I hate being right all the time

I hate being right all the time May 11, 2017

Pope Francis just upped the ante on the “debate” (so-called) over the death penalty. I use scare quotes and say “so-called” because in reality the “debate” consists of three popes, all the bishops of the world, and the rest of the civilized world vs. Communist China, North Korea, a smattering of backward Islamic Bronze Age despotisms and the reliably wrong about everything postmodern America Right and its court prophets of conservative postmodern Christians both Evangelical and Catholic.

The Pope upped the ante by calling the death penalty “inadmissible” and a “mortal sin”.

The court prophets will, of course, scramble to fight the pope with might and main and divert their energies, yet again, from their supposed “core non-negotiable” of the sanctity of human life to the passionate defense of killing people.

Forgetting, yet again, the “to natural death” part of the sanctity of human life, they will again siphon off all their time and energy from the battle against abortion to argue that we need to kill people who do not need to be killed and to strive to make sure that the largest gulag on planet earth makes sure to maintain a system of slaughter predicated on the insistence that it is better the innocent should die than that the guilty receive mercy–even though the guilty will be kept behind bars for life.

Me: I cannot for the life of me see what earthly good battling the pope to kill people does. And when the Pope tells me I thirst to commit “mortal sin” my first impulse is not “Screw you, you stupid old liberal heretic!” but “Perhaps I should rethink my life”. But as sure as the sun rises, I know that Super Catholics will set to work to redouble their efforts to keep Real Catholics in America on a list with Communists, ISIS, and Kim Jong Un, because God has anointed them to defend the Church and the precious, precious death penalty against the Pope.

Crazy.

For more background on why this is all a perfect reasonable development of doctrine, and why, yes, killing people without necessity is a mortal sin, see my ongoing series at the Catholic Weekly. Parts I, II, and III are up. More to come.


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