Death Penalty

[Brother Adam]

An appeal to emotionalism is the worst way to debate.

[amarkich]

That statement is completely true, but I do not see how you 1) personally interpret the Bible, and worse, the words of Our Lord Himself and 2) confuse the concept of love and justice. First of all, it is clear that you cannot personally say what the Bible says, especially when it is the spoken word of Our Lord Himself. As for love and justice, you confuse the two greatly. Our Lord was speaking of love by the individual, not by institutions. With this logic, the Church should never excommunicate a heretic either. Even concerning love between individuals, the concept of justice is intertwined with love. A father's love for his child does not prevent him from disciplining the child, even by force. While we may love the criminals who commit the evils for which they are punished, we still must support the exercising of justice by the death penalty should the government deem it fit. The concept that the people should have a say in protest of the government's use on the death penalty almost completely undermines the Church's teaching of the authority of the government, which is derived from God, and supports the Social Contract. This is a grave error. Again, I am interested in hearing some coherent explanation, using the Church's teaching, to defend an anti-death penalty stance. God bless.

This is in response to Jason (and the anti-death penalty supportes), just to clarify (I was typing and did not recognize that a message was entered between our posts).

Edited March 31, 2004 by amarkich

[jrndveritatis]

Hopefully this wasn't already posted in any of the ten pages of this debate I did not have time to read.

Karl Keating, the founder of [url="http://www.catholic.com/"]Catholic Answers[/url], had a recent e-letter about the death penalty in which he said that it is legitimate for Catholics to support the death penalty.

Here is the link:

[url="http://www.catholic.com/newsletters/kke_040302.asp"]Keating's E-Letter[/url]

He says that many theologians believe that the Pope's stance on this issue is simply a prudential judgement and not a doctrine.

What do you guys think of his arguments?

[CatholicCrusader]

Of course the Pope's opinion is NOT doctrinal...the Church has taught IN COUNCILS that the death penalty is not only allowed but is in "paramount obedience" (Council of Trent) to the Fifth Commandment. The Pope made his opinion known, an opinion that is in now was dogmatic and has not at all been stated authoritatively.

God bless

[PhatPhred]

[quote name='jrndveritatis' date='Mar 30 2004, 10:02 PM']What do you guys think of his arguments?[/quote]
Canon law number 749 specifically details the right of the Church "to make judgments about any human matter in so far as this is required by fundamental human rights or the salvation of souls." My take is that "any human matter" includes what Keating and Dunningan try to dismiss as "prudential judgments", so I see no justification for dissent from the Holy Father in this matter.

[PhatPhred]

[quote name='CatholicCrusader' date='Mar 30 2004, 10:10 PM']Of course the Pope's opinion is NOT doctrinal...the Church has taught IN COUNCILS that the death penalty is not only allowed but is in "paramount obedience" (Council of Trent) to the Fifth Commandment.[/quote]
It's not the job of faithful Catholics to privately interpret the statements of past councils to determine if the Pope has made an error, any more than we are to privately interpret Scripture to see if the Church teaching contradicts the Bible. If you want to go down that route, you might as well become a Protestant.

[quote name='CatholicCrusader' date='Mar 30 2004, 10:10 PM']The Pope made his opinion known, an opinion that is in now was dogmatic and has not at all been stated authoritatively.[/quote]
The Pope promulgated his teaching about the death penalty in the encyclical [i]Evangelium Vitae[/i]. You can't get more authoritative than that.

[MrsFrozen]

[quote name='amarkich' date='Mar 30 2004, 08:12 PM']
This is simply not true. God has given the government the authority to take the life of criminals. This is evident in various Church documents, but irrefutably so in the Council of Trent. [/quote]
Please reread the Catechism quote I provided. It clearly states that capital punishment is only acceptable in EXTREME cases. None of the people on death row are these extreme cases. These people are imprisoned and are no longer a threat to society.

And yes, Jesus did renew the old covenant. He taught us to love our enemies. Please read John 8. Jesus says that whoever is sinless may punish someone with death. Who is sinless? God! Criminals can be punished for their crimes, but not killed. We have no right to do God's job.


God bless.

[Livin_the_MASS]

[quote name='amarkich' date='Mar 30 2004, 07:37 PM']That statement is completely true, but I do not see how you 1) personally interpret the Bible, and worse, the words of Our Lord Himself and 2) confuse the concept of love and justice. First of all, it is clear that you cannot personally say what the Bible says, especially when it is the spoken word of Our Lord Himself. As for love and justice, you confuse the two greatly. Our Lord was speaking of love by the individual, not by institutions. With this logic, the Church should never excommunicate a heretic either. Even concerning love between individuals, the concept of justice is intertwined with love. A father's love for his child does not prevent him from disciplining the child, even by force. While we may love the criminals who commit the evils for which they are punished, we still must support the exercising of justice by the death penalty should the government deem it fit. The concept that the people should have a say in protest of the government's use on the death penalty almost completely undermines the Church's teaching of the authority of the government, which is derived from God, and supports the Social Contract. This is a grave error. Again, I am interested in hearing some coherent explanation, using the Church's teaching, to defend an anti-death penalty stance. God bless.

This is in response to Jason (and the anti-death penalty supportes), just to clarify (I was typing and did not recognize that a message was entered between our posts).[/quote]
a response in this matter usually means I have said something right! lol

I never claimed to interpret the Bible, Our Lords words speak for themself period...

He was the best Teacher in Theology. You deny the power of His words?

Did He not give us that command?

I tell you He did.

Seems to me your interperting Scripture the way you want!

[quote]An appeal to emotionalism is the worst way to debate.[/quote]

lol! What kind of statement is this?

I must of drove the nail! he! he!

Mercy, read St. Faustina, it would do good! Mercy!

[jrndveritatis]

I personally agree with what Keating says in his article. My only reservation is that the statement about reserving the death penalty for extreme cases in which society is endangered is in the Catechism. I would like to hear from those who have read the article how Keating knows that this is a prudential judgment with which we can disagree despite being in the Catechism.

For example, the Catechism explicitly states that the decision to go to war is a prudential judgment on which the Pope does not have the rightful authority. President Bush had the authority to make a prudential judgment on the war, and because the Pope's opposition to the war was simply his own prudential judgment, the Catechism itself made it clear that the Pope did not have teaching authority on this one. Now please don't start debating the war, I was just using that as an example.

But what about the death penalty? How does Keating know it is a prudential judgment.

I agree that historically the Church has taught there is a retributive aspect of justice, and that this is being at least weakened by the passages in the Catechism.

Personally, I think I will listen to Keating over the liberal/heretical theologians who try to elevate the importance of opposition to the death penalty to that of opposing abortion. Keating has proven himself in the past as orthodox, so I think he is a trustworthy voice in this debate.

[Norseman82]

[quote name='Jason' date='Mar 30 2004, 07:18 PM'] John 14:34

I give you a new commandment: [b][u]love one another.As I have loved you, so should you love one another.[/u][/b]
[/quote]

How about showing love to the innocent people in society by protecting them from criminals?

[Norseman82]

By the way, could someone explain more about this term "prudential judgement"? This is the first time I've ever heard that term used.

[jrndveritatis]

CCC 2390 On Just War

"...The evaluation of these conditions for moral legitimacy belongs to the prudential judgment of those who have responsibility for the common good."

That is one example of prudential judgment, note on the question of just war not on the question of the death penalty.

Here is the section from Keating's article about prudential judgment and the death penalty.

[quote]INSERTING A PRUDENTIAL JUDGMENT INTO THE CATECHISM

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.)
[/quote]

[Livin_the_MASS]

[quote name='Norseman82' date='Mar 30 2004, 09:42 PM']
How about showing love to the innocent people in society by protecting them from criminals?[/quote]
God is Mercy!

God is Judge!

"Vengence is mine says the Lord!"

This could go on forever!

Again I will suggest St. Faustinas Book on Divine Mercy.
"The greater the sinner the more he has the right to my Mercy," He said to St. Faustina.

The point of the Gospels is Mercy. Be careful on this topic to much Theology debating can lead to trouble.

God is Mercy.

Long Live JPII!!! and The Holy Catholic Church! Amen.

God Bless
Jason

Edited March 31, 2004 by Jason

[popestpiusx]

Here you go folks. I have posted this link but the arguments in the article are being ignored so I posting the whole thing. Fr. Rutler is a very highly respected theologian, a convert from Anglicanism (or Lutheranism?), a regular on EWTN etc. etc. At least take his arguments into consideration.

Death Penalty Symposium

Scalia's Right: Catechism's Problematic

by
Fr. George Rutler

National Catholic Register
March 24-31, 2002

Many Americans dismissed Alexander Solzhenitsyn when he criticized the decadence of Western Culture. Others more recently ignored his plea for a restoration of the death penalty: "There are times when the state needs capital punishment in order to save society." This is Christian doctrine. Since popes are preserved from essential error by "grace of state," none has wrongly claimed authority to call capital punishment morally evil.

"Development of doctrine" does not apply here.

As the Church's teaching on contraception cannot "develop" in a way that would declare its intrinsic evil to be good, so the right of a state to execute criminals cannot "develop" so that its intrinsic good becomes evil. For Cardinal John Henry Newman, development of doctrine involves "preservation of type." Changes in the way a doctrine is expressed and applied cannot alter its essence.


Some Catholics, who once pointed out the flaws in the "seamless garment" argument, now rush to put on that garment as though there has been a sudden development. By definition, the development of doctrine cannot happen overnight. The new edition of the Catechism revises the section on capital punishment. This was not a development of doctrine. It was, however, problematic for placing a prudential judgment in a catechetical text, more problematically so than in an encyclical like Evangelium Vitae. Paragraph 2266 of the Catechism names the primary consideration of retribution, but No. 2267 ignores it.

That the vast majority of opinion has turned against capital punishment is irrelevant to the case and is not universally so. Nor is it universally so that penal systems have improved in a way that renders capital punishment unnecessary. There are many very different systems.
There has been a development, not in essential doctrine, but in moral criticism. Here, I am edified by the fine scholastic logic of Justice Scalia, as when he identifies the mistaken modern equation of private morality and governmental morality.

Catholics have distinguished between peace and pacifism. They disserve systematic theology when they fail to make a parallel distinction between the dignity of life and a total ban on capital punishment. The cogency of Catholic apologetics crumbles when reason is abandoned for sentimentality in consequence of philosophical idealism and subjectivism. We also may be witnessing here some tension between personalist phenomenology and Thomist realism.

Absolute rejection of capital punishment weakens the cogency of pro-life apologetics. Some churchmen cite skewered statistics on the execution of innocent victims.

Since 1973 the present U.S. system has overturned about 33% of all convictions, although only .6% of those criminals were found to be factually innocent. DNA testing makes justice ever more secure, and capital offenders receive due process far more deliberately than other offenders. In numerous instances, e.g. the defeat of Senator John Ashcroft, strongly anti-abortion politicians have lost elections to pro-abortion candidates who were against capital punishment. This gets worse when criminals, freed in response to ecclesiastical appeals for mercy, kill again.

The pastoral commentary of the Church guides moral method, but the prudential calculus, in punishment as in the declaration of war, rests in the civil government whose authority pertains to natural law and is not granted by the Church. To propose otherwise under the guise of doctrinal development would be a species of clerical triumphalism that post-Enlightenment humanists claimed to abhor. Few see this as clearly as a distinguished Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Father Rutler is pastor of the Church of our Saviour in New York.

Here is he link:
[url="http://www.ncregister.com/Register_News/031902rut.htm"]http://www.ncregister.com/Register_News/031902rut.htm[/url]

[Livin_the_MASS]

[quote]"Development of doctrine" does not apply here. [/quote] Nonsense!