{"id":40031,"date":"2012-11-29T00:31:23","date_gmt":"2012-11-29T07:31:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/?p=40031"},"modified":"2014-12-30T11:01:23","modified_gmt":"2014-12-30T18:01:23","slug":"whenever-i-read-stories-like-this","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2012\/11\/whenever-i-read-stories-like-this.html","title":{"rendered":"Whenever I read stories like this"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Pope Benedict: End the Death Penalty<\/a><\/p>\n

And watch American Catholics who are death penalty maximalists <\/a>labor with might and main to ignore it as \u201cBenedict\u2019s prudential judgment\u201d while also laboring to ignore the fact that he is simply applying the normative teaching of the Church here:<\/p>\n

CCC 2267: \u201cAssuming 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. 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 are more in conformity to the dignity of the human person. 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 are very rare, if not practically non-existent.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u2026I am reminded of Zippy Catholic\u2019s sound summary of how huge numbers of American Catholics function whenever the Church teaches something they don\u2019t want to hear or think about:<\/p>\n

\u201cPrudential judgement <\/em>is to right-liberals what primacy of conscience <\/em>is to left-liberals.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

When it comes to Evangelium Vitae <\/em>on the death penalty, an awful lot of Catholics on the right sound uncannily like Catholics on the Left discussing Humanae Vitae <\/em>on contraception.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pope Benedict: End the Death Penalty And watch American Catholics who are death penalty maximalists labor with might and main to ignore it as \u201cBenedict\u2019s prudential judgment\u201d while also laboring to ignore the fact that he is simply applying the normative teaching of the Church here: CCC 2267: \u201cAssuming that the guilty party\u2019s identity and […]<\/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":[245],"class_list":["post-40031","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-close-the-cafeteria"],"yoast_head":"\nWhenever I read stories like this<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Pope Benedict: End the Death Penalty And watch American Catholics who are death penalty maximalists labor with might and main to ignore it as "Benedict's\" \/>\n<meta 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