Can the Church Ban Capital Punishment?

Can the Church Ban Capital Punishment?
by Christopher A. Ferrara

Today Crisis is offering a symposium on capital punishment. For Archbishop Charles Chaput’s view, see this essay. For news about recent Vatican statements on the issue, see this article.

This piece on capital punishment is a revision of the original, which first appeared in Latin Mass Magazine (Summer 2001). It is written from a “traditionalist” perspective, a traditionalist being simply a Catholic who affirms—as a Catholic must—that the Second Vatican Council changed nothing of what a Catholic must believe in order to be a member of the Church in good standing.

As the First Vatican Council declared: “For the Holy Spirit was not promised to the Successors of Peter that by His revelation they might disclose new doctrine, but that by His help they might guard the revelation transmitted through the apostles and the deposit of faith, and might faithfully set it forth.” (Cf. Denzinger, §1836)

Of course, an authentic development of doctrine is always possible in the sense of a fuller explication of what the Church has always taught.
But neither a Pope nor a Council has an oracular function of providing the latest and most reliable Catholic teaching.

The Catholic faith, unlike the statute books on which lawyers rely, does not involve periodic “pocket parts” containing amendments or repeals to be inserted into the back of the book.

If the “hermeneutic of continuity” means anything, it means that Catholic teaching on faith and morals is not subject to reversal.

A reversible Magisterium would be no Magisterium at all, but rather a human agency bereft of the promises of Christ—like the Protestant sects which have abandoned doctrine after doctrine over the centuries since Luther began the process of abandonment.

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seanie

May 25, 2012

I think an important distinction has to be made in regard to the current Pope's position on capital punishment (as well as that of his blessed predecessor) vis a vis abortion, and it is this:
In a society which has so little regard for human life that it allows abortion on demand without batting an eyelid, for one to favour the State's (legitimate) use of capital punishment would only serve to present human life as of even less value in the eyes of those who do not see it as sacred in the first place.
And for this reason, is may be the prudential thing to do, in this time, to encourage states not to emply their legitimate use of the death penalty.

In an ideal Catholic state, where everone knew and appreciated the value of human life, capital punishment would have a proper place in the penal system, serving as retributive justice and a means to allow the criminal a chance to pay his temporal punishment to God on tis earth. But in a Godless world this advantage is lost. The Holy Father sees this.

It is about the prudential application of the death penalty, not about whether it is in principle moral or immoral. Of course it is moral. Understand this distinction and the Holy Father's words make sense.

Gloria.TV – News Briefs

May 25, 2012

Comments from FR:

Less than 1300 have been put to death since capital punishment resumed in the USA in 1976, but 4000 babies die every day from abortion, 50,000,000 since 1973.

I just think there is a gross lack of proportion in this whole debate.
Why is this much ink spilled over capital punishment by our bishops and liberal Catholics when in comparison to real pro-life issues, the numbers are quite small?
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I've never been satisfied with the post-VII "prohibition" on the death penalty given the traditional teachings of the Church on this issue.

I don't think "development of doctrine" can just arbitrarily expunge 2000 years of continuous teaching on a subject such as this, and Pope Benedict XVI's continued promotion of Pope JPII's novel teachings on this issue continue to make me very uncomfortable, primarily because it clouds real pro-life issues such as the fact abortion is intrinsically evil.
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Can the Church Ban Capital Punishment?

If so, what's to stop other religions, ahem, from banning anything ... like Christianity?

And speaking of banning - when is the Church going to ban all the pro-abortion Libs like Nancy Pelosi, the Kennedys, the Cuomos, etc?
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I too ponder JPII on this point. It’s the one point (along with some of his feminism) that I have questions about. But this is the way I’ve explained it to myself.

Now, was he wise to hold out for this gold standard of human behavior in a flawed and sin-filled world?

I don’t know. Popes can make mistakes in prudential judgments and, in this instance, he did not change the teaching about it being justified in some circumstances to take guilty life. He made the prudential assessment that it’s virtually never necessary. He could be wrong in that prudential judgement.

What I found most significant about Ferrara’s article is that he pointed out that JPII did not absolutely say that the ONLY possible justification for capital punishment is to protect innocent life. THat is, Ferrara argues JPII did not totally close the door on retributive justice as a justification for capital punishment.

I had always read Evangelium Vitae as saying that the absolute only justification was defending the innocent, that retribution was out. But Ferrara makes an interesting counter-case. And the CCC clearly leaves a tiny opening for other justifications—it’s as if CCC is correcting JPII in EV ever so slightly. I had not noticed that.
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Hat is, Ferrara argues JPII did not totally close the door on retributive justice as a justification for capital punishment.

Nor could he. A Pope cannot simply overrule 2000 years of Christian teaching based solely on his own personal opinion.
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If the Church can arbitrarily change its position on capital punishment, teaching that now that which had been morally licit might not be, then the Faithful will think other issues that were once licit or illicit can also become, via development of doctrine, illicit or licit.

It clouds issues like abortion, especially because the proponents of a moratorium on capital punishment insist on partnering opposition to capital punishment with opposition to abortion. It leads the Faithful to think the teachings on other issues like contraception, abortion, divorce and remarriage, homosexuality, etc., can also “develop.”

Furthermore, it is also occurring in the context of liturgical changes in which that which was once set in stone, such as only a priest may touch the Sacred Species, are now set adrift.

The whole regime of novelty (and I used to cringe when Trads used that term) has knocked our legs out from underneath us, and all praxis and doctrine/dogma is up for debate and “development.”
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