How Young Is Too Young For The Death Penalty?

[cmotherofpirl]

[quote name='CatherineM' post='1773065' date='Feb 5 2009, 02:14 PM']Thank you. It is good to know that one of the biggest supporters of the death penalty can admit that it is okay for a Catholic to not be in favor of it. I'm sure that will make John Paul II rest easier. I pray for a time when it is not longer deemed to be necessary.[/quote]
Given what you know of human nature do you think thats possible?

[KnightofChrist]

[quote name='rkwright' post='1773047' date='Feb 5 2009, 01:48 PM']I really don't want to get into because there is no 'right' answer on this; I've already been through 2-3 threads on this issue and there is little productive value in any of it.

Every act of punishment must be just. The exercise of capital punishment is only just when the common good of society is the motivating factor. This is my argument.[/quote]

With two opposing ideas one is right and one is wrong, or both are wrong. They can not be both correct. Clearly the sides are opposed.

Again, the motivating factor in despising the just use of capital punishment [b]must be the actual crime committed.[/b] The common good of society can be A motivating factor. But justice requires for the crime committed to be the motivating factor. Again punishing someone with with a sentence that does not fit the crime would be unjust. And if the motivating factor is for the common good of society, and not the the actual crime committed, that is unjust.

Also I can't find the quote from Pope Benedict XVI, I've missed it or it's in another thread.

[CatherineM]

[quote name='cmotherofpirl' post='1773095' date='Feb 5 2009, 12:46 PM']Given what you know of human nature do you think thats possible?[/quote]

I also think the legal battle over abortion is lost, but that doesn't keep me from working for, praying for that to change.

[Tinkerlina]

[quote name='KnightofChrist' post='1773137' date='Feb 5 2009, 03:34 PM']With two opposing ideas one is right and one is wrong, or both are wrong. They can not be both correct. Clearly the sides are opposed.[/quote]

They aren't necessarily empirically right or wrong, it depends on a lot of circumstances. -Katie

[Tinkerlina]

I think another issue is the fact that some innocent people have been executed or face the death penalty. The death penalty is suspended in New York State but we've had two huge blunders in the last year in Buffalo, where I live, that led to people being sentenced for life, who were, thank God, exonerated do to a few innocent people. Imagine if we had executed these people. -Katie
[url="http://www.truthinjustice.org/capozzi.htm"]http://www.truthinjustice.org/capozzi.htm[/url]
[url="http://buffalopundit.wnymedia.net/blogs/archives/6232"]http://buffalopundit.wnymedia.net/blogs/archives/6232[/url]

Edited February 5, 2009 by Tinkerlina

[rkwright]

[quote name='KnightofChrist' post='1773137' date='Feb 5 2009, 02:34 PM']With two opposing ideas one is right and one is wrong, or both are wrong. They can not be both correct. Clearly the sides are opposed.

Again, the motivating factor in despising the just use of capital punishment [b]must be the actual crime committed.[/b] The common good of society can be A motivating factor. But justice requires for the crime committed to be the motivating factor. Again punishing someone with with a sentence that does not fit the crime would be unjust. And if the motivating factor is for the common good of society, and not the the actual crime committed, that is unjust.

Also I can't find the quote from Pope Benedict XVI, I've missed it or it's in another thread.[/quote]

I understand your argument. No need repeating it, I just don't agree with it. I think you have misread the quotes.

You wouldn't call the position of the current CCC 'wrong' would you?

Post #129

I'll repost it here.

WORTHINESS TO RECEIVE HOLY COMMUNION — GENERAL PRINCIPLES
T | T | T | T by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger

1. Presenting oneself to receive Holy Communion should be a conscious decision, based on a reasoned judgement regarding one’s worthiness to do so, according to the Church’s objective criteria, asking such questions as: “Am I in full communion with the Catholic Church? Am I guilty of grave sin? Have I incurred a penalty (e.g. excommunication, interdict) that forbids me to receive Holy Communion? Have I prepared myself by fasting for at least an hour?” The practice of indiscriminately presenting oneself to receive Holy Communion, merely as a consequence of being present at Mass, is an abuse that must be corrected (cf. Instruction “Redemptionis Sacramentum,” nos. 81, 83).

2. The Church teaches that abortion or euthanasia is a grave sin. The Encyclical Letter Evangelium vitae, with reference to judicial decisions or civil laws that authorise or promote abortion or euthanasia, states that there is a “grave and clear obligation to oppose them by conscientious objection. [...] In the case of an intrinsically unjust law, such as a law permitting abortion or euthanasia, it is therefore never licit to obey it, or to ‘take part in a propoganda campaign in favour of such a law or vote for it’” (no. 73). Christians have a “grave obligation of conscience not to cooperate formally in practices which, even if permitted by civil legislation, are contrary to God’s law. Indeed, from the moral standpoint, it is never licit to cooperate formally in evil. [...] This cooperation can never be justified either by invoking respect for the freedom of others or by appealing to the fact that civil law permits it or requires it” (no. 74).

3. 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. [i]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.[/i]

[Nihil Obstat]

Know what would be lovely?

Put together many many hours of talks from solid Catholic theologians, prelates, etc, etc, and force inmates to listen to it 24/7 while they're in prison.

[Tinkerlina]

[quote name='Nihil Obstat' post='1773198' date='Feb 5 2009, 05:27 PM']Know what would be lovely?

Put together many many hours of talks from solid Catholic theologians, prelates, etc, etc, and force inmates to listen to it 24/7 while they're in prison.

[/quote]

LOL or force them to listen to use debating...-Katie

[Winchester]

Apologies, but I am dropping out of this. I haven't looked for any responses to my stuff and I will take no parting shots to demean the opposition. I've discussed this same topic more than once to no benefit. Sorry if anyone wasted his time responding to my last posts.

[HisChildForever]

[quote name='Tinkerlina' post='1773183' date='Feb 5 2009, 04:01 PM']I think another issue is the fact that some innocent people have been executed or face the death penalty.[/quote]

[b]Factors leading to wrongful convictions include:[/b]
- Inadequate legal representation
- Police and prosecutorial misconduct
- Perjured testimony and mistaken eyewitness testimony
- Racial prejudice
- Jailhouse "snitch" testimony
- Suppression and/or misinterpretation of mitigating evidence
- Community/political pressure to solve a case

Source: [url="http://www.amnestyusa.org/death-penalty/death-penalty-facts/death-penalty-and-innocence/page.do?id=1101086"]http://www.amnestyusa.org/death-penalty/de...e.do?id=1101086[/url]

This website has a graph: [url="http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/node/75"]http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/node/75[/url]

You also would have to read each individual case to understand why they were falsely convicted:
[url="http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/cases-innocence-1973-present"]http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/cases-innocence-1973-present[/url]

[b]Edit[/b]

The Innocence Protection Act of 2004
[url="http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/node/1322"]http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/node/1322[/url]

Edited February 5, 2009 by HisChildForever

[HisChildForever]

[quote name='Winchester' post='1773234' date='Feb 5 2009, 05:17 PM']Apologies, but I am dropping out of this. I haven't looked for any responses to my stuff and I will take no parting shots to demean the opposition. I've discussed this same topic more than once to no benefit. Sorry if anyone wasted his time responding to my last posts.[/quote]

I liked your stuff.

[KnightofChrist]

KARL KEATING'S E-LETTER

[url="http://www.catholic.com/newsletters/kke_040302.asp"]MUST CATHOLICS OPPOSE CAPITAL PUNISHMENT?SECOND CALL FOR BACKPACKERS[/url]

Dear Friend of Catholic Answers:

In last week's E-Letter I discussed Catholic Answers' newest publication, our "Voter's Guide for Serious Catholics." The guide lists five "non-negotiable" issues and shows how these issues should be used to choose among candidates for offices at all levels of government.

These are five issues on which Catholics operating with well-formed consciences can take but one position (uncompromising opposition). The issues are abortion, euthanasia, fetal stem cell research, human cloning, and homosexual "marriage."

You might have noticed the absence of another issue that often is lumped with these five: the death penalty. Isn't that something, too, about which there is only one acceptable Catholic position?

Hasn't the "Catechism of the Catholic Church" imposed a new regime to which all Catholics must subscribe? Hasn't the Church fine-tuned her teachings in recent years so that Catholics now are obliged to oppose the imposition of capital punishment except is cases so rare that they may be considered to be almost non-existent?

[b]
A THOUGHTFUL--AND THOUGHT-PROVOKING--ANALYSIS[/b]

Last September, at the annual Fellowship of Catholic Scholars convention, several talks were given on capital punishment. That same month, "Christifidelis," the newsletter of the Saint Joseph Foundation, featured an article on "The Purposes of Punishment."

The article, by canon lawyer R. Michael Dunnigan, closely paralleled what was said at the FCS convention. The complete article may be read at:

[url="http://www.st-joseph-foundation.org/newsletter/lead.php?document=2003/21-4"]www.st-joseph-foundation.org/newsletter/lead.php?document=2003/21-4[/url]

I want to highlight a few of the points made by Dunnigan. I urge you to read the complete article because I am leaving out much of his analysis.

He says, "The key issue in the debate over the death penalty is whether the recent statements of the Magisterium contradict previous teaching on the purposes of punishment." The three traditional purposes recognized by the Church have been:

1. Defense of society against the criminal.
2. Rehabilitation of the criminal (including spiritual rehabilitation).
3. Retribution, which is the reparation of the disorder caused by the criminal's transgression.

Sometimes a fourth purpose has been listed: deterrence.

In 1955 Pope Pius XII affirmed that retribution is a legitimate end of punishment in general. "The most important question raised by the recent Magisterium pronouncements," says Dunnigan, "is whether retribution remains a legitimate purpose in the context of the death penalty. ... The 'Catechism' seems to recognize only a single purpose of capital punishment--the physical safety of persons. It seems not to recognize retribution as a legitimate purpose."

The problem arises from how the "Catechism" categorizes capital punishment. Section 2266 looks at punishment in general, and section 2267 looks at capital punishment alone.

Section 2266 acknowledges the traditional three-fold purpose of punishment and lists retribution as the first purpose:

"[b]Legitimate public authority has the right and duty to inflict punishment proportionate to the gravity of the offense[/b]. Punishment has[b] the primary[/b] [note the word!] aim of redressing the disorder introduced by the offense. When it is willingly accepted by the guilty party, it assumes the value of expiation [this is the rehabilitation of the criminal]. Punishment then, in addition to defending public order and protecting people's safety [this is the first of the three purposes listed above], has a medicinal purpose: as far as possible, it must contribute to the correction of the guilty party [back to rehabilitation]."

Section 2267 does not flow smoothly from section 2266. It does not analyze the death penalty in terms of punishment but in terms of legitimate defense, taking a cue here from "Evangelium Vitae."

"The practical effect of analyzing the death penalty in terms of legitimate defense is to restrict the circumstances in which it properly may be imposed," says Dunnigan. "In self-defense one may use only that level of force necessary to protect oneself. Similarly, the 'Catechism' permits imposition of the death penalty only to the extent necessary to defend human lives.

"By contrast, when the death penalty is analyzed in terms of traditional teaching on punishment, legitimate justifications include not only physical safety but also retribution and deterrence."

In short, there is an ambiguity in the "Catechism." Other punishments are looked at not just in terms of legitimate defense but under all three purposes of punishment in general. The death penalty, for some unexplained reason, is looked at only in terms of one of the three purposes, protection of innocent parties.

[b]INSERTING A PRUDENTIAL JUDGMENT INTO THE CATECHISM[/b]

That brings us to the policy provision of the treatment in the "Catechism," as given in section 2267:

"If, however, non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people's safety from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means. ... Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for effectively preventing crime ... the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity 'are very rare, if not practically non-existent'" (quoting EV 56).

How are we to understand this? Avery Cardinal Dulles has noted (in a letter to the "National Catholic Register") that a denial of retribution as a legitimate purpose of capital punishment would be contrary to the traditional teaching of the Church, but this is not, he thinks, what the magisterium is doing in the "Catechism."

Dulles believes that section 2267 and "Evangelium Vitae" are not Church teaching, in the proper meaning of the term, but reflect the "prudential judgment" of John Paul II.

Whether a society's penal system is capable of protecting its citizens adequately without recourse to the death penalty is not really a matter of doctrine. It is a matter of the evaluation of the existing social situation. One can make a case that our current penal system succeeds in this--or that it fails in this.

Fr. George Rutler, also writing in the "Register," agrees with Dulles's view but is even more critical of what he terms the "problematic" decision to put a prudential judgment into a catechetical text. He and Dulles emphasize that there is a clear distinction between Church teachings and the prudential judgments of a pope.

All Catholics must subscribe to the former, but Catholics are free to disagree with the latter, since prudential judgments are not under the charism of infallibility and are not themselves authoritative pronouncements of the magisterium. While they may relate to doctrines of faith and morals, they are neither one nor the other.

Dunnigan notes that "Catholics are obliged to give 'a religious submission of the intellect and will' to the ordinary magisterium, but this duty attaches only to doctrines and teachings of the Church. This same duty of submission does not attach to the mere prudential judgments of the Church's pastors. The conclusion that the circumstances justifying the death penalty are 'practically non-existent' is based on a prudential judgment about the state of the penal system.

"As a result of the fact that a Catholic legitimately might disagree with this judgment, it follows that he legitimately might disagree as well with the conclusion that the circumstances justifying capital punishment are 'practically non-existent.'"

(As a side point, I should note that the opposition of the majority of the American bishops to the use of capital punishment is not binding on the faithful, since national bishops' conferences, as such, are not part of the magisterium.)

[b]THE BOTTOM LINE[/b]

As I mentioned above, I am excerpting only a small part of Dunnigan's article. I urge you to read the whole thing. It is well written and can be comprehended by any patient reader.

[u]To me it demonstrates that the "Catechism" has not dealt with the death penalty in a sufficiently full way. It has limited itself to just one aspect, public safety, while not even discussing the other traditional purposes of punishment. Beyond that, it has included a prudential judgment (the only such one in the "Catechism" on any topic, so far as I am aware) that, by its nature, cannot be binding in conscience.[/u]

What is the bottom line? Must Catholics adopt a particular view regarding the use (or non-use) or capital punishment? In short: no.

They are free to endorse, as a political policy, the complete abolition of capital punishment, and they are free to endorse the use of capital punishment, even beyond the very narrow limits given in the prudential judgment in section 2267. Contrary to what some people claim, there has been no revolution in Church teaching on the matter.

You can be a good Catholic and think that the death penalty should be done away with entirely, and you can be a good Catholic and think that it should be applied more often than "rarely."

You are not bound in conscience to adopt one position over the other. You are free to make your own prudential determination--but you are not free to say that someone whose prudential determination differs from yours is therefore a "bad Catholic."

The Church does not mandate opposition to the death penalty, nor does she mandate support for it. This means that capital punishment cannot be listed as a "non-negotiable" moral issue, and that is why it is not mentioned in our "Voter's Guide for Serious Catholics."

Until next time,
Karl

Edited February 5, 2009 by KnightofChrist

[rkwright]

Edit: don't know why I keep coming back here... its like an addiction!

Edited February 6, 2009 by rkwright

[Tinkerlina]

[quote name='HisChildForever' post='1773237' date='Feb 5 2009, 06:21 PM'][b]Factors leading to wrongful convictions include:[/b]
- Inadequate legal representation
- Police and prosecutorial misconduct
- Perjured testimony and mistaken eyewitness testimony
- Racial prejudice
- Jailhouse "snitch" testimony
- Suppression and/or misinterpretation of mitigating evidence
- Community/political pressure to solve a case

Source: [url="http://www.amnestyusa.org/death-penalty/death-penalty-facts/death-penalty-and-innocence/page.do?id=1101086"]http://www.amnestyusa.org/death-penalty/de...e.do?id=1101086[/url]

This website has a graph: [url="http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/node/75"]http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/node/75[/url]

You also would have to read each individual case to understand why they were falsely convicted:
[url="http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/cases-innocence-1973-present"]http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/cases-innocence-1973-present[/url]

[b]Edit[/b]

The Innocence Protection Act of 2004
[url="http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/node/1322"]http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/node/1322[/url][/quote]

Thanks for the info-it honestly scares me to death (no pun intended, haha) that this stuff happens. Death penalty aside, just having to be accused. I have a huge fear of being "wrongfully accused" and such. And sadly I think prosecutorial and police misconduct are all too prevelant. -Katie

[Norseman82]

And today's Michael Corleone award goes to...

[quote name='rkwright' post='1773313' date='Feb 5 2009, 07:10 PM']Edit: don't know why I keep coming back here... its like an addiction! [/quote]