Falibly Infallible

[Ice_nine]

 

Why exactly is a bad example? I quoted the Catechism section on the DP so obviously I read it before writing my post.

To clarify - it is not this part that some people disagree with:

It is this part that people disagree with:

 

I am not sure why it is not a private interpretation. If you explicitly state that you reject paragraph XYZ of the Catechism do you not have your own interpretation that differs from that of the Magisterium?

As for whether "the church teaches something for centuries" - I think the question here is - who gets to decide what the Church has taught for centuries? Are we all just free to grab the history books ourselves and declare for ourselves what the Church's historical teaching on a matter is, or do we go to our current Pope, our Bishops, our local priests? On any given issue I am sure that they know a whole lot more about it than you, me or Justice Scalia, and generally, I think this is one of the big reasons why we have them - so that we can look for them to guidance as to what the Church teaches (and has taught).

Heck - I may as well do my own "historical research" and conclude that although the Catechism prohibits pre-marital sex, I am free to sleep with anybody I want because based on my own reasearch and intepretation of scriputure and tradition, the Catechism is wrong on the point and the "historical teaching of the Church allows it".

I think that is what you end up with if you take the attitude that you can ignore certain sections of the Catechism, or your pastor, etc. . .

To me it seems you're implying there is a level of subjectivity that almost reaches absurdity, How do you get to decide what the catechism says? I might see that passage in full support of the death penalty. Maybe we're just interpreting it differently, maybe when I see green and it looks like your purple in my mind, maybe we're all just brains in a vat etc.

I think you'd be really hard pressed to find any evidence that pre-marital sex is OK within the deposit of faith, whereas, and you must know this, it would be rather easy to gather evidence about the church's approval of retributive justice in the context of corporal punishment.

There was an article @Nihil_Obstat posted a little while back that explained how we must interpret the current teachings and other practices of the church in light of tradition rather than the other way around, Or something like that. Hopefully he has it bookmarked and knows wth I'm talking about. I think that document says what I'm trying to say with more smarts and succinctness and such.

edit: in response to this specifically "I am not sure why it is not a private interpretation. If you explicitly state that you reject paragraph XYZ of the Catechism do you not have your own interpretation that differs from that of the Magisterium?"

This kind of relates to the absurd level of subjectivity you're engaging in here. How can I be said to be "differing from the Magisterium" if I agree with what the Magisterium has previously taught throughout the centuries? You seem to think I cannot possibly determine what the Church has taught throughout the centuries because I'm biased and I'd be picking what I liked, ignoring what I didn't etc., but if I cannot determine what the church has taught how can I detremine what the Church does teach and how can I have faith that you can do the same? How can we know anything really?

Edited September 16, 2015 by Ice_nine

[Nihil Obstat]

To me it seems you're implying there is a level of subjectivity that almost reaches absurdity, How do you get to decide what the catechism says? I might see that passage in full support of the death penalty. Maybe we're just interpreting it differently, maybe when I see green and it looks like your purple in my mind, maybe we're all just brains in a vat etc.

I think you'd be really hard pressed to find any evidence that pre-marital sex is OK within the deposit of faith, whereas, and you must know this, it would be rather easy to gather evidence about the church's approval of retributive justice in the context of corporal punishment.

There was an article @Nihil_Obstat posted a little while back that explained how we must interpret the current teachings and other practices of the church in light of tradition rather than the other way around, Or something like that. Hopefully he has it bookmarked and knows wth I'm talking about. I think that document says what I'm trying to say with more smarts and succinctness and such.

 

Oh boy. That sounds like something I would have posted, but I have no idea what article it would be and if I still have it. I will look.

[Amppax]

@Peace here's a couple things you may find helpful. 

The CDF's doctrinal commentary on the Professio Fidei is probably the place to start: https://www.ewtn.com/library/CURIA/CDFADTU.HTM. It covers both the varying levels of teaching and assent owed. However, it doesn't necessarily explain all that much. If I can, I'm going to try and find a document a professor of mine gave us, it's basically a commentary on the commentary. 

[Ice_nine]

Oh boy. That sounds like something I would have posted, but I have no idea what article it would be and if I still have it. I will look.

Yeah I was not at all very specific. I'm pretty sure it was the subject of a topic you posted. It was a blog of some sort. I know I'm being immensely helpful here.

errrr I can probably find it somehow.

edit: I think it was the one here http://www.phatmass.com/phorum/topic/138238-fr-ripperger-neocatholicism-vs-traditionalism/

 

Edited September 16, 2015 by Ice_nine

[Peace]

To me it seems you're implying there is a level of subjectivity that almost reaches absurdity, How do you get to decide what the catechism says? I might see that passage in full support of the death penalty. Maybe we're just interpreting it differently, maybe when I see green and it looks like your purple in my mind, maybe we're all just brains in a vat etc.

Hmm. I think this is a slightly different issue.  I was dealing with the question of when everyone agrees that "The Catechism says X and means X" but someone comes along and says "Yes, I also agree that the Catechism says X but I reject that X is the teaching of the Church, because I have looked into the matter independently myself and concluded that Y is in fact true and not X."

The situation you raise seems to be one where person A says "What the Catechism says means X" but person B says "What the Catechism says means Y." I don't mind if people have these types of disagreements if they are really trying to follow what they believe the Church teaches.

But you raise a good point I think. The only difference seems to be that Justice Scalia is looking to Source A (let's say various Church fathers or moral theologians that he has consulted) for authority, and that Person A and Person B are looking at a document that is more recent (the Catechism). In a sense they are doing the same thing, so I think you have made your point well.

I guess it comes back to the same question - who do we look for as an authority? Do we look at Source A or Source B? Who do we look to for immediate guidance when it comes to knowing our faith? I would guess that a big part of the reason why Jesus passed the keys to St. Peter and why we have apostolic succession is so that we have a living authority that can guide us to the truth.

As for looking back at the Church Fathers on our own, I think that is alright, but I would think it would be best for the Pope, our Bishops, and our priests to look back at the Church Fathers (which they do in seminary of course) for us and then instruct us as to what the historical teaching of the Church is, rather than having us look at those materials ourselves and make our own decisions.

Perhaps one might make the argument that "What the Church Fathers said about issue XYZ is plain as day and there is no room for reasonable debate on it - so I can decide it for myself without consulting a modern/living authority". But in reality I don' think that there are too many issues like that where you have universal agreement among the Church fathers. The one issue that comes to mind is the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, where you seem to have near uniformity among the early Church fathers. But if you watch a lot of the Protestant - Catholic debates on a host of other issues I think you can see a fair amount of variation among the Church Fathers on various issues. I think it is tough to weed through all of that stuff yourself - and if you attempt to do so, the answer you come up with is likely to be the answer that you desired in your own mind before you start your research. . .

P.S. I do realize that the Catechism is not a "living authority" but it was written pretty recently and approved by our Bishops for the express purpose of clarifying the norms of the faith. While it is not as good as trying to calling up your Bishop on the phone, of course, I think that it is a lot less fraught with peril than trying to round up the writings of numerous different authors that were written well over 1000 years ago in a different language and cultural context, and trying to figure it all out for yourself. . .

I think you'd be really hard pressed to find any evidence that pre-marital sex is OK within the deposit of faith, whereas, and you must know this, it would be rather easy to gather evidence about the church's approval of retributive justice in the context of corporal punishment.

I don't know if I wold be hard pressed to find that. I haven't done any specific research on the issue. I think that when our priests or the Catechism instruct us about that teaching we accept it because we accept the authority of the Church and believe that there must be historical support for it because our priests and people who have put together the Catechism have looked into the matter. But I honestly have no idea what the early Church Fathers have to say about it specifically. Do you? Perhaps someone can come up with a plausible argument that the Christian faith does not prohibit pre-marital sex. I am not even sure that it is explicit in scripture. Is it? And I bet you can go online and find plenty of people who have made the argument that it is not prohibited. . .I don't think they would be right of course. But that conclusion is based on what my priests teach me and my acceptance of their authority to guide me. It's not as though I came to that conclusion myself based on my own research . . .

You seem to think I cannot possibly determine what the Church has taught throughout the centuries because I'm biased and I'd be picking what I liked, ignoring what I didn't etc.

Well. I do not think it is impossible, but I think there is a big risk of bias in favor of the conclusion that you would intuitively prefer. We are all human after all. . .

but if I cannot determine what the church has taught how can I detremine what the Church does teach and how can I have faith that you can do the same? How can we know anything really?
 

I suppose you can't really "know" anything with absolute 100% certainty. But as I discussed above - I would think that looking to modern/living Church authorities for guidance would be a more reliable way of attempting to arrive at the truth the best that we can . . .

Edited September 16, 2015 by Peace

[Peace]

FYI.

Here are some of the links if anyone is interested:

http://www.firstthings.com/article/2002/05/gods-justice-and-ours

Scalia Writing:

The death penalty is undoubtedly wrong unless one accords to the state a scope of moral action that goes beyond what is permitted to the individual. In my view, the major impetus behind modern aversion to the death penalty is the equation of private morality with governmental morality. This is a predictable (though I believe erroneous and regrettable) reaction to modern, democratic self“government.

Few doubted the morality of the death penalty in the age that believed in the divine right of kings. Or even in earlier times. St. Paul had this to say (I am quoting, as you might expect, the King James version):

Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? Do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same: for he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil. Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake. (Romans 13:1“5)

This is not the Old Testament, I emphasize, but St. Paul. One can understand his words as referring only to lawfully constituted authority, or even only to lawfully constituted authority that rules justly. But the core of his message is that government”however you want to limit that concept”derives its moral authority from God. It is the “minister of God” with powers to “revenge,” to “execute wrath,” including even wrath by the sword (which is unmistakably a reference to the death penalty). Paul of course did not believe that the individual possessed any such powers. Only a few lines before this passage, he wrote, “Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.” And in this world the Lord repaid”did justice”through His minister, the state.

These passages from Romans represent the consensus of Western thought until very recent times. Not just of Christian or religious thought, but of secular thought regarding the powers of the state. That consensus has been upset, I think, by the emergence of democracy. It is easy to see the hand of the Almighty behind rulers whose forebears, in the dim mists of history, were supposedly anointed by God, or who at least obtained their thrones in awful and unpredictable battles whose outcome was determined by the Lord of Hosts, that is, the Lord of Armies. It is much more difficult to see the hand of God”or any higher moral authority”behind the fools and rogues (as the losers would have it) whom we ourselves elect to do our own will. How can their power to avenge”to vindicate the “public order””be any greater than our own?

So it is no accident, I think, that the modern view that the death penalty is immoral is centered in the West. That has little to do with the fact that the West has a Christian tradition, and everything to do with the fact that the West is the home of democracy. Indeed, it seems to me that the more Christian a country is the less likely it is to regard the death penalty as immoral. Abolition has taken its firmest hold in post“Christian Europe, and has least support in the church“going United States. I attribute that to the fact that, for the believing Christian, death is no big deal. Intentionally killing an innocent person is a big deal: it is a grave sin, which causes one to lose his soul. But losing this life, in exchange for the next? The Christian attitude is reflected in the words Robert Bolt’s play has Thomas More saying to the headsman: “Friend, be not afraid of your office. You send me to God.” And when Cranmer asks whether he is sure of that, More replies, “He will not refuse one who is so blithe to go to Him.” For the nonbeliever, on the other hand, to deprive a man of his life is to end his existence. What a horrible act!

Besides being less likely to regard death as an utterly cataclysmic punishment, the Christian is also more likely to regard punishment in general as deserved. The doctrine of free will”the ability of man to resist temptations to evil, which God will not permit beyond man’s capacity to resist”is central to the Christian doctrine of salvation and damnation, heaven and hell. The post“Freudian secularist, on the other hand, is more inclined to think that people are what their history and circumstances have made them, and there is little sense in assigning blame.

Of course those who deny the authority of a government to exact vengeance are not entirely logical. Many crimes”for example, domestic murder in the heat of passion”are neither deterred by punishment meted out to others nor likely to be committed a second time by the same offender. Yet opponents of capital punishment do not object to sending such an offender to prison, perhaps for life. Because he deserves punishment. Because it is just .

The mistaken tendency to believe that a democratic government, being nothing more than the composite will of its individual citizens, has no more moral power or authority than they do as individuals has adverse effects in other areas as well. It fosters civil disobedience, for example, which proceeds on the assumption that what the individual citizen considers an unjust law”even if it does not compel him to act unjustly”need not be obeyed. St. Paul would not agree. “Ye must needs be subject,” he said, “not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake.” For conscience sake. The reaction of people of faith to this tendency of democracy to obscure the divine authority behind government should not be resignation to it, but the resolution to combat it as effectively as possible. We have done that in this country (and continental Europe has not) by preserving in our public life many visible reminders that”in the words of a Supreme Court opinion from the 1940s”“we are a religious people, whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being.” These reminders include: “In God we trust” on our coins, “one nation, under God” in our Pledge of Allegiance, the opening of sessions of our legislatures with a prayer, the opening of sessions of my Court with “God save the United States and this Honorable Court,” annual Thanksgiving proclamations issued by our President at the direction of Congress, and constant invocations of divine support in the speeches of our political leaders, which often conclude, “God bless America.” All this, as I say, is most un“European, and helps explain why our people are more inclined to understand, as St. Paul did, that government carries the sword as “the minister of God,” to “execute wrath” upon the evildoer.

A brief story about the aftermath of September 11 nicely illustrates how different things are in secularized Europe. I was at a conference of European and American lawyers and jurists in Rome when the planes struck the twin towers. All in attendance were transfixed by the horror of the event, and listened with rapt attention to the President’s ensuing address to the nation. When the speech had concluded, one of the European conferees”a religious man”confided in me how jealous he was that the leader of my nation could conclude his address with the words “God bless the United States.” Such invocation of the deity, he assured me, was absolutely unthinkable in his country, with its Napoleonic tradition of extirpating religion from public life.

It will come as no surprise from what I have said that I do not agree with the encyclical Evangelium Vitae and the new Catholic catechism (or the very latest version of the new Catholic catechism), according to which the death penalty can only be imposed to protect rather than avenge, and that since it is (in most modern societies) not necessary for the former purpose, it is wrong. That, by the way, is how I read those documents”and not, as Avery Cardinal Dulles would read them, simply as an affirmation of two millennia of Christian teaching that retribution is a proper purpose (indeed, the principal purpose) of criminal punishment, but merely adding the “prudential judgment” that in modern circumstances condign retribution “rarely if ever” justifies death. (See “Catholicism & Capital Punishment,” FT, April 2001.) I cannot square that interpretation with the following passage from the encyclical:

It is clear that, for these [permissible purposes of penal justice] 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 nonexistent

. (Emphases deleted and added.)

It is true enough that the paragraph of the encyclical that precedes this passage acknowledges (in accord with traditional Catholic teaching) that “the primary purpose of the punishment which society inflicts is ‘to redress the disorder caused by the offense’” by “imposing on the offender an adequate punishment for the crime.” But it seems to me quite impossible to interpret the later passage’s phrase “when it would not be possible otherwise to defend society” as including “defense” through the redress of disorder achieved by adequate punishment. Not only does the word “defense” not readily lend itself to that strange interpretation, but the immediately following explanation of why, in modern times, “defense” rarely if ever requires capital punishment has no bearing whatever upon the adequacy of retribution . In fact, one might say that it has an inverse bearing.

How in the world can modernity’s “steady improvements in the organization of the penal system” render the death penalty less condign for a particularly heinous crime? One might think that commitment to a really horrible penal system (Devil’s Island, for example) might be almost as bad as death. But nice clean cells with television sets, exercise rooms, meals designed by nutritionists, and conjugal visits? That would seem to render the death penalty more, rather than less, necessary. So also would the greatly increased capacity for evil”the greatly increased power to produce moral “disorder””placed in individual hands by modern technology. Could St. Paul or St. Thomas even have envisioned a crime by an individual (as opposed to one by a ruler, such as Herod’s slaughter of the innocents) as enormous as that of Timothy McVeigh or of the men who destroyed three thousand innocents in the World Trade Center? If just retribution is a legitimate purpose (indeed, the principal legitimate purpose) of capital punishment, can one possibly say with a straight face that nowadays death would “rarely if ever” be appropriate?

So I take the encyclical and the latest, hot“off“the“presses version of the catechism (a supposed encapsulation of the “deposit” of faith and the Church’s teaching regarding a moral order that does not change) to mean that retribution is not a valid purpose of capital punishment. Unlike such other hard Catholic doctrines as the prohibition of birth control and of abortion, this is not a moral position that the Church has always”or indeed ever before ”maintained. There have been Christian opponents of the death penalty, just as there have been Christian pacifists, but neither of those positions has ever been that of the Church. The current predominance of opposition to the death penalty is the legacy of Napoleon, Hegel, and Freud rather than St. Paul and St. Augustine. I mentioned earlier Thomas More, who has long been regarded in this country as the patron saint of lawyers, and who has recently been declared by the Vatican the patron saint of politicians (I am not sure that is a promotion). One of the charges leveled by that canonized saint’s detractors was that, as Lord Chancellor, he was too quick to impose the death penalty.

I am therefore happy to learn from the canonical experts I have consulted that the position set forth in Evangelium Vitae and in the latest version of the Catholic catechism does not purport to be binding teaching”that is, it need not be accepted by practicing Catholics, though they must give it thoughtful and respectful consideration. It would be remarkable to think otherwise”that a couple of paragraphs in an encyclical almost entirely devoted not to crime and punishment but to abortion and euthanasia was intended authoritatively to sweep aside (if one could) two thousand years of Christian teaching.

So I have given this new position thoughtful and careful consideration”and I disagree. That is not to say I favor the death penalty (I am judicially and judiciously neutral on that point); it is only to say that I do not find the death penalty immoral. I am happy to have reached that conclusion, because I like my job, and would rather not resign. And I am happy because I do not think it would be a good thing if American Catholics running for legislative office had to oppose the death penalty (most of them would not be elected); if American Catholics running for Governor had to promise commutation of all death sentences (most of them would never reach the Governor’s mansion); if American Catholics were ineligible to go on the bench in all jurisdictions imposing the death penalty; or if American Catholics were subject to recusal when called for jury duty in capital cases.

I find it ironic that the Church’s new (albeit nonbinding) position on the death penalty”which, if accepted, would have these disastrous consequences”is said to rest upon “prudential considerations.” Is it prudent, when one is not certain enough about the point to proclaim it in a binding manner (and with good reason, given the long and consistent Christian tradition to the contrary), to effectively urge the retirement of Catholics from public life in a country where the federal government and thirty“eight of the states (comprising about 85 percent of the population) believe the death penalty is sometimes just and appropriate? Is it prudent to imperil acceptance of the Church’s hard but traditional teachings on birth control and abortion and euthanasia (teachings that have been proclaimed in a binding manner, a distinction that the average Catholic layman is unlikely to grasp) by packaging them”under the wrapper “respect for life””with another uncongenial doctrine that everyone knows does not represent the traditional Christian view ? Perhaps, one is invited to conclude, all four of them are recently made“up. We need some new staffers at the Congregation of Prudence in the Vatican. At least the new doctrine should have been urged only upon secular Europe, where it is at home.

I do think Scalia is biased. I do think that he is finding what he wanted to find. I think that his bias has to do with his desire to keep his job. He comes pretty close to admitting that himself - don't you think?

I thought this was the best response - but I have my own bias, obviously:

http://www.firstthings.com/article/2002/10/antonin-scalia-and-his-critics-the-church-the-courts-and-the-death-penalty

Justice Antonin Scalia is, of course, correct to distinguish between the Church’s condemnation of intrinsic evils such as abortion, euthanasia, and artificial contraception and the restrictions placed on the use of capital punishment by Evangelium Vitae and the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Some of his assertions, though, are open to question.

Justice Scalia refers several times to an alleged 2,000-year-old Church tradition in support of capital punishment for the purpose of retribution. A distinction, however, must be made between a theological tradition and a magisterial tradition. While numerous Catholic saints and theologians (e.g., St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Thomas More, and St. Robert Bellarmine) have supported the use of the death penalty, there does not seem to be a continuous magisterial tradition affirming the death penalty as necessarily linked to retribution.

It is true that Pope Innocent III, in his 1210 Profession of Faith for the Waldensians, declared that the secular power could exercise a judgment of blood without mortal sin. However, he did not specify how, when, or for what purpose this punishment should be used except that it should be carried out “not out of hatred, but judiciously, not incautiously, but with reflection.” The Roman Catechism of 1566 lists “the execution of criminals” as an exception to the commandment “thou shalt not kill,” but it places such punishment within the larger purpose of preserving human life and safety. In his September 13, 1952 address to medical professionals, Pius XII makes a passing reference to a criminal forfeiting his right to life by his crime. But he does so only to emphasize that the state, in itself, does not possess the competence to dispose of an individual’s right to life. This hardly qualifies as a magisterial declaration that the death penalty must be linked with retribution.

In 1974, after a resolution against capital punishment by the U.S. bishops conference passed by a vote of 108 to 63, some American prelates sought assistance from Rome to find out whether such a position was consistent with the Catholic tradition. A response prepared by the Pontifical Commission for Justice and Peace made the following four points:

1) The Church has never directly addressed the question of the state’s right to exercise the death penalty;

 

2) The Church has never condemned its use by the state;

 

3) The Church has condemned the denial of that right;

 

4) Recent popes have stressed the rights of the person and the medicinal role of punishment.

Clearly the Pontifical Commission did not find evidence of the 2,000-year-old tradition of which Justice Scalia speaks. The most that can be claimed is recognition of the state’s theoretical right to use the death penalty. Under what circumstances this punishment can or should be used does not seem to have been the object of any previous magisterial declaration. Thus, Evangelium Vitae makes no attempt (pace Scalia) to “sweep aside two thousand years of Christian teaching.” Instead, John Paul II tries to specify when the death penalty could be justly used, viz., when it is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.

Are there any precedents in the Catholic tradition for John Paul II’s position? Statements made by St. Justin Martyr, Athenagoras, Lactantius, and St. Cyprian of Carthage suggest efforts to distance early Christians from all killing, including the execution of criminals. St. Ambrose, cited in Evangelium Vitae §9, appeals to the protection of Cain as evidence of God’s preference for the correction rather than the death of a sinner. Even St. Augustine is not always consistent. While he supports the right of the state to use capital punishment, in Sermon 13, no. 8, he exhorts: “Do not have a person put to death, and you will have someone who can be reformed.” This anticipates the teaching of Evangelium Vitae §27, viz., we should seek to render “criminals harmless without definitively denying them the chance to reform.”

Catholics should be grateful for Justice Scalia’s recognition that a “right to abortion” is found nowhere in the U.S. Constitution. However, we should be less enthusiastic about his apparent claim that the Vicar of Christ has now attempted to “sweep aside” a 2,000-year-old tradition in support of capital punishment. What John Paul II teaches in Evangelium Vitae §56 is in perfect harmony with what his ninth-century predecessor Pope St. Nicholas I taught on the subject:

. . . without hesitation and in every possible circumstance, save the life of the body and soul of each individual.

You should save from death not only the innocent but also criminals

, because Christ has saved you from the death of the soul (emphasis added).

Robert Fastiggi
Associate Professor of Systematic Theology
Sacred Heart Major Seminary
Detroit, Michigan

Edited September 16, 2015 by Peace

[Nihil Obstat]

Yeah I was not at all very specific. I'm pretty sure it was the subject of a topic you posted. It was a blog of some sort. I know I'm being immensely helpful here.
errrr I can probably find it somehow.

edit: I think it was the one here http://www.phatmass.com/phorum/topic/138238-fr-ripperger-neocatholicism-vs-traditionalism/

 

That was a good one. I remember it instigating quite the gong-show.  

[CatherineM]

As someone who has spent time on death row working with convicts, and has stood witness at an execution, I have a couple of observations.  I never met a man on death row who was both sane and sober when they committed their crime. I met no rich men, or evil geniuses. I suspect that the average IQ was about 80.

 As to executions providing closure for families, that's carp. Closure is only a dream.  Forgiveness is the only way I've seen people get even a little bit of something like closure. The execution I saw was one that went wrong. It made me be ashamed to be an American. We're supposed to be better than that. Killing people who are mentally ill or mentally restarded who couldn't afford a decent attorney, to satisfy a blood lust of revenge, is beneath civilized humanity. 

[Makarioi]

I lurked for years then took the plunge and joined. A nun wanna be, my life took a different direction but I still feel that 'tug'. I Think I'm going to be in big trouble if I make it to heaven!! Here is where I feel connected to that tug, learning your stories and experiences in VS. Every entrance, clothing and final vow ceremony just fills me with joy..... And a little envy that's it's not me!!   I learned a lot from VS as well as the other forums, but I stop in VS first!  Thank you dUSt for Phatmass

[Peace]

As someone who has spent time on death row working with convicts, and has stood witness at an execution, I have a couple of observations.  I never met a man on death row who was both sane and sober when they committed their crime. I met no rich men, or evil geniuses. I suspect that the average IQ was about 80.

 As to executions providing closure for families, that's carp. Closure is only a dream.  Forgiveness is the only way I've seen people get even a little bit of something like closure. The execution I saw was one that went wrong. It made me be ashamed to be an American. We're supposed to be better than that. Killing people who are mentally ill or mentally restarded who couldn't afford a decent attorney, to satisfy a blood lust of revenge, is beneath civilized humanity. 

I agree. I think that it is inhumane. If Jesus were walking the Earth today I can't really see Him telling us to put a person to death in a situation where we had the means to allow the person to live while preventing him from causing further harm to other people. Can anyone on this board really see Jesus advocating that, based on what we know of Him from Scripture? It just does not vibe with the Jesus that I know - but that is just me of course.

I also think it is rather arbitrary. Why does King David not get the death penalty but some guy who robs a liquor store and kills the clerk does? I don't think it gets too much worse than sleeping with a married woman and then intentionally putting her husband in a position to die because you did not want people to find out that she was pregnant. But anyway . . .

[Nihil Obstat]

God punished many people with death in the Bible.  

[Makarioi]

I lurked for years then took the plunge and joined. A nun wanna be, my life took a different direction but I still feel that 'tug'. I Think I'm going to be in big trouble if I make it to heaven!! Here is where I feel connected to that tug, learning your stories and experiences in VS. Every entrance, clothing and final vow ceremony just fills me with joy..... And a little envy that's it's not me!!   I learned a lot from VS as well as the other forums, but I stop in VS first!  Thank you dUSt for Phatmass

[Peace]

God punished many people with death in the Bible.  

Well in that case why don't you and I burn down San Francisco tonight? God roasted Sodom and Gomorrah and SF doesn't seem to be doing a whole lot better.

I don't think the fact that God, in His infinite judgment and wisdom, chooses to take particular actions at particular points in times, means that it is moral for us to take the same action, lacking that same judgment, wisdom, and ultimate control over the universe.

Do you honestly think that Jesus would advocate the death penalty under the circumstances I set forth in my previous post? I am just wondering if you really believe that. . .

[Nihil Obstat]

Well in that case why don't you and I burn down San Francisco tonight? God roasted Sodom and Gomorrah and SF doesn't seem to be doing a whole lot better.

I don't think the fact that God, in His infinite judgment and wisdom, chooses to take particular actions at particular points in times, means that it is moral for us to take the same action, lacking that same judgment, wisdom, and ultimate control over the universe.

Do you honestly think that Jesus would advocate the death penalty under the circumstances I set forth in my previous post? I am just wondering if you really believe that. . .

That is what we have civil authority for. God has ordained for civil authorities to rule over nations - authority over and above that of any one individual.

[CatherineM]

My biggest issue with the death penalty is how we determine who will face it in court. In almost every jurisdiction, it is the prosecutor. In states that still have the death penalty, that decision is in the hands of a white man. Last I checked 98%. If every single person who was charged with murder faced the ultimate penalty, rather than just the poor, mentally deficient, minority, basically the disenfranchised who are throw aways anyway, I suspect the death penalty would disappear quickly.