{"id":1001,"date":"2016-01-26T10:16:00","date_gmt":"2016-01-26T10:16:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/2016\/01\/my-problem-with-the-death-penalty.html"},"modified":"2016-01-26T10:16:00","modified_gmt":"2016-01-26T10:16:00","slug":"my-problem-with-the-death-penalty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/2016\/01\/my-problem-with-the-death-penalty.html","title":{"rendered":"My problem with the Death Penalty"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Contrary to what some esteemed Catholic apologists suggest, I don\u2019t want to increase human slaughter.\u00a0 Nor do I not give a flip what the Faith teaches.\u00a0 I also can see some very good, Christian reasons for abolishing the Death Penalty.\u00a0 For that matter, I can see some very practical reasons.\u00a0 As the Left gains power and influence<\/a>, it makes it clear that my type is a thing of the past.\u00a0 And it will use any tool or weapon in its arsenal to see my type eliminated from the public forum, if not altogether.\u00a0 So taking the Death Penalty away from that arsenal, even if for a time, isn\u2019t a bad idea.<\/p>\n

Still, there are also good, Christian reasons for it, especially if you tend to hold to pre-modern notions of Christianity.\u00a0 That\u2019s not to say if you oppose it you are automatically some modern compromiser.\u00a0 There are obviously areas here where good Christians in good faith can agree to disagree. <\/p>\n

But my big beef has always been on why the Catholic Church, all of a sudden, within only the last few decades, has chosen now to change its near-2000 year consistent teaching on the subject.\u00a0 Why now?\u00a0 What is different now than, say, 70 years ago when Pope Pius XII actually used arguments now mocked and ridiculed by Death Penalty opponents?\u00a0 What is the big difference?<\/p>\n

In the Catechism, the main statement about why now, what is it about now, that allows us to abolish the Death Penalty is that the State now has the ability to prevent crime.\u00a0 I don\u2019t even know what that means.\u00a0 And when I follow this story<\/a>, I\u2019m not sure the State is any better at preventing crime than it was a hundred years ago.\u00a0 That\u2019s not getting into areas like prison violence and prisoners harmed or even killed by other prisoners.\u00a0 That\u2019s just keeping dangerous criminals from escaping. <\/p>\n

<\/a><\/div>\n

Again, I have no problem listening to the debate.\u00a0 As a non-Catholic, I opposed the Death Penalty on practical grounds: I could see me being someone falsely accused and wrongfully executed.\u00a0 Once I became Catholic, I liked the Church\u2019s take on the issue: rarely used, but sometimes if the need to protect the innocent is on the line. <\/p>\n

But to say we can now abolish it altogether because the State is near a point of effectively preventing crime?\u00a0 First, shouldn\u2019t we wait until it\u2019s there if that is the reason?\u00a0 Second, is it really any closer than it ever has been to preventing crime?\u00a0 That has been my beef with the Church\u2019s call to end the death penalty.\u00a0 The main reason for justifying the timing of the change in teaching just doesn\u2019t seem real.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t seem to be a fact.\u00a0\u00a0It doesn\u2019t align with what is happening in the world. \u00a0 And if someone says we can eliminate traffic laws because leprechauns now live in traffic lights and can control the cars, you can be the first thing I\u2019ll ask is \u2018are their really such things as leprechauns, and are they in fact living in the traffic lights and able to control cars?\u2019\u00a0 If the answer is no, then it\u2019s back to the drawing board.\u00a0 <\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Contrary to what some esteemed Catholic apologists suggest, I don\u2019t want to increase human slaughter.\u00a0 Nor do I not give a flip what the Faith teaches.\u00a0 I also can see some very good, Christian reasons for abolishing the Death Penalty.\u00a0 For that matter, I can see some very practical reasons.\u00a0 As the Left gains power […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2805,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1001","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nMy problem with the Death Penalty<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Contrary to what some esteemed Catholic apologists suggest, I don't want to increase human slaughter.  Nor do I not give a flip what the Faith\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, 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