Death Penalty

[Alycin]

[quote name='Apotheoun' post='1565725' date='Jun 9 2008, 10:58 PM']Anything contrary to Apostolic Tradition is by definition heretical.[/quote]


You lost me... who questioned apostolic tradition?

[KnightofChrist]

Cardinal Avery Dulles, SJ, 10/7/2000, "At no point, however, does Jesus deny that the State has authority to exact capital punishment. 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 (Mt 15:4; Mk 7:10, referring to Ex 21:17; cf. Lev 20:9). 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 (Jn 19:1 l).Jesus commends the good thief on the cross next to him, who has admitted that he and his fellow thief are receiving the due reward of their deeds (Lk 23:41). "

"Paul repeatedly refers to the connection between sin and death. He writes to the Romans with an apparent reference to the death penalty, that the magistrate who holds authority does not bear the sword in vain; for he is the servant of God to execute his wrath on the wrongdoer (Rom 13:4). No passage in the New Testament disapproves of the death penalty."

"Turning to Christian tradition, we may note that [u]the Fathers and Doctors of the Church are virtually unanimous in their support for capital punishment[/u], even though some of them such as St. Ambrose exhort members of the clergy not to pronounce capital sentences or serve as executioners."

"The Roman Catechism, issued in 1566, three years after the end of the Council of Trent, taught that the power of life and death had been entrusted by God to civil authorities and that the use of this power, far from involving the crime of murder, [u]is an act of paramount obedience to the fifth commandment[/u]. "

"Summarizing the verdict of Scripture and tradition, we can glean some settled points of doctrine. It is agreed that crime deserves punishment in this life and not only in the next. In addition, it is agreed that the State has authority to administer appropriate punishment to those judged guilty of crimes and that this punishment may, in serious cases, include the sentence of death."

"The Catholic magisterium does not, and never has, advocated unqualified abolition of the death penalty. I know of no official statement from popes or bishops, whether in the past or in the present, that denies[u] the right[/u] of the State to execute offenders at least in certain extreme cases. The United States bishops, in their majority statement on capital punishment, conceded that Catholic teaching has accepted the principle that the state has the right to take the life of a person guilty of an extremely serious crime. Cardinal Bernardin, in his famous speech on the Consistent Ethic of Life here at Fordham in 1983, stated his concurrence with the classical position that the State has the right to inflict capital punishment.

[url="http://www.homicidesurvivors.com/2006/10/12/catholic-and-other-christian-references-support-for-the-death-penalty.aspx"]Source[/url]

[Socrates]

[quote name='Alycin' post='1561265' date='Jun 6 2008, 03:02 PM']It always saddens me to see people who are more loyal to their political party than they are to the Church. I used to be one of those people...well, before I was Catholic, anyway. I was more loyal to my political stance than I was to God. I tried to twist things so that they would fall in line with how I felt politically. It's a hard place to be in. [/quote]
Just came across this, and thought I'd add that my position has nothing to do with loyalty to a political party, but with the what the Church has always taught regarding justice. But for those who dismiss the words of St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas as "blah blah blah," it seems there is little real interest in why people take this position.

[mod]personal attack - Lil Red[/mod] The Cardinal Ratzinger quote I gave was from an official document from Ratzinger as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to Cardinal McCarrick, made public July 2004. [url="http://www.priestsforlife.org/magisterium/bishops/04-07ratzingerommunion.htm"]Read the complete document here.[/url] It was not from a "Q and A session" and was not something said off-hand or misquoted, but was something drafted and documented.
If Cardinal Ratzinger did not mean there is a legitimate diversity of opinion on the death penalty, he would not have said so. Unlike some, he is a man whose word means something.
I'm just saying this to clarify for the general phatmass public so they won't be misled regarding that quote. [mod]personal attack - Lil Red[/mod]

[Alycin]

Who knew people would get so offended by my defending church statements and JPII statements tooth and nail?

[kujo]

[quote name='Socrates' post='1565736' date='Jun 10 2008, 12:00 AM']Just came across this, and thought I'd add that my position has nothing to do with loyalty to a political party, but with the what the Church has always taught regarding justice. But for those who dismiss the words of St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas as "blah blah blah," it seems there is little real interest in why people take this position.

Also, in your quote of the muppet guy, I have that clown on "ignore" for precisely that kind of croutons. The Cardinal Ratzinger quote I gave was from an official document from Ratzinger as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to Cardinal McCarrick, made public July 2004. [url="http://www.priestsforlife.org/magisterium/bishops/04-07ratzingerommunion.htm"]Read the complete document here.[/url] It was not from a "Q and A session" and was not something said off-hand or misquoted, but was something drafted and documented.
If Cardinal Ratzinger did not mean there is a legitimate diversity of opinion on the death penalty, he would not have said so. Unlike some, he is a man whose word means something.
I'm just saying this to clarify for the general phatmass public so they won't be misled regarding that quote. I won't see nor care what the muppet says about me, nor how much he cusses or uses the Lord's name in vain, while trying to assert his superior "Catholicness."[/quote]

Who is the "muppet guy?"

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='Alycin' post='1565730' date='Jun 9 2008, 08:59 PM']You lost me... who questioned apostolic tradition?[/quote]
The power of the State to execute a convicted criminal is a divinely revealed truth, and a fundamental component of the natural moral law, and no one, not even the pope, can change that fact.

[KnightofChrist]

[quote name='Alycin' post='1565730' date='Jun 9 2008, 09:59 PM']You lost me... who questioned apostolic tradition?[/quote]

The Church teaching which supports the states right of Capital Punishment is part of oral and written Apostolic Tradition.

[Alycin]

[quote name='Socrates' post='1565736' date='Jun 9 2008, 11:00 PM']If Cardinal Ratzinger did not mean there is a legitimate diversity of opinion on the death penalty, he would not have said so.[/quote]


Likewise, if the Catechism didn't [i]mean[/i] exactly what it said, wouldn't different wording have been chosen?

[quote name='Alycin' post='1565516' date='Jun 9 2008, 09:37 PM']2267 [b]"[u]Assuming that the guility party's idenity and responsiblity have been fully determinated, the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penality, [size=4]if that is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressors[/size]. If however, non lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people's safetly from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these are more in keeping with concrete conditions of the common good and more in conformity with the dignity of the human person.[/u] 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][/quote]

[Alycin]

So what yall are saying is, the catechism is errant and needs to be changed, and that JPII was wrong?

Edited June 10, 2008 by Alycin

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='Alycin' post='1565740' date='Jun 9 2008, 09:02 PM']Who knew people would get so offended by my defending church statements and JPII statements tooth and nail?

[/quote]
No one is bound to accept the prudential judgments of the pope.

[kujo]

Is it just me, or are we agreeing here? The CCC says that it is okay only in select circumstances, and you are all saying that Church tradition says that the state has the authority to do it.

[Alycin]

[quote name='Apotheoun' post='1565756' date='Jun 9 2008, 11:07 PM']No one is bound to accept the prudential judgments of the pope.[/quote]

What about the catechism?

[Alycin]

[quote name='kujo' post='1565757' date='Jun 9 2008, 11:07 PM']Is it just me, or are we agreeing here? The CCC says that it is okay only in select circumstances, and you are all saying that Church tradition says that the state has the authority to do it.[/quote]

I figure if they are arguing with me, when all I have done over and over is repeat what the catechism says, then we must not be in agreement.

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='Alycin' post='1565753' date='Jun 9 2008, 09:06 PM']So what yall are saying is, the catechism is errant and needs to be changed, and that JPII was wrong?[/quote]
The catechism is not a "superdogma." In fact, the catechism adds no dogmatic weight at all to the teachings presented in it, nor is the document itself infallible.

Moreover, as far as the pope's comments on the death penalty are concerned, they are not the proper subject matter for a dogmatic pronouncement. Whether penal systems in different countries are better today than they were years ago, or will be in the future, is not the proper subject matter for a dogmatic decree, since it is not a part of divine revelation, nor can such an opinion be said to be even logically or historically connected to the deposit of faith. In other words, the pope is quite fallible in his prudential judgments, and one is free to disagree completely with him on this issue.

Edited June 10, 2008 by Apotheoun

[Alycin]

[quote name='Apotheoun' post='1565774' date='Jun 9 2008, 11:12 PM']Moreover, as far as the pope's comments on the death penalty are concerned, they are not the proper subject matter for a dogmatic pronouncement. Whether penal systems in different countries are better today than they were years ago, or will be in the future, is not the proper subject matter for a dogmatic decree. In other words, the pope is quite fallible in his prudential judgments.[/quote]


I don't think you understand what I am arguing. I am not saying that the death penalty is wrong, evil, or should not be used at all, I am saying that it should be used exactly in alignment with what the catechism says.

And I will accept the CCC over your opinion any day.

Sorry.