popes traditionally taught. One of my issues is that some "traditionalists" assume that their own personal interpretations of "what the Church has always taught" are correct, when in fact their personal intepretations may be right or wrong.

 But again, the question comes down to authority. Does the living Pope and the Bishops in communion with him have the authority to interpret Sacred Tradition (or what the church/popes have taught non-infallibly), or do you get to decide for yourself?

And lets say that Pope A in the past and the current Pope B do in fact contradict each other. Do you have the authority to determine that Pope A is correct and Pope B is wrong, merely because Pope A came before Pope B?

What I am trying to say here, is basically what is written in Lumen - we owe religious assent to the living magisterium with respect to non-infalliable matters.

Edited January 13, 2019 by Peace

[Jack4]

1 minute ago, Peace said:

Well, in their opinion they believe what Popes traditionally taught. One of my issues is that some "traditionalists" assume that their own personal interpretations of "what the Church has always taught" are correct. But again, the question comes down to authority. Does the living Pope and the Bishops in communion with him have the authority to interpret Sacred Tradition, or do you get to decide for yourself?

Popes (like everyone else) should be given the benefit of doubt. Every effort must be made to interpret the teaching in continuity. 

2 minutes ago, Peace said:

And lets say that Pope A in the past and the current Pope B do in fact contradict each other. Do you have the authority to determine that Pope A is correct and Pope B is wrong, merely because Pope A came before Pope A?

In real-life situations, what happens is that all Popes before current Pope B (not just Pope A, but all Popes), saints and theologians affirm something and Pope B contradicts. In such a case, Pope A's teaching is to be presumed to be God's revelation. (God cannot reveal contradictory things, ergo only one is his.)  

51 minutes ago, Peace said:

Bro. Come on now. Do you really think it is cool to enslave people, be it as prisoners of war or otherwise?

1) If I'm understanding you correctly, then the answer is No, slavery* is wrong.

2) If you want to understand me, define slavery. 

On criticising Popes, I had already linked Feser. I link again: https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2018/05/the-church-permits-criticism-of-popes_20.html

9 minutes ago, Peace said:

What I am trying to say here, is basically what is written in Lumen - we owe religious assent to the living magisterium with respect to non-infalliable matters.

See link above.