The ongoing debates about the authentic Catholic position on the death penalty have grown particularly exasperating. Perhaps the worst thing of all is that we’re wasting time arguing over teaching that is incredibly well-established throughout the majority of Church history. The Church’s stance on capital punishment has always been more than merely permissive; the idea that “rendering harmless” those criminals deserving of capital punishment is sufficient to eradicate the need for such a sentence is simply not consistent with the teachings of Holy Scripture, the understanding of popes, doctors of the Church, and various apostolic pronouncements.
Adding fuel to the fire, today we have a report from the Vatican’s own news service indicating that Pope Francis has attempted to proclaim that there is no circumstance whatsoever in which the death penalty is warranted:
Capital punishment is cruel, inhuman and an offense to the dignity of human life. There is no crime in the world that deserves the death penalty. That was Pope Francis’ unequivocal message to members of the International Commission against the death penalty who met with him on Friday morning in the Vatican.
In a lengthy letter written in Spanish and addressed to the president of the International Commission against the death penalty, Pope Francis thanks those who work tirelessly for a universal moratorium, with the goal of abolishing the use of capital punishment in countries right across the globe.
Pope Francis makes clear that justice can never be done by killing another human being and he stresses there can be no humane way of carrying out a death sentence. For Christians, he says, all life is sacred because every one of us is created by God, who does not want to punish one murder with another, but rather wishes to see the murderer repent. Even murderers, he went on, do not lose their human dignity and God himself is the guarantor.
Capital punishment, Pope Francis says, is the opposite of divine mercy, which should be the model for our man-made legal systems. Death sentences, he insists, imply cruel and degrading treatment, as well as the torturous anguish of a lengthy waiting period before the execution, which often leads to sickness or insanity.
This is why I use the word “attempted” in describing the pope’s desire to eradicate capital punishment: because he lacks the authority to make such a change. Shocking, I know, but I said it before and I’ll repeat it again: the teaching on this matter is settled. In order to advance this position, Pope Francis would have to declare several of his predecessors as well as St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Thomas More (who prosecuted heretics in an England where that was a capital offense), a papal decree, an apostolic constitution, and also St. Paul’s own divinely-inspired writing in the New Testament to be in error.
Don’t believe me? Read for yourself. We’ll start with the New Testament:
- “If then I am a wrongdoer, and have committed anything for which I deserve to die, I do not seek to escape death.” (Acts 25:11)
- “Let every soul be subject to higher powers. For there is no power but from God: and those that are ordained of God. Therefore, he that resisteth the power resisteth the ordinance of God. And they that resist purchase to themselves damnation. For princes are not a terror to the good work, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? Do that which is good: and thou shalt have praise from the same. For he is God’s minister to thee, for good. But if thou do that which is evil, fear: for he beareth not the sword in vain. For he is God’s minister: an avenger to execute wrath upon him that doth evil” (Romans 13:1-4).
We may also examine papal and magisterial pronouncements:
- “It must be remembered that power was granted by God [to the magistrates], and to avenge crime by the sword was permitted. He who carries out this vengeance is God’s minister (Rm 13:1-4). Why should we condemn a practice that all hold to be permitted by God? We uphold, therefore, what has been observed until now, in order not to alter the discipline and so that we may not appear to act contrary to God’s authority.” (Pope Innocent 1, Epist. 6, C. 3. 8, ad Exsuperium, Episcopum Tolosanum, 20 February 405, PL 20,495)
- Condemned as an error: “That heretics be burned is against the will of the Spirit.” – Pope Leo X, Exsurge Domine (1520)
- “The power of life and death is permitted to certain civil magistrates because theirs is the responsibility under law to punish the guilty and protect the innocent. Far from being guilty of breaking this commandment [Thy shall not kill], such an execution of justice is precisely an act of obedience to it. For the purpose of the law is to protect and foster human life. This purpose is fulfilled when the legitimate authority of the State is exercised by taking the guilty lives of those who have taken innocent lives. In the Psalms we find a vindication of this right: “Morning by morning I will destroy all the wicked in the land, cutting off all evildoers from the city of the Lord” (Ps. 101:8). (Roman Catechism of the Council of Trent, 1566, Part III, 5, n. 4)
- “Even in the case of the death penalty the State does not dispose of the individual’s right to life. Rather public authority limits itself to depriving the offender of the good of life in expiation for his guilt, after he, through his crime, deprived himself of his own right to life.” (Pope Pius XII, Address to the First International Congress of Histopathology of the Nervous System, 14 September 1952, XIV, 328)
- “The same divine authority that forbids the killing of a human being establishes certain exceptions, as when God authorizes killing by a general law or when He gives an explicit commission to an individual for a limited time. The agent who executes the killing does not commit homicide; he is an instrument as is the sword with which he cuts. Therefore, it is in no way contrary to the commandment, ‘Thou shalt not kill’ to wage war at God’s bidding, or for the representatives of public authority to put criminals to death, according to the law, that is, the will of the most just reason.” – (St. Augustine, The City of God, Book 1, chapter 21)
- It is written: “Wizards thou shalt not suffer to live” (Ex. 22:18); and: “In the morning I put to death all the wicked of the land” (Ps. 100:8). …Every part is directed to the whole, as imperfect to perfect, wherefore every part exists naturally for the sake of the whole. For this reason we see that if the health of the whole human body demands the excision of a member, because it became putrid or infectious to the other members, it would be both praiseworthy and healthful to have it cut away. Now every individual person is related to the entire society as a part to the whole. Therefore if a man be dangerous and infectious to the community, on account of some sin, it is praiseworthy and healthful that he be killed in order to safeguard the common good, since “a little leaven corrupteth the whole lump” (1 Cor. 5:6). – (St. Thomas, Summa Theologiae, II, II, q. 64, art. 2)
-
In Iota Unum, Romano Amerio cites St. Thomas on the expiatory nature of accepting a death sentence:
“Even death inflicted as a punishment for crimes takes away the whole punishment for those crimes in the next life, or at least part of that punishment, according to the quantities of guilt, resignation, and contrition; but a natural death does not.” (Cf. Romano Amerio Iota Unum, 435)
In his apostolic constitution, Horrendum illud scelus, Pope St. Pius V even decreed that actively homosexual clerics were to be stripped of their office and handed over to the civil authorities, who at that time held sodomy as a capital offense. He wrote: “We determine that clerics guilty of this execrable crime are to be quite gravely punished, so that whoever does not abhor the ruination of the soul, the avenging secular sword of civil laws will certainly deter.”
These are, to borrow words from the New Testament, “hard sayings.” But as Catholics, we are obligated to wrestle with these teachings – especially the ones we don’t understand or find ourselves interiorly opposed to. Taking it upon ourselves to condemn what we disagree with is to challenge the authority and doctrinal orthodoxy of those who proclaimed them true in the first place. The burden is on us to prove, if we really believe it, why some prior teaching was wrong – and how to reconcile that with infallibility and authentic doctrinal development.
The above citations alone should be sufficient to prove that the death penalty was traditionally viewed by the Church as more than just morally permissible in certain circumstances. It seems clear that the traditional view was that, when carried out justly, the execution of criminals deserving of such penalties by the legitimate authority of the state actually served the common good and even had the power to expiate temporal punishment on the part of the guilty. This is something that more recent papal statements — like those found in Evangelium Vitae — fail to address. (More on that in a minute.)
No less contemporary an ecclesiastical authority than Cardinal Ratzinger, later to become Pope Benedict, admitted at the very least that Catholics had room to disagree on this issue. He stated, as pertains to the question of capital punishment and the worthiness of an individual who supports it to receive Holy Communion:
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.
As a student of Church history, it’s no surprise that Ratzinger clarified this. We see why in an article published by Dr. Steven Long, professor of theology at Ave Maria University, on the website Thomistica (run by the Aquinas Center of Ave Maria). In the piece — which specifically addresses the recent joint statement in favor of abolition of the death penalty by four ostensibly Catholic journals — Long demonstrates that acceptance of the right of the state to levy this penalty was a requirement for the restoration of the heretical Waldensians to full communion:
Wholly unobserved is the high theological note characterizing the profession required of the Waldensians in 1210 in order to re-establish ecclesial communion. The Waldensians were required to acknowledge among other things the essential justice of the death penalty for grave crime. Cf. Denzinger, #425—“Concerning secular power we declare that without mortal sin it is possible to exercise a judgment of blood as long as one proceeds to bring punishment not in hatred but in judgment, not incautiously but advisedly.” Clearly to require this oath for the re-establishment of ecclesial communion at one moment, and then to imply the absolute necessity of the opposite—where what is at stake is not prudential application and limit but the principled possibility of just penalty of death—would constitute not a development of doctrine, but rather a mutation. Note, again, that the oath required of the Waldensians directly refers to the death penalty in principle and that it indicates that as such it cannot be a malum in se. Nor is it listed as such in Evangelium Vitae, which provides a list of such intrinsic evils from which the death penalty is omitted.
Are the editors of the journals involved–or the bishops who so commonly describe the death penalty as contrary to human dignity as though it were amalum in se–familiar with the work of the late Eminence Cardinal Avery Dulles on this question? Or the teaching of the Fathers and Doctors of the Church? Hundreds of years of Catholic teaching in conformity with the teaching of the Fathers and Doctors has acknowledged that implementing the penalty is a prudential matter and that the penalty is essentially valid. Pope Piux XII taught that the penalty is valid across cultures. The wisdom of applying this penalty is essentially a prudential matter. But as prudential there is no such thing as “de facto abolition” since circumstances change, and–again, contrary to the journals and the new enthusiasm–deterrence is a necessary and essential part of criminal justice. The reason for this last is that we are not free to impose penalties in this life without considering the common good, and an essential part of this consideration is (contrary to Kant who thought that the justice of the death penalty made its application to be absolutely necessary) the issue of deterrence. The same place at different times may require different penalties; and different places at the same time may require different penalties. Many penalties might be essentially just that in particular circumstances do not conduce to the common good and so ought not be applied. Thus it is altogether fitting that–given the overriding circumstance of the rejection of higher law and the widespread determining circumstance of the culture of death–there be a prudential reservation in applying this penalty. But this is an entirely different thing from the joint editorial’s barely concealed anathematization of the penalty, which itself proceeds from a failure to understand, and a lack of due theological regard for, the transcendence of the common good.
The editorializing journals fail to understand that Evangelium Vitae does not reduce penalty to defense, but adverts to defense largely because of the failure of states to subject themselves to higher law and to acknowledge their subjection to the common good, In the presence of the widespread circumstance of the failure of the penalty to manifest a transcendent norm of justice owing to the omnipresent culture of death, the other medicinal aspects of penalty–in particular deterrence (which includes keeping the particular criminal from killing again)–become even more important inasmuch as the major medicinal purpose of punishment (manifesting a transcendent norm of justice) is impeded. Yet the journals fail to acknowledge that deterrence is essential to criminal justice, a remarkable view simply contrary to Catholic tradition. But we are not free to impose penalty without care for the common good, and the consideration of deterrence is part of such care. Enthusiasm suppresses such distinctions.
The journals use the language of “violence” to describe the penalty. But just penalty does not “violate” the rights of the guilty. And there is no absolute “right” of the guilty to immunity from justice for grave crime. It may be better not to impose some penalties, and this is largely true of the death penalty today. But contrary to the formulations of the journals in question it is precisely not a universal truth, nor is the penalty as such “abhorrent”. That is the language of the Waldensians, language which they were required to renounce to re-establish ecclesial communion with the Roman Catholic Church. Those who embrace such language should realize that they are crossing over from the Church’s prudential reservations regarding the penalty–which then-Cardinal Ratzinger as prefect of the CDF insisted that no Roman Catholic was obligated to share–toward assumption of the Waldensian view of the matter (prior to their return to the Church, that is).
Among the signs of hope we should also count the spread, at many levels of public opinion, of a new sensitivity ever more opposed to war as an instrument for the resolution of conflicts between peoples, and increasingly oriented to finding effective but “non-violent” means to counter the armed aggressor. In the same perspective there is evidence of a growing public opposition to the death penalty, even when such a penalty is seen as a kind of “legitimate defence” on the part of society. Modern society in fact has the means of effectively suppressing crime by rendering criminals harmless without definitively denying them the chance to reform.[…]
This is the context in which to place the problem of the death penalty. On this matter there is a growing tendency, both in the Church and in civil society, to demand that it be applied in a very limited way or even that it be abolished completely. The problem must be viewed in the context of a system of penal justice ever more in line with human dignity and thus, in the end, with God’s plan for man and society. The primary purpose of the punishment which society inflicts is “to redress the disorder caused by the offence”. Public authority must redress the violation of personal and social rights by imposing on the offender an adequate punishment for the crime, as a condition for the offender to regain the exercise of his or her freedom. In this way authority also fulfils the purpose of defending public order and ensuring people’s safety, while at the same time offering the offender an incentive and help to change his or her behaviour and be rehabilitated.
It is clear that, for these purposes to be achieved, the nature and extent of the punishment must be carefully evaluated and decided upon, and ought not go to the extreme of executing the offender except in cases of absolute necessity: in other words, when it would not be possible otherwise to defend society. Today however, as a result of steady improvements in the organization of the penal system, such cases are very rare, if not practically non-existent.
Aside from ignoring the Church’s previous views on capital punishment as serving a legitimate good and taking place through an exercise of God’s own authority and justice, one of the principle issues EV glosses over in its assertion that criminals are rendered “harmless” by “steady improvements in the…penal system” is the absolute epidemic of modern prison violence – assault, rape, and murder. It’s difficult to find exact statistics on prison homicides nationwide, since they are broken down by federal and state jurisdictions. I found 77 murders in Federal prisons over the course of a decade with five minutes of Googling; I was unable, on an initial search, to get accurate data on state facilities. Taking the focus away from the relatively more difficult to get away with crime of murder and onto prison rape, however, we see a vastly different and more horrifying picture. The Bureau of Justice Statistics estimates that somewhere between 86,000 and 200,000 cases of sexual assault happen in our prisons every year.
“The fact that the evil ones, as long as they live, can be corrected from their errors does not prohibit that they may be justly executed, for the danger which threatens from their way of life is greater and more certain than the good which may be expected from their improvement.
They also have at that critical point of death the opportunity to be converted to God through repentance. And if they are so obstinate that even at the point of death their heart does not draw back from malice, it is possible to make a quite probable judgment that they would never come away from evil.” – (Summa Contra Gentiles, Book III, chapter 146)
There are unquestionably prudential aspects to the application of the death penalty that need to be worked out by competent civil and ecclesiastical authorities. Foremost among these, I think, is the question of whether (and which) governments in the modern world could be trusted with carrying it out justly. The Church certainly never demanded that the death penalty always be carried out in certain cases. It was always a decision relegated to a legitimate civil authority. This was affirmed by no less than our Divine Savior Himself, who said to Pontius Pilate — knowing full well he was about to be sentenced to an unjust death — “Thou shouldst not have any power against me, unless it were given thee from above.” (Jn. 19:11)
Christ didn’t say that what Pilate was doing was right in that given circumstance. But he did affirm that the authority rested with him to do it.
Catholics who advocate the Church’s moral teaching on this issue are not craven, bloodthirsty monsters. Neither are they rebels against Church teaching – they in fact are choosing, despite popular opposition from their fellow Catholics and now, even popes, to be submissive to it.
For my part, I personally find the idea of executing someone exceptionally distasteful. Even so, I’ve written about my personal run-in with the death penalty following the murder of my mother-in-law. That I experienced something like this doesn’t objectively make me any more or less of an authority on the matter. Emotional arguments for or against capital punishment aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on. But being in a position where my opinion on this issue (and how it impacted my wife) could have affected the outcome of sentencing in a murder trial — and thus, the lives of two killers — it absolutely did give me cause to consider it carefully under the weight of a more grave moral responsibility than most people will ever be burdened by.
We don’t always understand or even feel comfortable with why the Church did things differently in the past, but it doesn’t give us the right to simply discard those things. We need to look for continuity, for exercises of apostolic authority, for scriptural precedent, for consistency of teaching, etc.
Even the pope, despite the authority of his office, lacks the power to change teachings so well-established as this. He is the guarantor of doctrine, not the author of it. Rest assured, therefore, that despite the fervor of Pope Francis’s condemnation of capital punishment as never just, this is his personal opinion, and nothing more.
The people who are running this Vatican are the same who are running the White House and vice versa, their mode of operation is: Say that you abide by the Constitution, by the Bible, by the Magisterium, by Tradition but DO whatever change you want, just don’t say it loud, do it on the practical, “pastoral” level, nobody will notice until it becomes the law of the land. We are all seeing it on the political and religious level. The country is a mess as well as the Church.
I mixed both in one so you can see that they are both related, both, the White House and the Vatican think the same way. Not just on policies and ideologies (wealth distribution, communism, global warming, etc.) but on the practical, operational level as well.
Fascinating and well-written article. How do you think the doctrine of papal infallibility fits with all of this? Personal opinion vs. teaching protected truth etc.
I’m afraid I’m not feeling limber enough to offer a satisfying explanation.
Short answer: Papal Infallibility has a very strict definition. This statement by Pope Francis does not meet that definition. It is a personal opinion which is contradictory to the Catechism of the Catholic Church. http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p3s2c2a5.htm
Unfortunately, when the pope is offering personal opinion there are too many who are not educated enough to know it’s only opinion and are convinced these are new Church teachings. And then, as Paul (above) suggested, eventually it becomes the law of the land even when it’s not.
I don’t remember ever wanting to tear out my hair over something a pope said before the last two years.
Regardless, he is doing tremendous damage to the Church. Of course his homilies and his off the cuff remarks are NOT INFALLIBLE, but they are still ‘teaching moments’ that are sometimes completely un-Catholic. For everything he says that is true and solid there are three others that follow that are off the rails. This isn’t the only issue that he doesn’t really hit the mark on. Who are these ‘Doctors of the Law’ that he rails against incessantly? Of course we know who they are. They are the faithful Priests, Bishops and Laity that are trying to uphold Church Doctrine. How many times have we heard and read about the ‘Doctors of the Law’ and the ‘Pharisees’ that need to stop their ‘unholy’ rigidness and show ‘Mercy’? You think he may be sending us a ‘message’? It’s getting to be an ‘in your face’ message. Oh and BTW, his first directive to the youth to ’cause a mess’ was one of our first clues to his ‘mission.’ When was there ever a time that ‘confusion’ and ‘discord’ in the Church was helpful? Chaos is not of God. He’s terrifying.
“The New Evangelization??”
Who is he to judge?
Gays, Trangender, Transsexuals, Bisexuals, etc…whatever… Who cares?
Bring them in…. Let the MESS begin!!
As Cardinal Dolan says, “Come on in. We’d love to have you,”
————————————————————————————————————–
“Pope Francis to Dine with Gay and Transgender Inmates in Naples Prison”
http://time.com/3752462/pope-francis-gay-transgender-prison/
————————————————————————————————————–
“Gay and transgender inmates invited to lunch with Pope Francis during prison visit”
http://www.religionnews.com/2015/03/19/gay-transgender-inmates-invited-lunch-pope-francis-prison-visit/
————————————————————————————————————–
“I’m Proud To Be a Transgender Catholic”
http://time.com/3744270/catholic-church-pope-francis-transgender-community/?iid=time_readnext
This is for Dolan and Francis:
.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MqA6pLZcx0
.
Come on in!
This pope is a hoot. All he needs now is an EGOT.
And, yet, for all your Popes, Church Fathers, and Catechisms . . . what does Jesus say? “[L]ove your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. To the person who strikes you on one cheek, offer the other one as well,” (Lk. 6:27-29a). You have confused the Church’s defense of a practice performed by legitimate authority under a certain set of circumstances with APPROVAL of that practice. Perhaps, if some people spent less time opining on the “when, how, and if” of Papal Infallibility and more time on thinking over what they THINK they know about the Church’s magisterium vis-a-vis capital punishment.
Typical Protestant reply. Jesus vs. Church. Scripture vs. Tradition.
In any case, God himself clearly established the legitimacy of the death penalty in Genesis 9:6. Not mere permission, but positive ordinance, and for precisely the reason dissenters cite, namely, humans are made in the image of God, and murder requires a restoration of justice.
Likewise, notice how the unrepentant thief in Luke 23 enjoined Christ to prove his authority by rescuing him from his death sentence, while the repentant thief, whom Jesus pardoned, rebuked that unrepentant thief, noting that they were being justly punished for their crimes.
Opinion Pope: has removed papal infalibility to a new level. The pope gives his political opinion about worldly problems and then suggest that it is NEW Doctrine, because He IS the Pope!
Jesus also said: “But when the king had heard of it, he was angry, and sending his armies, he destroyed those murderers, and burnt their city” (Matthew 22:7).
And, add this:
The Death Penalty & Catechism Problems: Section 2267
Dudley Sharp
1) The death penalty teachings in CCC 2267 (amended 1997) are prudential judgments and have been confirmed as such by then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (1), Cardinal-Prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, now, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI.
Saint/Pope John Paul II appointed Ratzinger.
As a prudential judgment, any good Catholic may call for more executions, based upon 2000 years of Church traditions, finding that justice is primary, as confirmed within the CCC (see redress) , and that a primary principle cannot be subjugated by a secondary principle, even an important one, such as defense of society, and one can confirm the rational truth that executions provide better protections for the innocent than does a life sentence (2), calling on the Church to consider that sparing more murderers will cause more innocents to be murdered (2), as history and the facts make clear (2) and that the expiation effects of execution will better provide for the unjust aggressors salvation, the ultimate in restorative justice (3).
I do not believe that a prudential judgment has ever been entered into a Catechism, before, as such is contrary to the purpose of a catechism and 2267 is a solid example as to why this should never have occurred and, hopefully, will not be repeated.
2) Re: CCC 2267:
from Kevin L. Flannery S.J., Consultor of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
Flannery was, also, appointed by SPJPII.
“The most reasonable conclusion to draw from this discussion is that, once again, the Catechism is simply wrong from an historical point of view. Traditional Catholic teaching did not contain the restriction enunciated by Pope John Paul II.” (4).
“The realm of human affairs is a messy one, full of at least apparent inconsistency and incoherence, and the recent teaching of the Catholic Church on capital punishment—vitiated, as I intend to show, by errors of historical fact and interpretation—is no exception.” (4).
3) from 2267: ” the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.”
Reply: Such does not appear to exist in traditional Catholic teaching and, in 17 years, I am unaware that anyone has found that it does.
4) from 2267: “”If, instead, bloodless means are sufficient to defend against the aggressor and to protect the safety of persons, public authority should limit itself to such means, because they better correspond to the concrete conditions of the common good and are more in conformity to the dignity of the human person.”
Reply: “sufficiency” has never been the Church standard, as the CCC makes clear – CCC 2260: “For your lifeblood I will surely require a reckoning…. Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for God made man in his own image.” “This teaching remains necessary for all time.”
“require a reckoning”
2267’s “bloodless” conflicts with that eternal command within 2260 and 2260, further, establishes that execution is MOST “in conformity to the dignity of the human person”, as it is a commandment from God. “Require” rules over “sufficiency”.
CCC 2265: “Preserving the common good requires rendering the unjust aggressor unable to inflict harm.”
By reason and CCC the common good requires executions, as it is the only sanction which “renders the unjust aggressor unable to inflict harm.”, although I suspect the CCC simply didn’t consider the meaning and a re write is in order – just another problem.
Living murderers can and do harm and murder, again, in prison, under supervision, after release, after escape and after we fail to restrain them. Executed ones do not.
Sufficiency is not the issue or, hardly, a standard. The issue is what sanction best fulfills justice (redress) and what sanction protects innocents to a higher degree.
Execution is just in some cases (redress) and execution protects additional innocents lives, in three ways, better than does a life sentence (2).
2266: “The State’s effort to contain the spread of behaviors injurious to human rights and the fundamental rules of civil coexistence corresponds to the requirement of watching over the common good.” which, as per CCC, “requires rendering the unjust aggressor unable to inflict harm”.
“requires”.
5) from 2267: “Today, in fact, given the means at the State’s disposal to effectively repress crime by rendering inoffensive the one who has committed it, without depriving him definitively of the possibility of redeeming himself, cases of absolute necessity for suppression of the offender ‘today … are very rare, if not practically non-existent.
a) It is not the “possibility” or the “means” of preventing crime, but the reality, which matters.
The most obvious, relevant example is that the Church not only had the “possibility” and the “means” to prevent child sex abuse by priests, but the moral obligation to do so, yet, instead, abandoned the innocent and protected the guilty, even allowing some to repeat their crimes, over about a 50 year period, that we know of.
Such is why reality must rule over both “possibility” and “means”. Man errs and sins and any err by the Church should be on the side which protects more innocent lives as opposed to what the CCC has now, which is sacrificing more innocent lives, again.
Countless innocents are murdered and harmed, every day, by known repeat offender/unjust aggressors, because of the reality of widespread human error and harm committed in the world’s criminal
justice systems (5), just as with the Church “mismanagement” of the priest sex horrors, where both “possibilities” and “means” had zero relevance to the reality of not protecting the innocent.
Such reality is the factual opposite of: “very rare, if not practically nonexistent . . . “.
It is astonishing that neither Evangelium Vitae nor the CCC show any consciousness of this, when EV and the 1997 CCC amendment were written as the firestorm of the priest sex scandal raged.
b) “. . . .without definitely taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself”.
How this language could, possibly, get into a Catechism is incomprehensible.
Man does not redeem “himself”, but is redeemed through the grace and mercy of God.
In addition, God established that man should die an early and earthly death because of his sins.
The CCC is saying that God is taking away from man the possibility of redemption, because of an early and earthly death – execution.
That is not possible, of course.
The well known teaching, not subject to change, is that we all have the opportunity of redemption (3), prior to our deaths, whatever that early and earthly death may be, whether by cancer, car wreck, old age, drowning, murder, execution (3) and all others.
And the authors of CCC are, somehow, unaware?!
======
Additional writings
— The Traditional (CATHOLIC) Case for Capital Punishment, By Fr. C. John McCloskey, The Catholic Thing, MARCH 16 2015
http://www.thecatholicthing.org/2015/03/16/the-traditional-case-for-capital-punishment/
— Four Catholic Journals Indulge in (anti death penalty) Doctrinal Solipsism, Stephen Long, THOMISTICA, March 5, 2015,
http://thomistica.net/commentary/2015/3/5/mutationist-views-of-doctrinal-development-and-the-death-penalty
— Okay, what about Catholics and the death penalty?, In the Light of the Law A Canon Lawyer’s Blog, Edward Peters, JD, JCD, Ref. Sig. Ap. March 9, 2015,
https://canonlawblog.wordpress.com/2015/03/09/okay-what-about-catholics-and-the-death-penalty/
— Intellectual dishonesty and the “Seamless Garment” argument, JIMMY AKIN, National Catholic Register, 01/25/2015
http://www.ncregister.com/blog/jimmy-akin/intellectual-dishonesty-and-the-seamless-garment-argument#ixzz3PxPynfIi
—- New Testament Death Penalty Support Overwhelming
http://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2014/01/new-testament-death-penalty-support.html
======
FOOTNOTES
1) “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. 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.”
“Worthiness to Receive Holy Communion: General Principles, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, from a memorandum sent by Cardinal Ratzinger to Cardinal McCarrick, made public in the first week of July 2004.
2) a) The Death Penalty: Do Innocents Matter? A Review of All Innocence Issues
http://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-death-penalty-do-innocents-matter.html
b) Catechism & State Protection
http://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2014/10/catechism-state-protection.html
3) The Death Penalty: Mercy, Expiation, Redemption & Salvation
http://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2013/06/the-death-penalty-mercy-expiation.html
4) “Capital Punishment and the Law”, Ave Maria Law Review, 2007 (30 pp), by Kevin L. Flannery S.J., Consultor of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (since 2002) and Ordinary Professor of Ancient Philosophy at the Pontifical Gregorian University(Rome); and Mary Ann Remick Senior Visiting Fellow at the Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture (University of Notre Dame. http://lr.avemarialaw.edu/Content/articles/V5i2.flannery.copyright.pdf
5) see footnote 2
and
Do a google search: I am sure this was not done for either Evangelium Vitae of the CCC.
a) crime recidivism — 852,000 results (0.34 seconds)
b) prison violence — 179,000,000 results (0.24 seconds)
c) prison “cell phone” crime — 1,780,000 results (0.37 seconds)
d) recruit terrorism prison — 12,800,000 results (0.40 seconds)
e) prison escape news — 5,720,000 results (0.31 seconds)
f) repeat offender — 1,170,000 results (0.63 seconds)
and on and on and on
You make a nod at justice, and then go immediately into prudential considerations that are not convincing. If I were criminal, I would be more afraid of other criminals than of the police, and much more afraid of the police than of the courts. The prospect of being convicted by a jury and sentenced to death would, in anything remotely like the current climate, be the least of my concerns, so as a practical deterrent, the death penalty is useless.
I oppose “abolishing the death penalty” for reasons I went into in my earlier comment, but I don’t think we can entirely dismiss the thrust of what the last few popes have tried to accomplish, either. If you look at traditional Catholic teaching, you find a distinction between the wages owed to a worker and the alms owed to the poor. The wages are owed under the Law of Justice, and they have priority; but the alms are owed under the Law of Charity, and that law is also binding. That distinction is also important in discussions of the death penalty. We are, after all, all in the position of the servant in Matthew 18:21-35 who owed ten thousand talents, whether we are governor or governed, and even taken collectively as a whole. However, mercy has to be tempered by good judgment, which is where prudence comes in.
The facts disagree with you.
The death penalty is justice, saves more innocent lives and may provide expiation.
The Death Penalty: Do Innocents Matter? A Review of All Innocence Issues
http()//prodpinnc.blogspot()com/2013/10/the-death-penalty-do-innocents-matter.html
The Death Penalty: Mercy, Expiation, Redemption & Salvation
http()//prodpinnc.blogspot()com/2013/06/the-death-penalty-mercy-expiation.html
From 1976–2005 (inclusive), there were 11080 killings by police that were ruled justifiable homicide, but from 1976–September 20, 2012 there were only 1305 legal executions. A violent criminal is roughly 10 times more likely to be killed by police than to be executed after a trial; if he is not deterred by the greater risk, he will not be deterred by the lesser.
We can exclude crimes of passion, because those are by definition undertaken by people who are behaving irrationally; a man who flies into a rage because he thinks his wife is cheating on him is unlikely to consider his prospects of getting the death penalty. Likewise with burglars caught in the act: fear will make them irrational. What we’re left with are mostly drug dealers and gangs, and they have every reason to fear other drug dealers and gangs, since their counterparts don’t feel the need to respect rules of evidence or to presume innocence. In fact, just about the only people likely to be deterred by the death penalty would be people like the husband who thinks his wife is cheating on him but does not fly into an immediate rage — instead, he coldly plots his revenge, or the heir who coldly plots to remove the obstacle to his inheritance.
Even so, I notice that you do not actually produce any facts to indicate that even these people are actually deterred; you merely assert that the death penalty produces the desired effect. If you want to convince me, you’re going to have to produce numbers to back up your case. Mere assertions won’t do it.
Prof Joanna Shepherd found that potential passion murders were deterred by the death penalty, within one of her studies.
Not surprising, as we all known passions can be halted.
“The use of the death penalty devalues human life and diminishes respect for human dignity.”
“When we take a guilty person’s life … we demean our own dignity in the process.”
Quoted in National Catholic Journals Unite: ‘Capital Punishment Must End’
I don’t wish to argue for or against the death penalty. I should like to know if killing another human being or being killed by another human being devalues human life or shows disrespect for or degrades human dignity. Saints have willingly killed human beings, and saints, not to mention Our Lord, have willingly been killed by human beings. Do we now value human life and human dignity more than they did?
I oppose the death penalty, not in sympathy to vicious criminals, but to restrict the power of an atheistic State to execute its own citizens. The tendency in our government to totalitarianism and anti-theism is dangerous indeed. The massive executions by Stalin and Hitler were not witnessed by Augustine or Aquinas. It is a simple fact that many innocents have been freed from death row by DNA testing. Prosecutorial misconduct or ineptitude are all too human failings. On the other hand, life sentences should involve hard labor. Work is redemptive. The prisoner should not have access to TV, movies or books other than those of religious content. As a moral issue one must decide, if Christ is standing here with me, am I willing to kill this prisoner by the demand of the State? Some people will do so willingly. There was never a problem getting people to feed the ovens either. The State authority was recognized by Christ for the maintenance of Civil Order, but I have difficulty believing the teacher of the beatitudes who have us execute prisoners in a day and age when we have the material means to keep them secured while subjecting them to appropriate punishment by labor and while making available to them the necessary spiritual materials to find their way to redemption. Shall we execute thieves also? Does that still obtain? We should be careful what we wish for. A wise man will not ask God for justice, only mercy.
As a conservative Catholic, I seldom agree with PF and in this case I’m sure our reasons are not aligned.
Steve Skojec: “Pope Francis has attempted to proclaim that there is no circumstance whatsoever in which the death penalty is warranted”
Having carefully read the relevant parts of what the Pope has said recently on this topic it is quite clear that he has not attempted any such thing.
I had a similar experience a decade ago while reading a book on the Natural Law. The author (a respected author and supposedly an expert) claimed that John Paul II had taught that the state may not kill someone because he has actually done something for which he deserves to die, but the state may kill him if he is, in some undefined sense, “a threat to society”; the author also claimed that this was now a part of the Natural Law. This caused me a real crisis of conscience and a very bad night’s sleep. The next day I read the relevant passages in the Catechism and in Evangelium Vitae, and needless to say, the author was wrong on all points. The book went into the trash, and I have been much more careful since then.
Are you referring to the article that Mr. Skojec quotes or another source? If the latter, would you please provide a link? If the former, would you please point out where Mr. Skojec went wrong in interpreting the Pope’s statements?
Mr. Skojec only quotes a high-level abbreviated summary of what the Pope says, and somehow considers that a sufficient reason to “correct” the Pope. In such cases it is extremely important to examine the original words of the Pope. I found them here. Careful examination shows that there is nothing different there from what is contained in previous Church teaching such as Evangelium Vitae. (I also note that his quote from the Roman Catechism is also in error.)
Mr. Connors,
Alas, a reading of the pope’s own letter only confirms his confusion on this mafter.
“Today [?] the death penalty is inadmissible [!], no matter how serious the crime of the condemned. It is an offense against the inviolability of life and the dignity of the human person that contradicts God’s plan for man and society [!] and His merciful justice, and it impedes fulfilling the just end of the punishments. It does no[t] do justice [!] to the victims, but foments vengeance.
“For a State of Law, the death penalty represents a failure, because it obliges it to kill in the name of justice. Dostoevsky [a vociferous anti-Catholic] wrote: ‘To kill one who killed is an incomparably greater punishment than the crime itself. Killing in virtue of a sentence is far worse than the killing committed by a criminal.’ Justice will never be reached [!] by killing a human being.”
I’m not sure how you could ask for a more brazen repudiation of perennial Catholic teaching on this matter. Let me guess, though: blame it on a translation error?
As for Mr. Skojec’s citation of the Roman Catechism, have you confirmed it is not from a variant translation?
Elliot Bougis: “As for Mr. Skojec’s citation of the Roman Catechism, have you confirmed it is not from a variant translation?”
I’ve checked some other translations to English from over the past century or so, and, more importantly, examined the original Latin. The translation in Mr. Skojec’s quotation introduces an idea that simply isn’t in the original. (I provided a link with more details, but the design of the OP’s website has a CSS error which makes links in comments difficult to see.)
Notably, with a proper translation, the Roman Catechism of 1566 is readily reconciled with Evangelium Vitae. The Roman Catechism points out that the purpose in allowing the death penalty is to protect society. (Aquinas says the same.) Evangelium Vitae adds in the idea that if the purpose is to protect society, and it can currently be done by bloodless means, then this is better.
Evangelium Vitae:
How much does the argument against the death penalty depend on the phrases italicized? Might there be cases, now or in the future, where the organization of the penal system or the means of protecting the public are less in conformity to the dignity of the human person than the death penalty? For example, might not The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment (punishment not because deserved but as deterrent and cure) opposed by Lewis imply a punishment less in conformity to the dignity of the human person than the death penalty?
I think that a completely clear answer to that would exceed the reasonable size of a blog comment, but I will say that if we were offered a punishment that would involve us sinning, or else death, then we should prefer to be killed.
Mr. Connors:
You are missing the forest for the trees. The crux of the issue is not this or that translation of passage from the Roman Catechism.
In any case, we might as well explore that passage a bit, and see what your objection is to Skojec’s citation. Let it be noted, by the way, that none other than [LINK:] Fr. Hardon used that exact citation in his own essay on capital punishment, but perhaps he ought have consulted you first.
The following is the passage as Skojec cited it:
“The power of life and death is permitted to certain civil magistrates because theirs is the responsibility under law to punish the guilty and protect the innocent. Far from being guilty of breaking this commandment [Thy shall not kill], such an execution of justice is precisely an act of obedience to it. For the purpose of the law is to protect and foster human life. This purpose is fulfilled when the legitimate authority of the State is exercised by taking the guilty lives of those who have taken innocent lives. In the Psalms we find a vindication of this right: “Morning by morning I will destroy all the wicked in the land, cutting off all evildoers from the city of the Lord” (Ps. 101:8).”
And here is the passage as it translated in my 1867 edition of the Roman Catechism:
“Another kind of slaying is permitted, which belongs to those magistrates to whom is given the power of [condemning] to death, by the legal and judicial use of which they punish guilty and protect innocent men (Rom. xiii. 4), in which function, provided they act justly, they are not only not guilty of murder, but eminently obey this law [i.e. the Fifth Commandment] which prohibits murder; for as the end of this law is to consult for the life and safety of men, to the same end also tend the punishments inflicted by magistrates, who are the legitimate avengers of crimes, giving security to life by punishing and thus repressing audacity and outrage. Wherefore David says: ‘In the morning I put to death all the wicked of the land, that I might cut off all the workers of iniquity from the city of the Lord’ (Ps. c. 8).”
The former translation is certainly quite free, but both versions agree on the key point: namely, that “keeping society safe” is but one half of the basis of capital punishment; punishing the guilty according to their deeds (retribution) is the other half. For retribution (repayment/restitution) is the BASIS of justice; deterrence and reform are secondary dimensions of retribution. The social/common good rests on the larger moral order; penalties serve to reverse and repair imbalances in that moral order, one of which sometimes includes the death penalty. As Fr. Hardon writes:
“The Church holds that there are two reasons for inflicting punishment, namely “medicinal” and “vindictive.” The medicinal purpose is to prevent the criminal from repeating his crime, and to protect society from his criminal behavior. The vindicative is to expiate for the wrong-doing perpetrated by the criminal. Thus reparation is made to an offended God, and the disorder caused by the crime is expiated.”
Insofar as retribution is integral to justice per se, and precisely because the death penalty is a legitimate form of retribution (namely, in order to redress the taking of human life or other heinous crimes), the death penalty cannot possibly be rejected as an “injustice”, much less “murder” simpliciter.
For fun, though, let me revise the passage from the Roman Catechism in order to make it accord with what Pope Francis has asserted:
“[The death penalty] is [never] permitted. [It does not belong] to those magistrates to whom is given the power of [sparing all wrongdoers from] death, by the legal and judicial use of which they punish guilty and protect innocent men (Rom. xiii. 4), in which function, [even if] they act justly, they are … guilty of murder, [and] eminently [dis]obey [the Fifth Commandment] which prohibits murder; for as the end of this law is [solely] to consult for the life and safety of men, to the same end also tend the [non-lethal and moderate] punishments inflicted by magistrates, who are the [quasi-]legitimate avengers of crimes, giving security to life by punishing and thus repressing audacity and outrage. Wherefore David says: ‘In the morning I put to [work] all the wicked of the land, that I might [reform] all the workers of iniquity [in] the city of the Lord’ (Ps. c. 8).”
Meanwhile, back in the Roman Catechism (QQ. XIV-XV):
“[S]o greatly does God detest homicide … that he declares that, for the life of man, he will exact vengeance [even] from the beast of the field (Gen. ix. 5) [a warning which holds a fortiori for a rational creature like another human being]…. For murderers are the worst enemies of the human race, and, consequently, of nature, destroying to the utmost of their power, the universal work of God, by taking away man, for whose sake God declares that he made all created things (Gen. i. 26, sqq.). … [H]e, therefore, who removes [God’s] image [by murdering a human being], offers signal injury to God, and seems, as it were, to lay violent hands on him.”
As Fr. Fagothey wrote in 1959–back when the Church didn’t know no better, that is–, “[W]e must not so emphasize mercy as to destroy justice. … [R]evenge and and retributive punishment are not the same. … Retribution is not merely adding one evil to another, unless one were to hold that justice itself is not a good” (Right and Reason, p. 421).
More from the Holy Father’s letter:
No halfway catechized Catholic ever claimed otherwise.
cf. Aquinas on the legitimate uses of vengeance, which he even describes as a “special virtue”.
Abusus non tollit usum, I. This argument does not merely deal with present conditions, but implies that the death penalty is always and everywhere illegitimate. Therefore the Church was in error from its inception until Evangelium Vitae–and even that is suspect, given EV‘s acknowledgment of the legitimacy of capital punishment.
False and presumptuous, implying that man’s actions can thwart God’s bestowal of grace on the condemned man. Dare I say … neo-Pelagian?
[Jn 10:]27 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me; 28 and I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish, and no one shall snatch them out of my hand. 29 My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.
Abusus non tollit usum, II.
And this squares with the Church’s ancient teaching on the legitimacy of capital punishment … how, exactly?
Emphasis mine.
9.5 million human beings were unavailable to comment on our greater moral sensibility […] in relation to the value of human life.
So, working through the logic,
1) The death penalty is always and everywhere wrong, and
2) Life imprisonment is a “veiled death penalty”,
3) Therefore…?
So much for one of the most powerful practical arguments of death-penalty opponents. Note also that the pope has now extended his previous condemnation of the veiled death penalty of life imprisonment to shorter prison terms, namely those that because of their duration entail [curtail?] the possibility for the one punished to plan a future in freedom. So we are now well and truly on the slippery slope.
Also, what? Life imprisonment is wrong because it attempts to deprive the prisoner of hope.
Serious question: How, exactly, does life imprisonment prevent a prisoner from desiring the kingdom of heaven and placing his trust in Christ’s promises?
Once again we are left with the distinct impression that the Church was wrong until very recently.
And note that we are all now obliged to fight for the abolition of the death penalty, notwithstanding the CDF’s declaration under Ratzinger that Catholics could support the death penalty in good faith.
Murray: “cf. Aquinas on the legitimate uses of vengeance, which he even describes as a ‘special virtue'”
Actually, in the part of the Summa you provide a link to, Aquinas points out that vengeance can either be bad (aimed at inflicting evil on the perpetrator) or good (a act that is a legitimate form of punishment). In the context where the Pope is complaining about fomenting of vengeance, he is surely referring to the bad kind of vengeance.
“This argument does not merely deal with present conditions, but implies that the death penalty is always and everywhere illegitimate, insofar as all human criminal justice systems fall short of perfection.”
There’s nothing in the Pope’s argument that tries to apply his argument backwards in history to times when (e.g.) there was no appropriate penal system. The fact the human justice systems are fallible is only one component in his examination of how the death penalty works today.
“Abusus non tollit usum”
I think the Pope’s point is rather simple: if we don’t use the death penalty, we then avoid rather a lot of its possible abuses.
“Unfortunately, 9.5 million human beings were unavailable to comment on our ‘greater moral sensibility […] in relation to the value of human life.'”
Um, your counter-argument here rather supports the Pope’s point. Also, the Pope isn’t saying that this greater sensibility is perfect.
“Life imprisonment is wrong because it attempts to deprive the prisoner of hope?”
Some murders (e.g.) are appropriately punished by life imprisonment (or a sentence lasting into old age) because society cannot be otherwise protected against that specific murderer. But it’s possible for other murderers to get the same sentence, although there may be legitimate hope that they can be rehabilitated. Sometimes long sentences are imposed as a kind of covert vengeance (the bad kind), and this is not legitimate, as it is destructive of hope.
“And note that we are all now obliged to fight for the abolition of the death penalty, notwithstanding the CDF’s declaration under Ratzinger that Catholics could support the death penalty in good faith.”
The CDF never gave carte blanche freedom to absolutely any kind of decision process whatsoever when deciding on a specific application of the death penalty. The purpose of the death penalty is to protect society, and there must be no other way of achieving that aim which is less destructive of the common good. About that there can still be a legitimate diversity of opinion.
Since I was linking to my own comment in which I highlighted the relevant passages of the Summa, I am of course aware of the distinctions Aquinas draws.
But you are interpolating. There is no indication whatsoever that the pope meant to use “vengeance” in the carefully distinguished manner you derive. In fact, since the Holy Father is discussing capital punishment, which is precisely an occasion of legitimate vengeance, according to Aquinas, it is difficult to see how your interpretation coheres.
The pope argues thus:
We have had scores of “criminal systems” going back to at least the Hammurabi Code over 1700 years before Christ, and the vast majority of these were far more prone to defective selectivity and judicial error than the elaborately balanced systems currently in place in developed countries. The pope’s argument applies perforce to these ancient systems, including of course the Mosaic Law. And yet, over all the many centuries since her founding, the Church has repeatedly, consistently, affirmed the legitimacy of capital punishment.
To put it another way, if defective selectivity and judicial error are showstoppers for capital punishment, then they are showstoppers at all times and in all places. This is basic moral reasoning. The pope does not leave you with a leg to stand on, despite all your careful parsings.
And if we don’t imprison people, we will eliminate prison rape. If we don’t arrest people, we will not condemn the innocent. This “argument” is startling in its banality.
Congratulations: you have actually succeeded in shocking me to a greater degree than the pope did with this greater moral sensibility nonsense.
Let me get this straight: an estimated 9.5 million human beings have been killed in the womb in this year alone, and you think this supports the pope’s argument that a greater moral sensibility has been developed in relation to the value of human life.? It is, rather, a tragic demonstration of how morally inverted we have become with respect to human life. Greater moral sensibility in relation to the value of human life, after a century of the most unprecedented and brutal mass slaughters the world has ever seen? And this starry-eyed optimism even now somehow manages to overlook the increasing number of countries that allow “mercy killing”, even of the young, and even for the most frivolous and transitory reasons. But–hey!–forget all that old-fashioned “Culture of Death” nonsense; we should rest easy on the laurels of our newfound greater moral sensibilities.
Your argument is with the Holy Father, not with me. If a life sentence is really a veiled death sentence, the former is just as inadmissible as the latter.
Furthermore, the pope leaves us with an open question about those sentences that because of their duration entail [curtail?] the possibility for the one punished to plan a future in freedom. How much life expectancy does one need in order to plan a future in freedom, I wonder? 10 years? 20? 30? A 75-year old jailbird can’t plan for much of a future. Maybe we should let them out at 65. But how will they find a job at that age? Make it 55, so they have time to build a small nest egg. But what kind of family life can a 55-year old jailbird expect to have? And so on.
Once again, you add your own meaning to the pope’s remarks in order to derive a satisfactory interpretation. For my part, I extend to the Holy Father the courtesy of assuming he meant exactly what he wrote. And remember, these aren’t off-the-cuff remarks; they are written in a prepared text, and he presumably took care to make his meaning clear.
To the point, there is no indication in the text that the pope intended to restrict his remarks on “hope” to long prison sentences arising from “covert vengeance”, however defined. It just isn’t there, even if you wish real hard.
Let’s look at his remarks again:
On the bright side, we might note that although lengthy sentences attempt to deprive [the prisoner] of hope, they apparently do not succeed. Which might make one wonder what all the preceding verbiage was about, but no matter! Onward!
I note also that you seem to have lapsed into using hope in the same ambiguous way as the Holy Father, and have not attempted to reconcile his wording with the theological virtue, as defined in CCC 1817. But when the Vicar of Christ speaks of hope in a prepared document like this, we would normally read him as intending to discuss the theological virtue, rather than some fuzzy concept relating to worldly matters.
“since the Holy Father is discussing capital punishment, which is precisely an occasion of legitimate vengeance, according to Aquinas, it is difficult to see how your interpretation coheres.”
Since the Pope speaks of fomenting vengeance, it is quite clear that is in a negative context.
“To put it another way, if defective selectivity and judicial error are showstoppers for capital punishment, then they are showstoppers at all times and in all places”
Those are additional considerations. The reason why the death penalty may be used is when it is a necessary way of protecting society (as Aquinas and the Roman Catechism also point out). The additional considerations show why it is unattractive when it is not necessary.
“Let me get this straight: an estimated 9.5 million human beings have been killed in the womb in this year alone, and you think this supports the pope’s argument that a greater moral sensibility has been developed in relation to the value of human life.?”
You yourself, in these historical circumstances, are pointing this out. A typical member of (e.g.) Ancient Roman society, and many many other societies, would not see the point in counting up that kind of number, and would not think of those deaths as a horrible tragedy. A greater moral sensibility has developed over time, though it is patchy, and very far from perfect.
” If a life sentence is really a veiled death sentence, the former is just as inadmissible as the latter.”
I don’t see the Pope claiming that a life sentence is absolutely always a veiled death sentence. He only says it can be.
“you need to supply context found nowhere in the text itself in order to recover an orthodox reading of it”
Such a thing is true of almost all texts. By ignoring context, and attempting to treat every sentence as somehow being absolute and mysteriously context-free, there is an ever-present danger of reading what isn’t there.
This is another gem:
“The Church’s teaching on the coercive power of legitimate human authority is based on the sources of revelation and traditional doctrine. It is wrong, therefore, to say that these sources only contain ideas which are conditioned by historical circumstances. On the contrary, they have a general and abiding validity.” (Acta Apostolicae Sedis, 1955, pp.81-82)
[LINK: http://www.vatican.va/archive/aas/documents/AAS-47-1955-ocr.pdf]
[[My Italian is far too poor to correct or revise the quotation as provided in English, but I know it’s in the Italian.]]
Well, this is just the thing: Evangelium Vitae and (following upon it) the CCC both rely heavily on specific historical circumstances; namely, in the words of EV, that steady improvements in the organization of the penal system render capital punishment unnecessary.
But what kind of teaching is this, exactly? It’s certainly novel, it is specific to certain times and places, and more importantly, it is in significant tension with earlier teachings which do not rely on such ephemeral considerations, but instead focus on general principles. Would this passage in EV still apply if, for instance, North America was set back 100 years by an EMP attack, and we lost the ability to use high-technology systems to confine prisoners? Does it apply in (say) Sudan today, or is it only aimed at us comfortable first-worlders, preening in the unprecedented luxury of our greater moral sensibilities?
It just doesn’t seem…robust, if you know what I mean.
Mr. Connors:
In his own words, Pope Francis has declared: “[T]he death penalty is inadmissible, no matter how serious the crime of the condemned. It is an offense against the inviolability of life and the dignity of the human person that contradicts God’s plan for man and society.”
This is utterly at odds with the Church’s teaching. That’s the crux of the issue. And that’s why we can be glad that popes are entitled to having faulty private opinions like everyone else.
“In his own words, Pope Francis has declared: “[T]he death penalty is inadmissible, no matter how serious the crime of the condemned. It is an offense against the inviolability of life and the dignity of the human person that contradicts God’s plan for man and society.” This is utterly at odds with the Church’s teaching. That’s the crux of the issue.”
Actually, to add back in the word you left out, what he said was “Today the death penalty is inadmissible.” He’s not making an absolute argument that applies to all times and circumstances.
Mr. Connors:
Honestly, that only makes him look worse.
By your logic he also said that “Today the death penalty … contradicts God’s plan for man and society.” By calling it “inadmissible” he is asserting that it is not even POSSIBLE for the modern state to resort to capital punishment–it lacks any POSSIBLE right to do so. In contrast the Church has always taught that the state has the God-given right to punish wrongdoers up to the measure of killing them is INTEGRAL to God’s plan for man and society. He is literally saying that God’s will for the ordering of human society has changed because of modern developments.
Pope Pius XII rebuffed this Modernist posturing quite clearly in an address to Catholic jurists:
“The Church’s teaching on the coercive power of legitimate human authority is based on the sources of revelation and traditional doctrine. It is wrong, therefore, to say that these sources only contain ideas which are conditioned by historical circumstances. On the contrary, they have a general and abiding validity.” (Acta Apostolicae Sedis, 1955, pp.81-82)
[LINK: http://www.vatican.va/archive/aas/documents/AAS-47-1955-ocr.pdf%5D
Vatican I is quite clear about this kind of chronological snobbery:
“[The] doctrine of rationalism, or naturalism, … opposes itself in every way to the Christian religion as a supernatural institution, and works with the utmost zeal in order that, after Christ, our sole Lord and Savior, has been excluded from the minds of men, and from the life and moral acts of nations, the reign of what they call pure reason or nature may be established. And after forsaking and rejecting the Christian religion, and denying the true God and His Christ, the minds of many have sunk into the abyss of Pantheism, Materialism, and Atheism, until, denying rational nature itself, and every sound rule of right, they labor to destroy the deepest foundations of human society.
“Unhappily, it has yet further come to pass that, while this impiety prevailed on every side, many even of the children of the Catholic Church have strayed from the path of true piety, and by the gradual diminution of the truths they held, the Catholic understanding became weakened in them. For, led away by various and strange doctrines, utterly confusing nature and grace, human science and Divine faith, they are found to deprave the true sense of the doctrines which our Holy Mother Church holds and teaches, and to endanger the integrity and the soundness of the faith. …
“If anyone shall assert it to be possible that sometimes, according to the progress of science [i.e. socially conditioned human knowledge], a sense is to be given to doctrines propounded by the Church different from that which the Church has understood and understands; let him be anathema.“
Pope Francis is simply wrong in his personal opinion on this matter, and you should stop making specious excuses on his behalf. As Melchior Cano so wisely put it:
“Those who blindly and indiscriminately defend every decision of the Supreme Pontiff are the very ones who do most to undermine the authority of the Holy See—they destroy instead of strengthening its foundations. Peter has no need of our lies or flattery.”
[Non eget Petrus mendacio nostro, nostra adulatione non eget. Qui summi pontificis omne de re quacunque iudicium temerè ac sine delectu defendunt: hos sedis Apostolicae auctoritatem labefactare, non fovere: evertere non firmare. — chapter 5 of De Locis Theologici]
Let me go through what the Roman Catechism says. (The translations I’ve found are all much the same, except for the one Mr. Skojec supplies.)
“Another kind of lawful slaying belongs to the civil authorities, to whom is entrusted power of life and death, by the legal and judicious exercise of which they punish the guilty and protect the innocent.”
That does not seem particularly controversial. The legal authority to apply the death penalty is not in private hands, but in the hands of those appointed to serve the common good (‘magistratus’).
“The just use of this power, far from involving the crime of murder,”
At this point, since this comes from the section of the Roman Catechism where it is dealing with “Thou shalt not kill”, there is an explanation of why exactly the death penalty does not break that commandment, since at first glance it might seem to.
“is an act of paramount obedience to this Commandment which prohibits murder. The end of the Commandment is the preservation and security of human life.”
This points out the purpose of “Thou shalt not kill”: it is to preserve and secure human life (‘ut hominum vitae salutique consulatur’). Hence, if a killing has any other purpose than the preservation and security of human life, it cannot be permissible.
“Now the punishments inflicted by the civil authority, which is the legitimate avenger of crime, naturally tend to this end, since they give security to life by repressing outrage and violence.”
So, the specific reason that the death penalty may not contradict ‘thou shalt not kill’, is because it has the end of giving security to life by repressing outrage and violence. I.e. directly protecting against dangers to the common good. The death penalty is evidently not being treated as just another type of punishment, as though it were somehow no more in need of justification than (e.g.) a fine or a prison term. Instead, it has to be justified in a different way from other kinds of punishments, a more specialized justification.
“Hence these words of David: In the morning I put to death all the wicked of the land, that I might cut off all the workers of iniquity from the city of the Lord.”
And this final scriptural justification is also right in line with Aquinas, who said: “It is permissible to kill a criminal if this is necessary for the welfare of the whole community”.
I have seen some defenses of the death penalty which attempt to paint it as simply one kind of punishment — more extreme than others, but still in line with other punishments. But this has never been the way that the Church views the permissibility of the death penalty.
All Evangelium Vitae does is point out that if the common good can be protected by means that don’t involve death of some part of the common good, then that is to be preferred.
To use an analogy: if a localized infection in a limb is in imminent danger of spreading to other parts of the body, a doctor may cut off the limb to spare the rest of the body. But if the infection can be kept isolated by careful treatment, then that will be beter, becaue it will save all parts of the body.
Really, how have we got to such a state such that the obvious common sense of Evangelium Vitae is attacked?
Mr. Connors:
Thank you for your thoughtful reply. I will try to keep my reply brief.
1) There is a vast gulf between saying that refraining from the death penalty would be “preferable” to claiming that the death penalty is “inadmissible” and violates the will of God. The latter claim is nonsense, because it claims that no authority in this era has any POSSIBLE RIGHT to advert to the death penalty, “no matter how serious the crime”. But the Church’s teaching has always been that God wills that the rightful authority ALWAYS has the RIGHT to “execute wrath upon him who doth evil”.
2) Assuming that most modern states can “contain” reprobate criminals without killing them, would it be INTRINSICALLY IMMORAL for the state to put to death even one murderer?
2a) How does prison escape square with the idea that modern states can contain criminals without ANY need to execute them for the common good?
2b) How could the Church condone capital punishment in the past when at least in some cases a wrongdoer could easily be contained (say, in a cage or watchtower, or simply exiled)?
2c) How again does the amputation of “a gangrenous member of society” (cf. Fr. Higgins, Man As Man, p. 512) square with the idea that such members actually continue to live off the resources of that society until they die in prison? Removing a tumor entails the death of that tumor, not its sustenance in the locked room next door.
3) In what way does life imprisonment make restitution for the taking of another person’s life?
4) Could you tell me more about the Church treating capital punishment as sui generis? I’d like to explore the sources for that idea.
“But the Church’s teaching has always been that God wills that the rightful authority ALWAYS has the RIGHT to “execute wrath upon him who doth evil”.”
The rightful authority certainly has permission to inflict the death penalty, when this will overall benefit the common good. (As that passage says, right before your quote: “he is God’s servant for your good”.)
“Assuming that most modern states can “contain” reprobate criminals without killing them, would it be INTRINSICALLY IMMORAL for the state to put to death even one murderer?”
‘Intrinsically’ means ‘regardless of circumstances’. Saint John Paul II taught that there could be circumstances where a modern state might inflict the death penalty, though this would be very rare. Hence one cannot say ‘intrinsically’.
“How does prison escape square with the idea that modern states can contain criminals without ANY need to execute them for the common good?”
Executing someone loses an entire person from the common good. This loss is not counter-balanced by the regrettable but small additional risk that some might escape and further harm the common good.
“How could the Church condone capital punishment in the past when at least in some cases a wrongdoer could easily be contained (say, in a cage or watchtower, or simply exiled)?”
In past times, without a modern penal system, only a few might be contained that way (generally because it had some political or financial advantage). However, a system of justice ought to be applied equally.
“How again does the amputation of “a gangrenous member of society” (cf. Fr. Higgins, Man As Man, p. 512) square with the idea that such members actually continue to live off the resources of that society until they die in prison? Removing a tumor entails the death of that tumor, not its sustenance in the locked room next door.”
In this case we are of course talking about a human, not a tumor, and we wish to keep humans alive.
“In what way does life imprisonment make restitution for the taking of another person’s life?”
In the case of murder, a proper restitution is impossible. The victim cannot be brought back to life by the murderer. Other crimes are like that too. Sometimes some kind of compensation is applied.
“Could you tell me more about the Church treating capital punishment as sui generis? I’d like to explore the sources for that idea”
The defense of the death penalty as being something specifically imposed for the benefit of the common good is a very old idea, repeated regularly by various Fathers. Clement of Alexandria (around 200 AD) writes: “When it sees a person in a seemingly incurable state, plunged up to his neck in crime, then in concern that others may be infected by him, as if it were amputating a limb of the body, it executes him for the greatest health of all”.
Thank you. You’ve granted enough. Francis says the death penalty is INADMISSIBLE NO MATTER WHAT, while even the most recent universal catechism affirms the opposite. He’s wrong, yet you continue to defend the indefensible. This is why you keep adverting to John Paul II instead of our reigning Peronist demagogue.
I also note that you still have not addressed the patent Thomistic teaching on retribution in kind. You focus on the utilitarian dimensions of punishment, ignoring ST II-II 64, 2.
Additionally, your citation of Clement only buttresses the “cold doctrine” which the Church has always held, and which I’m defending. By no means does it support the reigning utilitarian half-truth that you’re defending. C.f.. SCG III, 144 ff.
“Francis says the death penalty is INADMISSIBLE NO MATTER WHAT”
(a) It still remains that he prefixes this statement with “Today”, so that it is a circumstantially contingent statement.
(b) And he also says: “However, the assumptions of legitimate personal defense are not applicable to the social milieu, without risk of distortion.” Which says (as a matter of logic) that those assumptions can be applied, provided it is done carefully without distortion. (Specifically, as his next sentence alludes to, when the person has been imprisoned but the active assault on the common good somehow still continues. Just as JPII says.)
As for your various offered sources, none of them address the death penalty and flat out say that it is permissible in all circumstances. The most they ever say is that it can be carried out if it is necessary to protect the common good. Nothing in this respect has changed.
Nothing new here regarding the Catholic Pro Death Penalty Apologists’ litany of fallacies. I’ve addressed them here http://www.davidlgray.info/blog/2015/03/4-fallacies-catholic-pro-death-penalty/
Mr. Gray, let me begin by noting how well you embody the principle of the development of doctrine. Why, in just a week, the number of supposed fallacies has swelled from four to five!
As for the substance of your criticisms:
The first fallacy you cite is not a fallacy. No defender of the Church’s teaching on capital punishment has ever claimed that it is a de fide matter. By propping up up such a straw man, you are echoing the longstanding dissident tactic of reducing “what Catholics believe” or “binding Catholic teaching” to only the most rigorously and explicitly defined dogmas. This is how dissidents get around birth control, male-only ordination, etc., and how you get around the Church’s teaching that a just application of capital punishment by the proper authorities is ordained by God. Thus, what you cite as a fallacy is in fact nothing more than an appeal to the universal and ordinary Magisterium.
The second fallacy you criticize is in fact what is known as citing evidence. In response you commit a genuine fallacy by subverting patent evidence with appeals to hypothetical responses of those auctores if they were alive in our day. We don’t know how past authors and saints would react to life now, so, fortunately, we have to rely on things they actually said and did. That you call this adherence to actual vs. hypothetical evidence “cherry-picking” says more about your rational honesty than it says about the Church’s teaching.
The third fallacy you claim to have found is not an appeal to inertia, but rather an appeal to doctrinal consistency. The problem is NOT that if the a Church changes on this issue, she might change on anything else (which is, again, a hypothetical concern), but rather that rejecting the death penalty in principle would AMOUNT TO a formal doctrinal corruption by the Magisterium.
With the fourth so-called fallacy we reach the nub of the issue. By saying that imposing the death penalty on already convicted and incarcerated criminals is positively IMMORAL, you are saying that the Church has always condoned what is positively immoral as a function of the common good. This is a monstrous conclusion for a Catholic to arrive at, but it is the logical terminus of your “fresh” perspective. If killing criminals is morally equivalent to murdering Christ, and if the Church has always defended in principle the legitimacy of executing criminals, as a God-given power of the state, then you are asserting that the Church has always defended murdering Christ.
Finally, the fifth “fallacy” that you want to criticize, which I suspect you added in response to comments I and others have been making on my own blog, once again misses the essential moral point. The basis of justice is retribution, not pragmatic appeals to deterrence and reform. This is why your fifth rebuttal focuses on pragmatic statistics, without ever addressing the Church’s teaching that in some cases fitting moral restitution can only come by way of depriving the wrongdoer of his life. The common good is secured by respecting and protecting the transcendent moral order, so, even if earthly goods are secured by mere deterrence and reform, rejecting retribution in principle is to reject the basis of why such measures are necessary in the first place.
By the way, you consistently confuse the debate by saying that the death penalty has no place in the Church’s mission. Yet another huge red herring. the Church’s mission includes teaching the nations of their rights and duties before the Gospel, one of which has always been capital punishment. Aquinas defended it while rejecting the idea that clerics themselves should execute wrongdoers. The State carries the sword not in vain, as God has always willed.
You have the patience of Job, Elliot.
Which is a propos, because reading through the comments on Mr. Gray’s article, I began to feel like someone reading a funhouse mirror version of Job, in which four patient, sharp-witted men attempt to engage in close reasoning with a dismally obtuse protagonist. Tony Jokin, in particular, makes strenuous efforts to break down Mr. Gray’s argument to show him that he has contradicted himself, but all to no avail. It’s quite a spectacle.
It seems you have stolen my Job-like patience for yourself, Murray. Heh!
The funny thing is, as I keep protesting, I didn’t start out with strong feelings about capital punishment. But I do have strong feelings about i) bad arguments and ii) the indefectibility of the Catholic Church, so this stuff is like a red rag to a bull.
Happy Vigil of the Annunciation!
Oh, I know exactly what you mean. Sophistry like this puts me in my Catholic Lewis Black mode. Which brings us back to the underlying question of this entire papacy (if not of the entire post-Conciliar era): Why bother being Roman Catholic?
And happy vigil to you, too!
There is a difference between trying to stop all EXECUTIONS and trying to abolish the death penalty IN PRINCIPLE — a distinction which seems to sadly be overlooked by too many people. No one would be upset if there are no executions because no one commits capital crimes. Only a few twisted people would be upset if there were no executions because those who commit capital crimes are actually FORGIVEN. As we know from the sacrament of penance, though, even when forgiveness is readily available, it is not automatic, and it must be applied to a specific offense. No priest can grant a preemptive absolution of a particular sin because he is squeamish and does not want to hear about it. In the same way, it is important that the state confront capital crimes. Forgiveness can only be granted from one person to another, so most states allow their chief executive to act on behalf of the state in granting (partial) forgiveness and (partial) reduction in the penalties — and not just for capital crimes, either.
On the other hand, if you were to try to abolish not only the actual events of executions, but the very idea of a capital crime — a crime which MERITS death — it’s hard to see how that could be less than a heresy. If the Church teaches that someone can merit an eternity in hell for entertaining an impure thought, how could it conceivably teach that someone who carried out a rape and murder would not deserve to suffer at least the physical death which, by the way, is the fate of saint as well as sinner anyhow?
No; the main problem with trying to banish the idea of capital crimes is that it does not respect the dignity of the human person. God made us capable of making moral decisions that have real meaning and real consequences, even though he knew some would abuse that choice and go to hell. Why does God not annihilate the souls of the damned? Because being a person — a moral agent — even in hell is still a greater good than not existing at all. If God values our free will so much, who could say that our choices could not possibly be so consequential that we would deserve to die?
That is my main objection to the whole anti-death-penalty line of thinking. I would be perfectly fine with a law that commuted the death penalty of any criminal upon the request of the papal nuncio for prisoner so-and-so, guilty of such-and-such crime. Then the lack of an execution would be due to mercy, not squeamishness or sloth or indifference to justice.
There are, though, other objections, and one worth considering is this: An end to “the death penalty” would only mean an end to the government killing people after a trial. Even now there are plenty of people who are killed with no trial whatsoever. We are now firmly in the era in which the government may “detain” a person, which is exactly the same thing as to “arrest” him, except that someone who is arrested has well-defined rights, and someone who is detained has none. I really want to keep the jury system as a restraint on the government’s killing!
Bravo!
And fear ye not them that kill the body, and are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him that can destroy both soul and body in hell.
So many arguments commend the second great commandment without mentioning the first. Indeed, in these arguments God doesn’t enter the picture except as He relates to man. But God is the I AM WHO AM, and Jesus is the Before Abraham was made, I AM.
God is love and we are mighty fine fellows nowadays, but:
But don’t we say “Lord, Lord”?
Forgiveness has never excluded sanction.
We all die because of our sins, yet all have salvation, if we chose to take it,
Um, yeah. Death of the body has, for those who die in a state of grace, lost its punitive aspect, but it still is a “medical necessity”; to be put right, we must die and be resurrected. But you’re not suggesting, are you, that we should forgive murderers and still put them to death — for their own good, of course? I would say that’s the state overstepping its bounds, unless it can finish the job and resurrect those who have died, as God can.
I just presented the eternal, medicinal benefits of the death penalty, as described by Catholic and other Christian scholars.
Again:
Read prior to replying.
The Death Penalty: Mercy, Expiation, Redemption & Salvation
http()//prodpinnc.blogspot()com/2013/06/the-death-penalty-mercy-expiation.html
No. If you are not able to argue your point succinctly, just give up. I have no interest in following your links.
— The Mikado
So is that your approach? “I know it’s something humorous, but lingering, with either boiling oil or melted lead. Come, come, don’t fret – I’m not a bit angry”?
Then there’s speaking against the Holy Ghost.
Well, blasphemy against the Holy Ghost (generally understood as meaning final impenitence) is a “thing”, if you like, but what does it have to do with the topic under discussion?
Trying to imagine what would happen in a just world, and virtue is triumphant.
Unlike most people here, I’m not much of a fan of C.S. Lewis. When he’s right, there are usually others who have expressed the same truth more clearly or forcefully — and then there are places like his Reflections on the Psalms, which are … problematic.
Maybe I did not express my intention clearly enough with the quote from The Mikado. In the operetta, the Mikado (the Emperor of Japan) “forgives” Ko-Ko, Pooh-Bah, and Pitty-Sing, but he is still going to have them tortured to death. Somehow, this forgiveness strikes them as rather hollow and meaningless! Sometimes personal forgiveness has little consequence, at least corporeally, but I see no point in having any kind of “forgiveness” by the state that does not involve the lessening of punishment, which seems to be implied by dudleysharp’s comment.
I think your intention was clear, and my wayward allusion to the unforgivable sin was a failed attempt to find some common ground between your and dudleysharp’s comments. I felt what Archbishop Chaput may have felt when he said, “We speak the same language, but the words don’t mean the same thing.”
In your opinion, was Lewis right or wrong on this particular subject of “letting the punishment fit the crime,” and if he was right, who said it better? I don’t think I have a good understanding of the relevant issues.
Francis is a rotten Pope. That’s all.
I haven’t yet worked out if he is actually malignant or just stupid.
Steve,
Thank you for this timely article. Recently the issue of death penalty has been quite a heated debate in my country, Indonesia, because the new president is pretty firm in his stance in support of death penalty for drug offenders. The state has just executed another 8 prisoners, and it’s barely yesterday (April 29). Most Indonesians seem to support it, however the Catholics are divided, with many of the hierarchy members are against it completely, quoting—surprise surprise—”Evangelium Vitae”. Many Catholics, I think, are confused between death penalty as a general idea, and its case-by-case applications. While I agree that the actual application requires great prudence and taking many factors into consideration, the general *idea* should not be debated: it has its place in Church’s teaching. When, if ever, it is applicable, now that’s the fun part.
FYI, Indonesians who do support the death penalty usually go by the Thomistic argument of the protection of common good overriding personal good. I find this rather interesting especially when one remembers that the majority of them are Muslims 🙂
Thank you for sharing your perspective, Anna Elissa. There’s certainly value in debating whether any civil authority, given its specific circumstances, is concerned enough with serving justice to be entrusted with such a grave responsibility. It seems to be the most pressing argument against capital punishment in the modern world.
Mr. Skojec, why do you think our present Holy Fathers; including Francis; have gone against what the Church has always taught regarding the Death Penalty? Just seems odd when St. John Paul II did it and now Francis; I wonder why they are not sticking to the Teachings of the Church and the Doctors of the Church and Sacred Scripture?
That’s a difficult question to answer. I suspect the answers can be found here, if obliquely:
http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Pius10/p10pasce.htm
Modernism isn’t just a cliche. It’s an ideology. And — much like feminism — it has infected us all, even those who desire to live faithful, virtuous lives.
Thank you for responding, I always thought when the new Pope was elected, they would read what all their predecessors taught to make sure it carried on and not erred; kind of wish that was the case for all Popes. I love the document you shared by Pope St. Pius X; wish it was read as a homily by each priest and bishop.
Obviously, it’s too much material to read everything, but they should certainly be familiar with as much as possible – at least the general principles.
And if they are going to speak out on a topic that they know has established teaching, they have a solemn obligation to research it. There are theologians whose job it is to make sure that the pope doesn’t say or write things he shouldn’t, based on prior teaching. I’m under the impression that Pope Francis in particular doesn’t listen to them much.
I wonder what we laity can do to make sure the other Catholics get the proper teaching and do we just pray for the Holy Father to make sure he will listen to those telling him of what all his predecessors taught regarding different issues; including the Doctors and Church Fathers? Or is there more we can do to help him stay on the correct path regarding what has already been taught?
What a lot of Catholics probably do not know is that Vatican City State and the other Papal States themselves formerly used the death penalty.
In the nineteenth century, there existed in Rome the archconfraternity of San Giovanni Decollato (“Saint John Beheaded”), whose members did penance for those we now call death-row inmates. For them, part of being Christian also meant looking out for the spiritual welfare of the condemned. The Papal States were quite interested in man’s supernatural end, too. For this reason, execution days in Rome were days of prayer and penance. Saint Vincent Pallotti used to work with the archconfraternity of San Giovanni Decollato, and never complained that the popes, one of whom was Blessed Pio Nono, were “violating human dignity.”
The new teaching on the death penalty is a perfect instance of that heterogeneous development of dogma I like to call “The Paramagisterium.”
Here’s a good sermon on capital punishment, by an excellent traditional priest:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-t0PiB6zBE
There is an excellent piece on Fr. Z’s blog about the death penalty. Best I’ve ever read:
Here is an excerpt: The medicinal reason for inflicting punishment, [PAY ATTENTION…] goes beyondpreventing the criminal from repeating his crime and protecting society, to encouraging the guilty to repent and die in a state of grace. The vindictive reasoning also has this interest in mind: for by expiating the disorder caused by the crime, the moral debt of the guilty is lessened. [Latin vindico does not have to do only with being “vindictive” or “vengeful”. It is also “to set free, emancipate”.]
And this: Headquartered in the Church of San Giovanni Decollato (St. John the Beheaded), … their rule was to urge the condemned to a good confession, followed by an exhortation and Holy Communion followed by the grant of a plenary indulgence. The whole population of Rome was instructed to fast and pray for the intention of the criminal’s soul.
http://wdtprs.com/blog/2013/02/the-death-penalty-being-vindictive-in-the-churchs-magisterium/