According to a source well-positioned to know, one of the behind-the-scenes dramas of the present pontificate involved Pope Francis’s determination to amend the Catechism of the Catholic Church and declare capital punishment an intrinsically evil act: something that can never be countenanced. After a lengthy and bruising argument over whether that was doctrinally possible, a compromise was reached and CCC 2267 now declares the death penalty “inadmissible” – a strong term, but one with no technical theological or doctrinal meaning.
Has the papal campaign against capital punishment now achieved its objective through the recent declaration of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, Dignitas Infinita(Infinite Dignity)?
There, the Dicastery wrote that the death penalty “violates the inalienable dignity of every person, regardless of the circumstances” (34). That subordinate clause (al di là di ogni circonstanza, in the Italian original) is striking. For the paragraph in Dignitas Infinita in which it appears cites paragraph 27 of Vatican II’s Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World (Gaudium et Spes), where the Council fathers identified as crimes against human dignity “all offenses against life itself, such as murder, genocide, abortion, euthanasia, and willful suicide; all violations of the integrity of the human person, such as mutilation, physical and mental torture, (and) undue psychological pressures…” That, in turn, was the paragraph cited by Pope John Paul II in the 1993 encyclical Veritatis Splendor to identify intrinsically evil acts: acts that are wicked by their very nature. And as John Paul wrote in Veritatis Splendor 81, “If acts are intrinsically evil, a good intention or particular circumstances can diminish their evil, but they cannot remove it. They remain ‘irremediably’ evil acts; per se and in themselves, they are not capable of being ordered to God and to the good of the person.”
So when Dignitas Infinita 34 teaches that “one should [also] mention the death penalty” when citing the list of grave evils identified in Gaudium et Spes 27, which are the evils John Paul II used in Veritatis Splendor 81 to illustrate the concept of acts that are inherently evil irrespective of circumstances, was Dignitas Infinita making a stealth move to achieve the goal Pope Francis was unable to achieve in his proposed revision of the Catechism of the Catholic Church on the question of capital punishment?
I am no fan of the death penalty. It is too often applied in the United States. It is certainly applied in grotesquely inhumane and promiscuous ways in China, Russia, and countries suffering under jihadist and radical Islamist regimes.
But to assert that capital punishment is intrinsically evil is to assert that the entire Catholic tradition from St. Augustine to St. John Paul II got something of grave moral significance wrong. It is also to assert that the Bible, the revealed Word of God, teaches falsely, e.g., in Romans 13.3-4:
For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but too bad. Would you have no fear of him who is in authority? Then do what is good and you will receive his approval, for he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain; he is the servant of God to execute his wrath on the wrongdoer.
And the assertion of either of those two things cannot underwrite a genuine development of doctrine. Rather, those assertions risk a collapse into what the great theorist of doctrinal development, St. John Henry Newman, called “doctrinal corruption” – an omnipresent danger in the Church, brilliantly explored by Matthew Levering in Newman on Doctrinal Corruption (Word on Fire Academic, 2022).
Given that Dignitas Infinita was the result of a somewhat rocky editorial process (described rather blandly in the declaration’s prefatory note by the prefect of the doctrinal dicastery, Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernández), it is not clear whether what was afoot in Dignitas Infinita 34 was editorial sloppiness or an intentional, if stealthy, rupture with revelation and tradition. That it could be the latter is suggested by the fact that, over the past decade, stealth measures, in the form of ambiguities, have been employed to achieve certain ends the present pontificate could not achieve by other means, such as Holy Communion for Catholics in canonically irregular marriages or blessings for those in homosexual unions.
All of which underscores the bottom-line issue in the Catholic Church today: Is divine revelation, embodied in Scripture and the Church’s tradition, real, and does it have binding authority over time? Or can the truths of revelation, mediated through two millennia of tradition, be modified by contemporary human experience and sensibility?
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I think it is possible to acknowledge Bergoglio as a validly elected Pope while at the same time ignoring everything that emanates from his pontificate (unless he speaks ex cathedra on a matter of faith and morals). Francis’s documents and spoken words are otherwise emptied of any and all gravitas because he has lost moral teaching authority. What he says now is merely his opinion.
It is important to note, regarding The Deposit Of Faith, everything a validly elected Pope says is “ex cathedra”.
No, it isn’t.
So if the Pope says the Death Penalty is immoral? Then what?
He also asked us to consider who he is to judge, implying that he had no ability or authority to do that. In that, I believe he spoke truly.
We are free to reason and believe according to how God has gifted and blessed us. To whom more has been given more will be asked.
It most assuredly is not! Not all of a Pope’s statements are of equal gravity. When he speaks as a private person (as, for example, Pope Benedict XVI did in his Jesus of Nazareth books) he is no more infallible than anyone else. Likewise when he preaches a sermon or gives an interview.
When he speaks in an official capacity in a typical papal document, then his words are potentially part of the ordinary Magisterium. Which means they must be received with respect and attention, but does not imply they are without any error.
Only when the Pope specifically states he is using the full authority of his office to bind the conscience of the faithful is he speaking ex cathedra and thus infallibly. This is a rare occurrence! For good reason.
He could still say something by Ordinary Magisterium, in accord with Tradition, that is a development of doctrine and therefore both binding and going deeper than what we already have.
But at this point I think it would be quite understandable to not know about it. And given the state of communications, Catholics got along for nearly 2 millennia without knowing about most Papal doctrinal developments.
That’s true, dear Amanda, though today we have many educated & highly literate, passionately faithful, lay Catholics, in parishes around the world
Some of these scholarly women & men are more Apostolic and vastly more capable than the revisionists aggregated by PF & his ‘worldly royal retinue’.
This plethora of faithful, Catholic expertise is a significant improvement on the past. Ir’s what is currently exposing the numerous anti-Apostolic or ill-advised pronouncements from the current papal corp to public scrutiny. SO embarrassing for the body of Catholic believers in papal competence.
A wise modern pope would thus be extremely cautious, carefully consulting all the learned in the Church, BEFORE speaking or leaking or publishing. This should be a key part of all true synodalism, providing the consistency expected of Christian leadership.
So, what is lacking?: maybe “The fear of The LORD is the beginning of wisdom.”
Might Michelangelo be correct, in including some from the papal ranks to the “left” of Our Lord in the sistine chapel portrayal of the last judgment…
It is just another attempt by this pontificate to contradict 2000yrs of constant teaching, while pretending it is not a contradiction, while also pretending that if the Church was wrong for 2000yrs, then people will not desert it in droves as clearly a farce and having no truth in it at all.
The entire Bergoglian pontificate is defined by stealth — or Jesuitical. More simply, more accurately — deception. They be the masters, we the groundlings, we the rubes.
I don’t know about anyone else, but in good conscience I cannot accept what ultimately amounts to the prudential judgment of the Holy Father regarding the death penalty.
I respect those who hold that we shouldn’t have it even though I respectfully disagree with that stance. But to ultimately say “we used to believe in X but due to a ‘better’ understanding of Y we now believe in not X” is like trying to have your cake and eat it too, or rather, trying to change church teaching without changing it.
Unfortunately, this is the papacy of ambiguity…may God have mercy on us.
We can know through both Faith and reason, that “It is not possible to have Sacramental Communion without Ecclesiastical Communion, due to The Unity Of The Holy Ghost(Filioque). In fact, “refusal of submission to the supreme pontiff or of communion with the members of the Church subject to him“, has always been an act of schism, which is why the election of a schismatic to the Papacy, will always be a contradiction.
God Works in mysterious ways, but it is no mystery that the counterfeit church, that is attempting to subsist within The One Body Of Christ, is being separated from The True Church Of Christ, as we speak. You simply cannot build a bridge between The True Church Of Christ and a counterfeit schismatic church.
We cannot transform Christ, The Word Of Perfect Love Incarnate, Christ Transforms Us, Through Salvational Love, God’s Gift Of Grace And Mercy, available to all those who desire to repent, serve our Penance, and believe in The Power and Glory of God’s Perfect Life-affirming and Life- sustaining Salvational Love.
“Hail The Cross, Our Only Hope!”
What’s your point here exactly, and how does your post relate specifically to the points addressed in the article? The pope has neither the right nor the authority to oppose biblical teaching or arbitrarily change the historic catechism. Christians have a spiritual obligation to oppose a corrupt leadership. Truth and faithfulness trump any claims to a false unity.
Christ Has Entrusted The Deposit Of Faith, to His Church, Through Sacred Tradition, Sacred Scripture, And The Teaching Of The Magisterium, grounded in Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture.
Not even a validly elected Pope has the authority to transform The Word Of God, Who Is Perfect Love Incarnate.
Well…of course not.
Agree completely,
The New Testament is replete with warnings about false teachers, false prophets (with no exception for popes, historically among whom there have indisputably been bad ones).
A catechism that can be changed fundamentally by the personal and political whims of a pope becomes a fundamentally meaningless document.
But of all the problematic and damaging statements from Pope Francis the one that seems to me, in all humility and distress, to be more just misleading and but rather—impelled to say it—heretical is his recent direction to priest confessors to offer absolution when the penitent is clearly not repentant. Christ’s first command was “Repent” (Mark: 1,15).
The last time I went to confession (think it was), I listed off my sins rather perfunctorily, and the priest said I didn’t sound repentant. Whoo! That gave me a bit of a thought. That made me notice.
And then he ruined it all by cheerfully saying God fogave me anyway.
Haven’t been back since.
Don’t go to that priest, anyway if you do face to face personalities get in the way.I did for years but I started feeling like it was a counseling session rather than confession, so now I go behind the screen
I keep coming back to the conclusion that there is a deficit in either the teaching or the learning of priests. How does an individual priest rise to the being the pope and possess such an obvious lack of understanding and comprehension of doctrine and Tradition? How does he forfeit this understanding in favor of his own personal ideology? Is it just plain arrogance? If so, how does that degree of arrogance evade the notice of each cardinal in the College that voted to elevate him to the chair of Peter?
As Marcellus stated, “Something is rotten in the state of Demark”. Now, more than ever, the Church is in need of deep penance and humility. The next pope must be dedicated to Christ, His Church, and the doctrines and teachings that have lasted for over 2,000 years.
Well, malice against the Gospel is an alternative explanation.
In light of the affection for and promotion and protection and liberation of sociopath sex abusers and coverup artists, it’s malice, not ignorance.
This pontificate believes that time is greater than space. It starts a process to gradually modify Sacred Tradition over time. Eventually, every unpopular teaching like Hunanae Vitae will fade away with widespread contraception use. What might have begun as ambiguity, will foster doctrinal confusion and pastoral heresies. Eventually, practice will corrupt and compromise a super-majority of the baptized. Lastly, the truth of Christ will no longer be taught and too few will still care enough to protest. And yet, God Is.
This man-made attempt at progress is the very opposite of authentic doctrinal development. Such modifications in morals are the theological equivalent of gender transition.
A well structured argument on the [intentional or stealth] correspondence between Dignitas Infinita and the Catechism’s inadmissibility of the death penalty, both supported by the premise ‘whatever the circumstances’.
Stealth measures are indeed this pontificate’s opus operandi in getting the unacceptable acceptable. Insofar as the infallibility of the death penalty the penalty was never formally pronounced as indefectible doctrine. Rather its cogency is found in tradition. A strong tradition supported by an Ecclesial form of stare decisis. What is of greater concern is the secularist mind’s [secularism an apparent dynamic in the Church of Francis] breakthrough of intrinsically evil acts. A question then may be posed on whether it’s necessary or even correct to hold that the death penalty is an infallible, perennial doctrine.
John Paul II positioned the warranty of the death penalty in context of modern technical capability to contain the criminal. Given that the human person created in God’s image inherently possesses that measure of dignity whatever the circumstances including eternal condemnation, is it required of us to hold that executing criminals is always, if presumed warranted [warranted always a value judgment], a good?
As far as Fr Peter Morello’s statement that “the infallibility of the death penalty the penalty was never formally pronounced as indefectible doctrine” is true; however, reasons for having the death penalty will be found in the Catechism of the Council of Trent (pages 373-383) where it states the teachings of the Church with regard to the Fifth Commandment, “Thou Shalt Not Kill”. https://www.todayscatholicworld.com/the-catechism-of-the-council-of-trent.pdf
We read: “John Paul II positioned the warranty of the death penalty in context of modern technical capability to contain the criminal.”
“Context”?
In The Gospel of Life the section tightening prudential judgment on application of the death penalty (n. 56) immediately precedes–serves largely as a context for–the next section (n. 57) which reads in part: “If such great care must be taken to respect every life, even that of criminals and unjust aggressors, the commandment “You shall not kill” has absolute value when it refers to the INNOCENT PERSON [italics}.
This message addressed to abortion-permissive members of the European Union where abolition of the death penalty is already in place, as a condition of membership. Hello, is anybody home? This is not the only instance where the current regime exploits precise wording and meanings from Pope John II as a doormat for walking the Church into deeper and quite different waters. Natural law, what natural law?
SUMMARY: Gradualism–so ideological, so sophomoric, so predictable.
What about the merging of what is “inadmissible” in application with what is redefined as immoral? Four points:
FIRST, if “inadmissible” capital punishment is now definitively immoral, then why can’t sexually immoral lifestyles now be declared “admissible”? Maybe even “blessed” one “couple” at a time!
SECOND, is the redefinition a step toward a “pluralism” or religions? Convergence toward the Islamic mindset? While the Qur’an champions the Law of Moses, but nowhere does it list the last six negative prohibitions (“Thou shalt not…”). In the Church, the sidelined Veritatis Splendor exposed a likewise rupture between pragmatic “decisions” versus moral absolutes and “judgments” of informed conscience.
THIRD, will the redefinition also dismiss just retribution alluded to elsewhere in the Catechism? About St. John Paul II and the “Gospel of Life” (1995):
Cardinal Avery Dulles concluded that traditional teachings on “retributive justice” and “vindication of the moral order” are not reversed by John Paul II’s strong “prudential judgment” regarding the use of capital punishment. The pope simply remained silent on these teachings. (“Seven Reasons America Shouldn’t Execute”, National Catholic Register, 3-24-02).
Cardinal Ratzinger: “Clearly the Holy Father has not altered the doctrinal principles…but has simply deepened (their) application…in the context of present-day historical circumstances” (National Review, July 10, 1995, p. 14; First Things, Oct. 1995, 83).
FOURTH, in a July 2004 letter to former Cardinal McCarrick—a letter intended for all of the bishops but a part of which was withheld and came to light only when later leaked to the press—Ratzinger wrote: “Not all moral issues have the same moral weight as abortion and euthanasia….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.”
SUMMARY: If the honorable McCarrick can toss a cover sheet addressed to the American hierarchy, then why can’t Cardinal Fernandez redefine a couple (!) of words in the Catechism?
Probably my; fighting a sinus& ear infection. But your lost me. I am trying to understand the issue. And keep remembering when the governor of Illinois stopped the death penalty because of the discovery of people found guilty were actually innocent.
Be healed & made completely well, dear Moir, in the mighty Name of Jesus Christ.
I hope you feel better today Moira. God bless!
This is one of my main problems with the death penalty as well. That, and a fair number of people who are guilty would not have gotten the death penalty if they’d had a proper lawyer when first questioned. The flip side is that there are some men who would have to be put in solitary for life, for the protection of the other prisoners, and also that our justice system is pretty bad at not letting guilty people out early on some excuse or other. They let serial child rapists out in less than 10 years, for instance, despite the 80% recidivism rate, and are currently putting convicted rapists in women’s prisons. At the same time, there are people serving life for drug offenses under the 3 strikes rule. We err pretty far in both directions.
However, that is a question of whether it is applied justly in particular cases, not of whether it is licit in the objective sense. It is. The Church has always taught that it is, even as the Church has always tried to correct the injustices in its application and moderate justice.
Ear/sinus infections are dreadful. I hope you’re feeling better!
I would hold that capital punishment is in the Natural Law and can’t be vitiated or “abolished”. It can, however, be conditioned in mercy subject to reason, sound principle and right guidance or practice. This is already available in the common law, as in the doctrine of mitigation and the like; and in man-made law/statute, the provision of structured punishments, mercy tribunal, merited probation.
Consider, that someone who is spared capital punishment could later prove to have merited it and then the decision already entered giving a lesser sentence becomes an obstacle.
The Pope “abolishing” a part of Natural Law bears out a quality from hysteria not really belonging to the Papacy. Out Lord said not one jot of law could pass until its purpose is served.
If I could be corrected in something there I’d be happy to look at it with an open mind. Recently Pope Francis reintroduced the idea of “outmoded” for parts of Scripture, in his reflection on the Psalms. But the Psalms remain instructive and supportive as a cogency and an open channel in prayer for spiritual communion; they’re not meant to be restructured.
The things I describe in the first paragraph already subsist in many jurisdictions where what is needed is improved understanding and function not the upturning of Natural Law and reckless clash of “authority” and/or “abolition” of authority.
“I would hold that capital punishment is in the Natural Law and can’t be vitiated or ‘abolished’. It can, however, be conditioned in mercy subject to reason, sound principle and right guidance or practice”. Nor should the death penalty be formally declared a doctrine. Elias, your comment is the correct response to the issue. Within the context of natural law we can apply Prudential judgment and mercy. It’s the basic right of a culture to protect itself, that in our day incarceration can safely contain the criminal away from the public.
In Common Law, if someone murders another they forfeit their own rights. Although a prolonged jail sentence is indicative of a culture given to mercy.
Again here comes the (in)famous Weigelian method of exegesis of magisterial documents that underlines Weigel’s serial manipulation and distortion of papal and the magisterial teaching documents to mold them into his hard right conservative social ethics and neoliberal deep capitalist economics. By citing stealthy and covert moves to insert affirmation of Pope Francis’ revision of Church teaching against the death penalty in Dignitas Infinita, I am reminded that this is very much similar to what he did back in 2009. It should be remembered and emphasized (to underline the kind of thinking that Weigel follows) that Weigel at that time did an exegesis of Pope Benedict XVI’s social encyclical Caritas in Veritate by employing his own hermeneutic of finding and distinguishing “golden” parts, those he claimed were the work of the Pope, from its “red” parts, supposedly the work of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace. According to Weigel, the “gold” parts of the encyclical were those aligned with the priorities of US social conservatives like abortion, euthanasia, embryo-destructive stem-cell research. Those parts that did not align with capitalist priorities were both wrong and they would have to be red-lined: social justice, economic inequity, protection and nurture of the environment. On this continuing opposition to Pope Francis’s revision of the Catechism of the Catholic Church 2267, by providing this pro-death theological exegesis, Weigel has aligned his ultra conservative theology with the philosophy of the current top pro-death apologist Edward Feser.
Typical Marxist rubbish. You’re consistent if nothing else. It’s not a question of conservative or progressive politics, and capitalism is irrelevant to the discussion. It’s a matter of justice, of doing what’s right. Some crimes are such heinous and barbaric violations of human dignity that the death penalty is the only appropriate and necessary response. We have a moral and spiritual responsibility to support that penalty in the interests of justice.
I personally don’t care as much about the justice & punishment part. I really do believe it can be more about vengeance for some of us. And if we’re wary about the state, do we want it to have that kind of power over life & death? Shoot, I don’t even trust how my taxes are used.
But even if justice was an fitting argument for capital punishment, the difference between a life sentence & a death sentences can rest on one’s ability to retain good legal representation. That’s not justice.
I don’t oppose capital punishment in every possible instance. Very rarely it might be the only way to protect society. But that’s about self defense more than justice.
I want our criminal justice dept. held accountable to keep dangerous offenders from being released back into society to prey on us again. A life sentence should be a life sentence. No parole. If we oppose the death penalty we have an obligation to oppose parole & early release also.
The Pope has come out against life sentences.
Yes, thank you Greg.I think I read that also.
Next week is the anniversary of the death of a family friend who was murdered. They never found her killer. She was a small, older lady and wasn’t carrying anything for self defense. Her murderer may have been through the revolving door of our courts and correctional systems. We’ll never know until he’s caught but it’s a good bet.
I belong to the NRA and believe 100% in self defense.
I think the justice and punishment part become really important when you start looking at all the crimes that don’t merit life imprisonment or capital punishment.
Defending society against an incorrigible thief, in order to prevent this hypothetical person from stealing again, would also require a life sentence or death penalty. It is moderated to a punishment well short of that based on the principles of justice and punishment, not based on the principle of defense of society.
Yet, innocent men who were executed were later found innocent. How does that get reconciled? Plus horrible results associated with many executions. More humane when a firing squad was used.
Well, the solution is to not inflict the death penalty but to keep the guilty incarcerated properly and for their entire sentences.
Re: Deacon Dom – I think a much more accurate description of Edward Feser is Pro Scripture, Pro Church Fathers and Pro Tradition.
My 1994 edition of the CCC has an introductory letter by Pope Saint John Paul II which says, “I declare it (the CCC) to be a sure norm for teaching the faith…”
But when the official Latin edition was published it had quite a few changes/adjustments. More changes/adjustments in I believe 1997. And up to now we have had three different versions on the death penalty section, with a rumored fourth change. So which version/edition is a sure norm?
The Catechism of Pius V/Council of Trent, our official Catechism for over 400 years says, under the fifth commandment, that Capital Punishment is not a violation of the commandment, but rather an act of “paramount obedience” to the commandment. Would this have been a sure norm for over 400 years?
An online priest commenter said some time ago that even the original language of the first edition was the unfortunate insertion of a prudential judgement into a catechism. Prudential judgement being what seems to me to be an episcopal phrase with the same meaning of lay person’s personal opinion.
All of these changes are bound to dilute the effectiveness of the CCC as a sure norm for teaching the faith.
Gosh, I’m becoming a fan of Deacon Dom. Keep going, man. We need you here.
Same spirit.
Speaking of capital punishment: http://politickles.com/blog/capital-punishment-an-act-of-mercy/
“Inadmissible”
That says it all…something stopped this pontiff from declaring ‘intrinsically evil’ on that which is clearly not. Feser argues the case thoroughly.
According to the caption in the picture at the top, he also said “contrary to the Gospel”.
Pope Francis clearly appears to have a thing about shoes dropping. He drops a shoe and waits for other shoes to drop. Shoes drop all over the place and some people drop their shoes for the fun of it so you can’t tell what is a real shoe drop and what is a fun shoe drop. It’s all comes over as easy because there is no needle in the haystack so you don’t have to dig and dig to find something you likely won’t find.
ND needs to study it because how can everything then be ex cathedra.
Q.E.D.
Capital punishment and the law of nations
By Dr. Edward Feser May 21, 2023
Description: While the increase in opposition to the death penalty in modern society does indeed reflect a moral revolution, it is precisely a revolution away from the Catholic understanding of human dignity, not a deeper appreciation of it.
Some would think the ‘Deacon Dom Consortium’ of hard-left, knee-jerk revisionist Queensland clergy deserve the title of INFAMOUS far more than the always informed & well-balanced Catholic articles by dear George Weigel.
How do these dear ‘men of god’ justify Pope Francis’ fraternizing with pornographers?
Porn-addicted clergy might take the tip that sin is good!
Cheers from DD et cie!
Pornography certainly cossetts molestation of children & sexual abuse of vulnerable adults and fosters the rampant plague of homosexuality among clergy, seminarians, etc.
Even louder cheere from DD et cie!
There are examples where porn-addicted parents think it OK to seduce their children; and where porn-addicted men think it OK to beat-up on their wives.
“Don’t worry, we’ll absolve them, again & again” is their cry!
With pornogrphy officially acknowledged, teenagers in our schools have thought it cool to distribute hundreds of gross pornographic, AI-faked images of innocent young schoolgirls, traumatizing them & their families.
They’ll just have to suck-it-up in the cause of our new church, sexual free-for-all say the DD Consortium. Pope Francis showed that ‘pornographers are in’!
Yet by far the majority of good Catholics believe that if our pope is true to his office, he would issue a total ban on pornography.
Screams of unbelief from DD et cie
Catholics worldwide consider that instead of fraternizing with pornographers, etc. our pope should be lifting high The Catholic Breviary and instructing that all clergy return to a daily life of immersing themselves in Scripture & prayer, as good Catholic clergy have done for centuries. Possibly saving even the infamous DD Consortium from Divine judgment . . .
Ever in the righteous love of King Jesus Christ; blessings from marty
Marty:
Is Deacon D is from Australia? (I believe you are as well?)
It seems that PF has no problem contradicting Sacred Scripture (as if he actually read any of it). In St. Luke’s description of the Crucifixion, Dismas (the Good thief) shuts down Gestas (the bad thief) saying that “their punishment is just.”
Note here what Jesus doesn’t say. He days nothing, until Dismas asks Jesus to remember him when he comes into His kingdom. Jesus replies, ” This day, you will be with Me in paradise.”
Jesus did not go into a political diatribe about the morality / legality of capital punishment. Our Lord left the statement of Dismas stand forever on its own – “Our sentence (of death) is just.”
The moral principles that govern individual human action are the same moral principles that govern the state. It is never justified to intentionally destroy a basic intelligible human good for the sake of some other human good, and human life is a basic intelligible human good. Capital punishment is not a double effect scenario. The arguments that support it in the past have come dangerously close to a totalitarian notion of the state as a body, with individual persons regarded as parts, as a toe is a part of the body. No Church council has ever made any definitive declaration on the death penalty, just as no council has ever taught anything definitive on limbo. But there has been a definite development on the level of ordinary teaching with respect to limbo (the earlier notions are horrendous), and the same for capital punishment. It is so obvious that the death penalty cannot be justified. You people are blinded by “tradition”. If Pope Francis can be wrong about the death penalty, then so can Aquinas and Pius XII. We have to go with the Holy Father on this one. All this reveals the true character of your “obedience” and loyalty–virtually non-existent.
How erroneous the idea could that everything from Holy See is necessarily ex cathedra!
And burdensome.
But that’s how the Trads took Benedict. It too Francis to snap them out of that delusion.
That doesn’t solve the ex cathedra assertion.
In addition it is flawed arguing. You posit at once as an appearance of reasoning, that Benedict was misleading, Trads were deluded, Trads snapped out of delusion, Francis caused clarification, delusion is no more, your “reasoning works”.
It’s ….. like another pair of shoes dropping like all the rest!
I told you how easy it is for you to walk right into it.
Sounds like you’ve never looked into any of the criticism trads have for Pope Benedict XVI. And St. John Paul 2 for that matter. The internet existed for much of that, so you can find it online.
Trads generally supported and promoted them, but there was never an assumption that everything they said was correct. The actual principle is that a bishop teaches according to the Ordinary Magisterium (with authority) when he teaches in accord with Tradition. Therefore when trads saw Popes teaching in accord with Tradition, they supported them, as authoritative teachers. And sometimes they were right and sometimes wrong, but their support for some non-ex-cathedra Papal statements as authoritative and rejection of others as incorrect is hardly evidence that they used to think the Pope was an oracle. There are levels of authority, they all have to align with obedience to God in order to be authoritative, and when they do, they are.
As with over 3,500 citations from The New Testament in our Catechism.
Francis rationalizes his change to death penalty teaching in an Oct. 11, 2017 General audience letter to a group commemorating the 25th anniversary of the CCC.
His letter claims the death penalty “is an inhumane measure that, regardless of how it is carried out, abases human dignity. It is per se contrary to the Gospel, because it entails the willful suppression of a human life…”
The teaching of the Gospel is mainly that man’s dignity was so great that Jesus the Christ, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, assumed man’s nature. Why? To teach that death itself does NOT destroy man’s soul; i.e., his God-given gift of dignity, man made in God’s image.
The error in Francis’ new teaching is distinctly contrary to the Gospel and to the teaching of God’s revelation: Jesus conquered man’s enemy of death through His teaching and His life, death, and Resurrection. Jesus taught: Life is eternal. Christ’s teaching is eternal. The teaching of Francis is not.
Death by any means, method, or sentence does not destroy God and His gifts to man.
This post and one other was directed to Thomas James. Site maintenance nixed that.
Addendum to the original: Francis’ Oct. 2017 letter further rationalizes his change in death penalty teaching based on a “new understanding in the awareness of the Christian people” who see it as harming human dignity.
Astonishing, isn’t it? A Vicar of Christ bases his ideas of Christian doctrine on the understanding of ‘Christian’ people. When did Jesus base his life or His teaching on how people understood Him? Imagine that God the Father or God the Holy Spirit would act to create or to sanctify contingent upon human understanding! Yet Francis has no problem teaching that.
Who taught Francis his catechism?
Thomas James says, “It is so obvious that the death penalty cannot be justified.”
Not really.
There is such a thing as the “infallibility of the ordinary magisterium.” (See V II The Dogmatic Constitution On The Church, #25) – That which has always and everywhere been taught.
The Lord taught the justification of the death penalty in Genesis, the early Church Fathers accepted a reference to it in one of St. Paul’s epistles, the Catechism of the Council of Trent calls capital punishment an act of “paramount obedience” to the fifth commandment. So, for over 1900 years the Church has justifies it.
My hope is that pope Francis gets exactly what he wished for. He likes to obliterate the excellent work of his papal predecessors, bit by bit. It seems to be his particular charism. May his successors do the same to him by restoring the clarity of Catholic faith and morals and re-establishing the dignity of the Petrine Ministry as God’s gift to a lost and confounded world.
I find the blatant contradiction of liberals “correcting” past Church teaching to be mystifying. The Church formally teaches with the authority of Christ and by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. One Christ and one Spirit in one Church for all time. But a pope’s or bishop’s insistence that a doctrinal or moral teaching of the past is erroneous contradicts this. Pope Francis is claiming that, although the Church has erred in the past, she cannot err now in her condemnation of a past teaching. In other words, she can err but he cannot! Either the Spirit of Truth effectively protects the Church from defining something erroneous, or He does not. So, if the Church can err in the past, then she can also err in the present, in her condemnation of her own past teaching. In that case, the pope has undermined all confidence in his own institution and there is no reason to believe anything the Church says. Thanks be to God that this is not the case.
But it is the same in the reverse. If Pope Francis is making all these erroneous statements and undermining church teaching and writing encyclicals that contain serious errors, then it is very possible that this is the case with previous popes.
The point you make is already contained inside FOTA’s composition of the case, rightly poised by him (her). Your saying “same in reverse” attempts to give it a dimension it does not have; disrupting the logic in what is presented already as if to make it “more logical”, which it isn’t.
But your conclusion is ill-fated in another way, of a more typical type error. You can not deduce that a Pope today doing serious mistakes etc., proves all other Popes before him did or could have done serious mistakes. It is another baseless attempt to add credence to what you adduce where there is none.
I don’t have much time now, but I think you missed my point. Francis may not be undermining confidence in his own institution at all–so many people lost confidence well before his papacy. If you know history, you know that current Popes have no problem distancing themselves from many previous papal teachings (i.e., Alexander VI). The Church develops, like an individual person in a state of grace develops (although there are differences). History cautions us–we ought to develop a healthy skepticism with respect to papal teachings, just as we ought to cultivate a healthy skepticism of our own tentative conclusions. Anything more than that will destroy the credibility of the institution, and that credibility is already gone for so many people in this world. Dogmatism is not going to restore that credibility.
You say it.
Alexander VI did not “teach” pages of error; he kept his corruption between the sheets.
But never with The LORD Jesus Christ and His Holy Spirit-anointed Apostles, as revealed in the 27 texts of The New Testament.
Our Catholic Faith is built on that eternal rock, as shown by the more than 3,500 New Testament citations in our Catholic Catechism.
The PF takeover merchants are an aberration that will not stand for they are trying to build on sand not on the Rock of Truth: Christ Our LORD & GOD forever!
“According to a source well-positioned to know…”
Annamed source? Well that’s garbage jounalism, and CWR should be ashmaed for publishing an article based on that, let alone right there in the opening sentence. Look at how opinions are built and it might not even be true.
Maybe it was just the author -well-positioned at the time and part of the bruising lengthy engagement. Maybe the author was part witness. Maybe it is proved in the eventual change in the Catechism yet doesn’t depreciate the article otherwise.
The amendment arrived at for the Catechism 2267 is said to be a compromise but it is a fundamental error as it derogates from philosophy on capital punishment, the way it must be instructed and the faithfulness of the Church even in these matters.
This post was to Thomas James.
Addendum to the original: Francis’ Oct. 2017 letter further rationalizes his change in death penalty teaching based on a “new understanding in the awareness of the Christian people” who see it as harming human dignity.
Astonishing, isn’t it? A Vicar of Christ bases his ideas of Christian doctrine on the understanding of ‘Christian’ people. When did Jesus base his life or His teaching on how people understood Him? Imagine that God the Father or God the Holy Spirit would act to create or to sanctify contingent upon human understanding! Yet Francis has no problem teaching that.
Who taught Francis his catechism?
Francis isn’t Jesus. He’s a member of the faithful first and foremost. Where did you learn your Catechism?
Try again, dear TJ.