Catholic Bishops Plan Drive Against Death Penalty

[IesusDeus]

[quote]In this case the death penalty will both protect society from further harm, while it will simultaneously restore justice.[/quote]
[quote] " Capital punishment is about more than simply protecting society from further harm. It also about the restoration of justice, and in the case of capital offenses, the death of the criminal may be required, depending upon the circumstances, in order to restore the common good.[/quote]
[quote] If a man kills his own parents, retributive justice demands his own death.[/quote]

(1) Protect society from harm

What Eremite is saying, is that you DO NOT need death penalty to achieve this. By putting someone in prison FOR LIFE, he or she can no longer cause harm to society.
So the “protect society” argument for death penalty is not valid.


(2) Justice

This is the Old Testament. (“Eye for an eye.”)
Jesus with his New Covenant changed that.
Retributive justice is contrary to the teachings of Jesus.

[quote] "You have heard that it was said, `AN EYE FOR AN EYE, AND A TOOTH FOR A TOOTH.' "But I say to you, do not resist an evil person; but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also. "If anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, let him have your coat also. "Whoever forces you to go one mile, go with him two. "Give to him who asks of you, and do not turn away from him who wants to borrow from you.  (Matthew 5:38-42)[/quote]

He even asks us more. Jesus asks us to love our enemies.

[quote] "You have heard that it was said, `YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR and hate your enemy.' "But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. "For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? "If you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? "Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. (Matthew 5:43-48)[/quote]

For many the death penalty contradicts BOTH of those two teachings of Jesus.
(1) Break the cycle of violence (2) The love of our enemy.

Here is what our bishops say about it:
[quote] We maintain that abolition of the death penalty would promote values that are important to us as citizens and as Christians.
[b]First[/b], abolition sends a message that we can break the cycle of violence, that we need not take life for life, that we can envisage more humane and more hopeful and effective responses to the growth of violent crime. It is a manifestation of our freedom as moral persons striving for a just society. It is also a challenge to us as a people to find ways of dealing with criminals that manifest intelligence and compassion rather than power and vengeance. We should feel such confidence in our civic order that we use no more force against those who violate it than is actually required.
[b]Second[/b], abolition of capital punishment is also a manifestation of our belief in the unique worth and dignity of each person from the moment of conception, a creature made in the image and likeness of God. It is particularly important in the context of our times that this belief be affirmed with regard to those who have failed or whose lives have been distorted by suffering or hatred, even in the case of those who by their actions have failed to respect the dignity and rights of others. It is the recognition of the dignity of all human beings that has impelled the Church to minister to the needs of the outcast and the rejected and that should make us unwilling to treat the lives of even those who have taken human life as expendable or as a means to some further end.
[b]Third[/b], abolition of the death penalty is further testimony to our conviction, a conviction which we share with the Judaic and Islamic traditions, that God is indeed the Lord of life. lt is a testimony which removes a certain ambiguity which might otherwise affect the witness that we wish to give to the sanctity of human life in all its stages. We do not wish to equate the situation of criminals convicted of capital offenses with the condition of the innocent unborn or of the defenseless aged or infirm, but we do believe that the defense of life is strengthened by eliminating exercise of a judicial authorization to take human life.
[b]Fourth[/b], we believe that abolition of the death penalty is most consonant with the example of Jesus, who both taught and practiced the forgiveness of injustice and who came "to give his life as a ransom for many." (Mark 10:45) In this regard we may point to the reluctance which those early Christians who accepted capital punishment as a legitimate practice in civil society felt about the participation of Christians in such an institution and to the unwillingness of the Church to accept into the ranks of its ministers those who had been involved in the infliction of capital punishment.4 There is and has been a certain sense that even in those cases where serious justifications can be offered for the necessity of taking life, those who are identified in a special way with Christ should refrain from taking life. We believe that this should be taken as an indication of the deeper desires of the Church as it responds to the story of God's redemptive and for giving love as manifest in the life of his Son.[/quote]

Jesus asks us TO BE PERFECT. It is human to search “justice” and “compensation”, but it is divine to forgive, to break the cycle of violence, and love and pray for your enemy.
Personally, I prefer the Jesus way…

And as the Bishops point out, we seek the preserve the dignity of human life in all cases. (The accused is a person whatever he or she did, and can still repent, and maybe already has.)

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What is also not moral about capital punishment is that is - too often - takes a life of an INNOCENT man, someone who has been wrongfully condemned.
It has happened many times in the US.

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[quote] "Let every person be subject to the governing authorities.  For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.  Therefore he who resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment.  For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad.  Would you have no fear of him who is in authority?  Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God's servant for your good.  But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain; he is the servant of God to execute his wrath on the wrongdoer.  Therefore one must be subject, not only to avoid God's wrath but also for the sake of conscience." [Romans 13:1-5][/quote]

I am not denying this. Saddam Hussein WAS in position of authority. And the US wrongfully denied his authority. (The US has no authority in Iraq, and was NOT threatened in any way by Iraq.)
Moreover, the US also overwrote the authority the United Nations and the international laws. Clearly the US was wrong.
However, this quote has little to do with capital punishment.

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[quote] Yes, I hold to the universal Tradition of the Church on this topic.[/quote]

Read the tradition of the church below.

[quote] "If you enroll as one of God's people, heaven is your country and God your lawgiver. And what are God's laws? You shall not kill, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. To him that strikes you on the one cheek, turn to him the other also."
  Clement of Alexandria, an early church father (born ~150), in Protrepticus, 10[/quote]

The church has said that death penalty can be used in matters of grave circumstances by a legitimate public authority:
[quote]"Preserving the common good of society requires rendering the aggressor unable to inflict harm.  For this reason the traditional teaching of the Church has acknowledged as well-founded the right and duty of legitimate public authority to punish malefactors by means of penalties commensurate with the gravity of the crime, not excluding, in cases of extreme gravity,  the death penalty... (CCC 2266)."[/quote]

“Pope John Paul II has taught that in modern times the use of the death penalty is often motivated by the victim’s (and societies) desire for revenge. The death penalty should be considered viable in only the most extreme circumstances because it removes or limits the offender’s chance for conversion and penitence. “

The pope wrote:[quote]  Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an offense incapable of doing harm - without definitively taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself - the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity "are very rare, if not practically non-existent.”[/b] (EV 56).[/quote]

“The Church’s teaching has not changed, but rather modern society and technology has rendered the use of capital punishment an extremely rare measure, or to quote the Pope “practically non-existent.”

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='Eremite' date='Mar 21 2005, 04:18 PM'] Actually, they had authority (and more than that, a command) to stone the woman and man caught in adultery. But Christ came to emphasize the mercy of God, and the dignity of the human person, and so he taught them leniency in judgement. Although, strictly speaking, she (and murderers) deserve to die, there is a higher good involved that would prevent it. [/quote]
Now I am not arguing that all of the judicial precepts of the Old Testament have the same force, but only those related to the taking of innocent life. In doing this I am simply following in the tradition of the Fathers and the Scholastics, but I refuse to endorse a Marcionite position rejecting the perennial authority of the Old Testament revelation.

[Guest Eremite]

[quote name='Apotheoun' date='Mar 21 2005, 06:22 PM'] Now I am not arguing that all of the judicial precepts of the Old Testament have the same force, but only those related to the taking of innocent life. In doing this I am simply following in the tradition of the Fathers and the Scholastics. I refuse to endorse a Marcionite position rejecting the perennial authority of the Old Testament revelation. [/quote]
Who is rejecting what? If anyone is rejecting anything, it is your rejecting certain Old Testament death laws and accepting others, on nothing more than your own personal preferences.

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='IesusDeus' date='Mar 21 2005, 04:21 PM'] (2) Justice

This is the Old Testament. (“Eye for an eye.”)
Jesus with his New Covenant changed that.
Retributive justice is contrary to the teachings of Jesus.
[/quote]
This is simply not correct. The Church has never held that civil society cannot use retributive justice, and so you have clearly misunderstood the nature of our Lord's teaching in the Sermon on the Mount. Christ clearly forbade personal vengence, but He did not forbid the civil authorities from punishing criminals with a just punishment commensurate with their crime.

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='Eremite' date='Mar 21 2005, 04:24 PM'] Who is rejecting what? If anyone is rejecting anything, it is your rejecting certain Old Testament death laws and accepting others, on nothing more than your own personal preferences. [/quote]
I am simply holding to the position of the Church as it has been expressed by her Tradition. There are certain crimes that are so heinous that they require the execution of the criminal, including but not limited to genocide, the murder of one's parents and of one's siblings, etc. The fact that you don't hold this is a sad reflection on the state of our society, and the poor catechesis in the Church today.

God bless,
Todd

[Guest Eremite]

[quote name='Apotheoun' date='Mar 21 2005, 06:31 PM'] I am simply holding to the position of the Church as it has been expressed by her Tradition. There are certain crimes that are so heinous that they require the execution of the criminal, including but not limited to genocide, the murder of one's parents and of one's siblings, etc. The fact that you don't hold this is a sad reflection on the state of our society, and the poor catechesis in the Church today. [/quote]
We've been discussin this for hours now, and you have yet to cite one magisterial document which says civil authorities MUST use capital punishment even when there is no threat to society. And yet you still present it as some indisputable element to the Church's tradition. For such a firmly entrenched tradition, you'd think she would have mentioned it once or twice.

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='Eremite' date='Mar 21 2005, 04:33 PM'] We've been discussin this for hours now, and you have yet to cite one magisterial document which says civil authorities MUST use capital punishment even when there is no threat to society. And yet you still present it as some indisputable element to the Church's tradition. For such a firmly entrenched tradition, you'd think she would have mentioned it once or twice. [/quote]
No, I have cited documents and the teachings of Thomas, but you simply choose to interpret them as a Modernist.

[Apotheoun]

You have reduced the death penalty to simply a means for defending society, while I have insisted upon the traditional teaching of the Church as it concerns retributive justice, and I would add that the teaching on retributive justice is reflected in the original version of the [u]Catechism of the Catholic Church[/u].

[Guest Eremite]

[quote name='Apotheoun' date='Mar 21 2005, 06:35 PM'] No, I have cited documents and the teachings of Thomas, but you simply choose to interpret them as a Modernist. [/quote]
Yes, you have cited them, and I have:

1) Pointed out why they have no bearing on your argument, and indeed, contradict it.

2)Patiently awaited a SINGLE document from a Pope or Ecumenical Council that says capital punishment MUST be used even when there is no danger to society.

[Guest Eremite]

[quote name='Apotheoun' date='Mar 21 2005, 06:38 PM'] You have reduced the death penalty to simply a means for defending society, while I have insisted upon the traditional teaching of the Church as it concerns retributive justice, and I would add that the teaching on retributive justice is reflected in the original version of the [u]Catechism of the Catholic Church[/u]. [/quote]
1) No, I have not reduced it so, and have pointed that out more than once. That you continue to throw out a red herring is disturbing.

2) I have UPHELD the Church's teaching on the retributive nature of punishment (though it is only one of four factors). What I have denied is your personal opinions on what constitutes retributive justice.

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='Eremite' date='Mar 21 2005, 04:38 PM'] Yes, you have cited them, and I have:

1) Pointed out why they have no bearing on your argument, and indeed, contradict it.
[/quote]
That is your opinion, but you have to twist the Roman Catechism's meaning in order to fit it into your modernist interpretation, while I can accept the text at face value.

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='Eremite' date='Mar 21 2005, 04:40 PM'] 1) No, I have not reduced it so, and have pointed that out more than once. That you continue to throw out a red herring is disturbing.

2) I have UPHELD the Church's teaching on the retributive nature of punishment (though it is only one of four factors). What I have denied is your personal opinions on what constitutes retributive justice. [/quote]
Yes, you have, because you continue to focus solely upon the defence of society from further harm and ignore entirely the restitution required of the criminal. If a man murdered my mother, I would ask the State to seek the death penalty, because he has done irreparable harm to my family, and must be required to atone for that harm.

[Guest Eremite]

[quote]but you have to twist the Roman Catechism's meaning in order to fit it into your modernist interpretation, while I can accept the text at face value. [/quote]

I accept the text at face value as well. Unfortunately, it doesn't say what you so desperately read into it.

[quote]you have, because you continue to focus solely upon the defence of society from further harm and ignore entirely the restitution required of the criminal. [/quote]

I have not ignored it. In fact, I have argued that capital punishment is a lesser punishment than life imprisonment. It is a cop out.

[quote]If a man murdered my mother, I would ask the State to seek the death penalty, because he has done irreparable harm to my family, and must be required to atone for that harm.[/quote]

Well, your whole plan may backfire if he goes straight to Heaven. You will then have neither your mother or your vengeance. You will, in fact, being doing him a favor, rather than punishing him.

[Apotheoun]

On this topic we will have to agree to disagree, because I will not break from the Tradition of the Church.

[Guest Eremite]

Neither will I. Sorry. -_-