{"id":100191,"date":"2017-05-15T00:09:36","date_gmt":"2017-05-15T07:09:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/?p=100191"},"modified":"2017-05-12T14:13:38","modified_gmt":"2017-05-12T21:13:38","slug":"reader-writes-death-penalty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2017\/05\/reader-writes-death-penalty.html","title":{"rendered":"A reader writes me about the death penalty"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Sez he:<\/p>\n

Would it be a sin if I sat on a jury and voted for the death penalty?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Why are you asking me to sit in judgment of your soul?<\/p>\n

\u00a0If so, is it a subject of grave matter, or would the maximum offense be of a venial nature?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Do you think killing people who do not need to be killed is grave matter?<\/p>\n

\u00a0If it is not sin, then can we take the current position which you stated as being the current teaching of the Church merely private opinion of a Pope?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Do you think that when the pope writes an encyclical<\/a> he is just shooting the breeze and not giving the teaching of the Church?\u00a0 No.\u00a0 He is giving the teaching of the Church.\u00a0 That teaching, just to remind you, is this:<\/p>\n

2267<\/strong>\u00a0Assuming that the guilty party\u2019s identity and responsibility have been fully determined, the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.<\/p>\n

If, however, non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people\u2019s safety from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and more in conformity to the dignity of the human person.<\/p>\n

Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an offense incapable of doing harm \u2013 without definitely taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself \u2013 the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity \u201care very rare, if not practically nonexistent.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Because of this, the practical teaching of the Church, given by JPII, B16, and Francis and echoed by the all the bishops of the world, including our own, is \u201cAbolish the death penalty.\u201d<\/p>\n

Or does it have the binding nature, even stronger than that of the Church\u2019s position on abortion?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What does that even mean?\u00a0 The Church\u2019s teaching is not divvied up between \u201cbinding teaching\u201d and \u201cstuff you can feel free to blow off\u201d.\u00a0 Still less is it the case that it is divided between \u201cthe stuff on abortion\u201d and \u201cthe stuff pitted against abortion you can definitely ignore and even feel free to fight the Church over\u201d.\u00a0 Here\u2019s the deal:<\/p>\n

Among the principal duties of bishops the preaching of the Gospel occupies an eminent place. For bishops are preachers of the faith, who lead new disciples to Christ, and they are authentic teachers, that is, teachers endowed with the authority of Christ, who preach to the people committed to them the faith they must believe and put into practice, and by the light of the Holy Spirit illustrate that faith. They bring forth from the treasury of Revelation new things and old, making it bear fruit and vigilantly warding off any errors that threaten their flock. Bishops, teaching in communion with the Roman Pontiff, are to be respected by all as witnesses to divine and Catholic truth. In matters of faith and morals, the bishops speak in the name of Christ and the faithful are to accept their teaching and adhere to it with a religious assent. This religious submission of mind and will must be shown in a special way to the authentic magisterium of the Roman Pontiff, even when he is not speaking ex cathedra<\/strong>; that is, it must be shown in such a way that his supreme magisterium is acknowledged with reverence, the judgments made by him are sincerely adhered to, according to his manifest mind and will. His mind and will in the matter may be known either from the character of the documents, from his frequent repetition of the same doctrine, or from his manner of speaking.\u201d (Lumen Gentium<\/em><\/a>, no. 25)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Note the bold face text.\u00a0 This means that the goal of the faithful Catholic is not to figure out which teachings of the Church are binding\u00a0and only listen to them while spending all your real time and energy fighting the Church on stuff that does not accessorize your politics. Rather, it is to assume that\u00a0all<\/em>\u00a0of the Church\u2019s guidance, even the prudential stuff and especially<\/em> the prudential stuff that does not accessorize your politics, is reliable and should be implemented unless there is a\u00a0damn<\/em>\u00a0good reason not to.<\/p>\n

The great lie that Lefty dissenters from Church teaching tell is that \u201cprimacy of conscience\u201d allows you to completely ignore any Catholic teaching you don\u2019t like.\u00a0 The great lie that \u201cfaithful conservative Catholic\u201d dissenters from Church teaching tell is that \u201cprudential judgment\u201d allows you to completely ignore any Catholic teaching you don\u2019t like.\u00a0 The lie proceeds by the claim that only \u201cbinding teaching\u201d needs to be obeyed and that \u201cprudential judgment\u201d refers to whether<\/em>, not how<\/em>, the disciple should obey the Church.\u00a0 So (the story goes) if you really want to kill some guy with capital punishment (despite the fact there is no necessity to do so), well just feel free to \u201cprudently\u201d ignore the Church and execute the guy.\u00a0 Accordingly, the question the death penalty advocate is constantly asking is \u201cWhen do we get<\/em> to kill somebody?\u201d (That, by the way, is the entire subtext of your letter.)<\/p>\n

The approach the Church always takes is \u201cHow can we possibly avoid taking human life if at all possible?\u201d\u00a0 The whole thrust and approach is different and is ordered toward mercy and redemption.\u00a0 The goal is not to cross all the ts and dot all the i\u2019s and get through all the proper hoops so that (at last!) we can kill somebody and feel terrific about it.\u00a0 The goal is to find a way toward seeing, if at all possible, that human life\u2013yes, even guilty human life\u2013might be spared and redeemed.\u00a0 The entire end goal of your whole line of questioning is a search for some way, if at all possible, to take kill.\u00a0 The entire end goal of the Church is a search for some way, if at all possible, to save human life\u2013and save it eternally.<\/p>\n

In the end, it\u2019s not complex.\u00a0 The Church says to respect and preserve all human life from conception to natural death.\u00a0 Yes, it is true that sometimes human life must be taken in order to protect the innocent.\u00a0 So we must sometimes kill in war or shoot a criminal who is endangering the innocent.\u00a0 But there is no need to execute criminals.\u00a0 So don\u2019t.\u00a0 The rest of the civilized world gets this.\u00a0 No Catholic should be eager to stay on a list with Communist China, North Korea, and a gaggle of Islamic despotisms.<\/p>\n

Thank you for your insights.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I hope this answers your questions. \u00a0Thanks for writing!<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sez he: Would it be a sin if I sat on a jury and voted for the death penalty? Why are you asking me to sit in judgment of your soul? \u00a0If so, is it a subject of grave matter, or would the maximum offense be of a venial nature? Do you think killing people […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":92,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[278],"class_list":["post-100191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-abolish-the-death-penalty"],"yoast_head":"\nA reader writes me about the death penalty<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Sez he: Would it be a sin if I sat on a jury and voted for the death penalty? 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