Be warned:religious post

[Monkey Turned Wolf]

Something that was said in another thread really confused me. I was going to post there, but it was irrelevant to the thread, so decided to make a new post asking. In the bible, it constantly says that people who murder should be murdered in turn. both old testament (Genesis 9:6, Exodus 21:12, and Leviticus 24:17) and in the new testament, in Matthew 5:21-24, Jesus appears to condone it. He yells at people for trying to stone someone for adultery, but never does that for murder unless I've forgotten something, which is entirely possible.
So my question is this: Does the catholic church oppose the death penalty, and if so, why? What lead the Pope to that decision, or was it something that Jesus or Peter said that I just don't recall.
P.S. I don't want this thread to end up as a flame war, genuinely want an answer. So if your response is to rant at the catholic church, please don't do it here, or if it's to rant at me for something I said, just PM me with it, no need to post here about that.

 

[Bill Mattocks]

I found this, which matches what I have also been told as a Catholic:

http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/n...says_in_industrialized_societies_it_must_end/

He compared the Church’s teaching on the death penalty to that on acts like abortion, genocide and euthanasia, saying that in the comparison, there is an inequality.

"The death penalty", he wrote, "is not intrinsically evil [like abortion and euthanasia are]. Both Scripture and long Christian tradition acknowledge the legitimacy of capital punishment under certain circumstances. The Church cannot repudiate that without repudiating her own identity."

"Catholic teaching on euthanasia, the death penalty, war, genocide and abortion", the archbishop said, "are rooted in the same concern for the sanctity of the human person. But these different issues do not all have the same gravity or moral content. They are not equivalent."

He used war as an applicable example, noting that there are cases in which acts of war are morally legitimate--similar to the death penalty.

However, he pointed out, what the Church’s teaching on the death penalty involves is, "a call to set aside unnecessary violence, including violence by the state, in the name of human dignity and building a culture of life."

...

He cited the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which states that if "non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people’s safety from the aggressor [i.e., the convicted murderer], authority [should] limit itself to such means, as these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and more in conformity with the dignity of the human person" (2267).

Likewise, he quoted John Paul II, who points out in his Gospel of Life, that "the nature and extent of the punishment [for capital crimes] must be carefully evaluated and decided upon, and ought not to 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."

The late Pope noted that "today however, as a result of steady improvements to the organization of the penal system, such cases are very rare, if not practically non-existent."

In practical terms, it means that the Catholic Church is against capital punishment, because in modern thinking, it is entirely possible to defend society without resorting to such measures.

In a hypothetical situation, say there was a group of people on an island, being preyed upon and killed by another person. In the absence of any other way to protect themselves from this person, they capture the person and put him to death. The Church, I believe, would not find fault with this; their 'society' such as it was, could not stop the killing by any other means and therefore had the moral right to take the murderer's life to save their own. In a modern society which has prisons and means to keep people from escaping from them, such extremes are not required.

I won't say I agree with the Bishop's reasoning in his article above. I understand that condemned men have been released from prison and have killed again. But I grant that his statements are in line with Catholic teaching.

 

[CanuckMA]

Because Torah isonly part of the story. While the penalty for murder is indeed stoning, the treshold that must be met to impose the sentence is impossibly high. The murder must be witnessed by 2 witnesses that are credible, meaning observent Jews, the murderer must be sane, he must have been warned by the witnesses of the consequences og his actions, and acknowledged the warning.

Don't see too much of that going around.

 

[Monkey Turned Wolf]

Bill-thank you, that clears up a lot. Makes a lot more sense that way..still disagree slightly, but can respect that more than them turning their back on both God and Jesus' teachings.
Canuck-If you noticed, one of the things I referenced was from Matthew, not part of the torah/old testament. As for the rest of it..where does it say that? Can you provide a verse/chapter for it?

 

[Tez3]

Bill-thank you, that clears up a lot. Makes a lot more sense that way..still disagree slightly, but can respect that more than them turning their back on both God and Jesus' teachings.
Canuck-If you noticed, one of the things I referenced was from Matthew, not part of the torah/old testament. As for the rest of it..where does it say that? Can you provide a verse/chapter for it?[/QUOTE]

Now you've done it!

Don't forget Jesus was Jewish and will have been well versed in Jewish law, as are most Jews who can also argue, reason and debate like you wouldn't believe. Enjoy!

 

[jks9199]

Bill outlined the current teachings of the Church pretty well. The death penalty is not inherently murder or wrong -- but, since there are means to achieve the same goals of general deterrence (don't do that, or this very bad thing will happen to you) and specific deterrence (this specific offender won't ever do this again because this punishment makes it so miserable or so impossible) that, at least in the more advanced parts of the world, like the USA, it should be avoided and replaced with things like true lifetime imprisonment. (There are still questions about human dignity within prisons open...)

On a personal level -- I'm conflicted. I very much believe that if you kill a cop, you die. For some reason -- I take that one personal, and I also think that you've rather demonstrated extreme unwillingness to comply. I don't disagree with Heinlein's reasoning in Starship Troopers about avoiding the death penalty if you're not mentally competent... (In extreme oversimplification -- if you ever got better, how could you live with yourself?) But I don't like how the list of capital offenses has grown; in Virginia, we're up to about 15. That's more than doubled in about the last 15 years... Are they all really necessary? And how do you deal with the possibility or even perhaps inevitability of an innocent person being convicted? The Innocence Project has certainly found more than a few who were...

My personal musing set aside for the moment, here is what the Catechism of The Catholic Church says on the topic:

2267 The traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude, presupposing full ascertainment of the identity and responsibility of the offender, recourse to the death penalty, when this is the only practicable way to defend the lives of human beings effectively against the aggressor.
"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.
"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.'[John Paul II, Evangelium vitae 56.]

http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P7Z.HTM

For those unfamiliar -- the Catechism summarizes and lays out the Church's teachings on numerous issues. Not all of it is ex cathedra -- but it is authoritative.

 

[jks9199]

Here's one more take on the topic:

Although Catholic teaching recognizes that under extreme circumstances capital punishment may be permissible, these circumstances are very, very rare in today’s world. Only when the community has no other way to prevent serious harm than executing the would-be perpetrator can the death penalty be permitted. In the United States today, where incarceration or other means can effectively neutralize such a threat, the death penalty cannot be justified. (See the Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2266-7.) Thus Catholic voices have been prominent in denouncing this cruel and dehumanizing form of punishment.

From the Busted Halo website... Not a bad place to look for more approachable answers on some of these sorts of questions about Catholicism.

 

[Bill Mattocks]

Not all of it is ex cathedra -- but it is authoritative.

For those not Catholic, this is a key point. When the Pope sets policy for the Church, it is of course binding on all 'practical Catholics' as the term goes. Church Canon Law *is* Church Law. However, that does not mean it is the inerrant Word of God. The dogma of the Catholic Church states that only when the Pope speaks 'ex cathedra' is it considered inerrant.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papal_infallibility

This is important for non-Catholics who wish to understand that the Catholic Church does not believe itself incapable of error, or Catholic beliefs to be the inerrant Word of God. That part of the Church dogma that are part of the Magisterium are, the rest are not.

It is not uncommon for Catholics to be criticized by non-Catholics for believing the Pope to be without sin or the Pope's word to be the inerrant Word of God. Only on rare occasion is the latter true. It does not mean we Catholics do not believe and follow the rules we are given; it does mean the Church is not guaranteed to always be right about everything. If that were the case, no rules could ever be changed.

Most of this stuff, however, applies only to Catholics and is seldom of interest to non-Catholics.

 

[arnisador]

Isn't it correct that "Thou shalt not kill" is more properly rendered "Thou shalt not murder"? A distinction already between lawful and unlawful taking of life?

 

[CanuckMA]

Isn't it correct that "Thou shalt not kill" is more properly rendered "Thou shalt not murder"? A distinction already between lawful and unlawful taking of life?

Correct

 

[CanuckMA]

Canuck-If you noticed, one of the things I referenced was from Matthew, not part of the torah/old testament. As for the rest of it..where does it say that? Can you provide a verse/chapter for it?

Babylonian Talmud. Tractate Sanhedrin.

 

[Instructor]

I am not a catholic but a Christian nonetheless. I have actually changed my stance on the Death Penalty. I used to be all for it. However with the advent of better genetic investigation tools and practices many of the people lanquishing in prison have been found to be innocent of the crimes for which they were convicted. It is for those rare wrongfully imprisoned people that I think gives me pause in regards to the death penalty. I for one would not want to send an innocent man to his death.

 

[Bill Mattocks]

I am not a catholic but a Christian nonetheless. I have actually changed my stance on the Death Penalty. I used to be all for it. However with the advent of better genetic investigation tools and practices many of the people lanquishing in prison have been found to be innocent of the crimes for which they were convicted. It is for those rare wrongfully imprisoned people that I think gives me pause in regards to the death penalty. I for one would not want to send an innocent man to his death.

I think we have to be clear here. DNA evidence has gone a long way towards proving *some* innocent, although not a huge number by percentage. It is also useful in establishing reasonable doubt, if not actual innocence. For example, if a victim is found to have blood on their clothing that is not their own, and not the DNA of the person who is accused of attacking them, that doesn't mean that they did NOT do it, it just means that there is doubt that they DID do it.

Also, our legal system has always been built upon a foundation of innocent until proven guilty, which is actually the opposite of what it is in many other nations, where one is presumed guilty until they prove their own innocence. It has been said that in the USA, our legal system is built such that is it 'better than 100 guilty men go free than that one innocent man goes to prison.' That has often been a point of contention with law-and-order types, who often feel that too many guilty people 'get off' on 'technicalities' and that we do not prosecute criminals to the fullest extent of the law but go easy on them.

Yes, there are some innocent men and women in US prisons. Of this I have no doubt. And there are some who have been executed wrongly, I also agree this is true.

On balance, I also have some issues with the death penalty, stemming mostly from my observation that the death penalty is inequitably applied based on the race of the suspect, but I am not against capital punishment in general.

On the whole, however, I feel that our legal system in the USA, however flawed it may be, is still the best in the world; and by far. There are many abuses, many mistakes made, and many injustices committed. But percentage-wise, I feel that those are few and far between. We hear about them when they are discovered, and it may seem they are epidemic, but I feel they are actually rare. Typically, the right person is arrested, charged, convicted, and sent away. Typically, the guilty party is the one executed. We can and should do better, but we already do it better than anyone else.