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{"id":1979,"date":"2013-04-02T06:38:00","date_gmt":"2013-04-02T06:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/2013\/04\/because-the-state-can-protect-us-from-criminals.html"},"modified":"2013-04-02T06:38:00","modified_gmt":"2013-04-02T06:38:00","slug":"because-the-state-can-protect-us-from-criminals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/2013\/04\/because-the-state-can-protect-us-from-criminals.html","title":{"rendered":"Because the state can protect us from criminals"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

This man was apparently let out of prison early<\/a>. \u00a0He then allegedly went on to gun down Colorado\u2019s corrections chief. \u00a0Look, I said I opposed the Death Penalty. \u00a0I knew there were a few problems with that. \u00a0Especially once I became a Christian. \u00a0Ironic, I know. \u00a0Most I knew who opposed the DP did so for reasons I increasingly saw as incompatible with classical Christian doctrines. \u00a0I also struggled with the idea that it could lead to the innocent dying. \u00a0It might be rare, but as far as we know, the verified cases of innocent people being executed are also rare. \u00a0Both numbers might be higher than we imagine.<\/p>\n

Which is why I found solace in the Church\u2019s position: mercy if at all possible, but not at the expense of protecting the widow and the orphan, the innocent so to speak. \u00a0Nonetheless, I was always a little skittish about that section in the Catechism that seems, in an almost off handed way, to suggest it might be time to end the practice altogether. \u00a0Not because it says it might be time, but the reason it gives: because now the State can protect us from criminals. <\/p>\n

I\u2019m not even sure what that means. \u00a0At first it just bothered me. \u00a0But the more I\u2019ve looked into things, I\u2019ve realized that the State is no more able to \u2018protect us\u2019 than it was 20 years ago, 50 years ago, 100 years ago. \u00a0And this case in Colorado simply drives the point home. \u00a0Like the inmates killed in a nearby prison over the last year, the young mother killed a few years ago by an escaped convict, now this man killed by an inmate accidentally let out early because of a clerical error, it\u2019s obvious that the State can\u2019t \u2018protect us.\u2019 <\/p>\n

Call me silly, but I expect the Church to be right. \u00a0I could buy the argument that the entire capital punishment process is a lumbering mess, that our justice system is in\u00a0disarray, \u00a0and that in the end there are a thousand things wrong with this country so often maligned and insulted that one loses track of what is wrong. \u00a0How can such an inept and corrupt nation ever be trusted with the\u00a0awesome\u00a0power of life and death? \u00a0Of course the same things then must be said about warfare, and even self protection. \u00a0To the liberal\u2019s credit, all of these\u00a0should\u00a0(should, though with liberal presidents not always) be condemned outright. \u00a0Nothing, and I mean nothing, to kill or die for after all.<\/p>\n

But to rest the abolition of capital punishment on something that is so clearly false. \u00a0What does it even mean? Just because you are the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church does not give you the right to say wrong things. \u00a0You can\u2019t say 2+2=1. \u00a0You can\u2019t say squares are round. \u00a0You can\u2019t say driving is safer because pixies and leprechauns are now living in the traffic lights. \u00a0And you can\u2019t say we can basically change 2000 years of understanding a subject because of something that is so easily and demonstrably false. \u00a0For if you do it for this topic, there is not one thing in the world to suggest you won\u2019t do it for another. \u00a0So get back to the drawing board and reflect. \u00a0Either keep the teaching where it was, or at least find reasons to change it based on what is true, not on what is almost clear as day wrong.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"