"We also note that the Church in theory and in practice has kept the two forms of capital punishment (medicinal and vindictive) and that this is more in line with what the sources of revelation and traditional doctrine teach about the coercive power of legitimate human authority. One does not give a sufficient answer to this assertion, noting that the above-mentioned sources contain only thoughts that correspond to historical circumstances and the culture of the time, and that therefore one cannot attribute to them a general and always durable value." [Translated from the Italian]
In 2004, Card. Ratzinger wrote: "[...] it may still be permissible to take up arms to repel an aggressor or to have recourse to capital punishment. There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not however with regard to abortion and euthanasia."
From the Iota Unum chapter: "to take away a man’s life is by no means to take away the transcendent end for which he was born and which guarantees his true dignity."
So what's wrong with killing the innocent as in abortion? Of course there is Exodus 23:7: "The innocent and just person thou shalt not put to death." But also, from the same Summa question Tollefsen quotes, albeit article 6:
"[H]e who kills a just man, sins more grievously than he who slays a sinful man: first, because he injures one whom he should love more, and so acts more in opposition to charity: secondly, because he inflicts an injury on a man who is less deserving of one, and so acts more in opposition to justice: thirdly, because he deprives the community of a greater good: fourthly, because he despises God more, according to Luke 10:16, 'He that despiseth you despiseth Me.' On the other hand it is accidental to the slaying that the just man whose life is taken be received by God into glory."
The Iota Unum chapter concludes: "[T]he death penalty, and indeed any kind of punishment, is illegitimate if one posits that the individual is independent of the moral law and ultimately of the civil law as well, thanks to the protection afforded by his own subjective moral code. Capital punishment comes to be regarded as barbarous in an irreligious society, that is shut within earthly horizons and which feels it has no right to deprive a man of the only good there is."
Antonin Scalia thinks similarly when he writes: "the major impetus behind modern aversion to the death penalty is the equation of private morality with governmental morality. This is a predictable (though I believe erroneous and regrettable) reaction to modern, democratic self–government."
Tollefsen commits makes this error when he says: "It could well be that no human being has the authority to warrant intentional killing, even of the guilty." Certainly "no human being has the authority" of his own power, but that does not imply that God does not give that authority to the civil government.
2 comments:
See: Steven A. Long's "EVANGELIUM VITAE, ST. THOMAS AQUINAS, AND THE DEATH PENALTY."
Cf. also Romano Amerio's chapter on the death penalty from his book Iota Unum and Antonin Scalia's First Things article "God’s Justice and Ours."
Also, from Edward Feser's blog: Pope Pius XII said that the death penalty's validity is not subject to cultural variation in Acta Apostolicae Sedis 47 (1955) 81-82:
"We also note that the Church in theory and in practice has kept the two forms of capital punishment (medicinal and vindictive) and that this is more in line with what the sources of revelation and traditional doctrine teach about the coercive power of legitimate human authority. One does not give a sufficient answer to this assertion, noting that the above-mentioned sources contain only thoughts that correspond to historical circumstances and the culture of the time, and that therefore one cannot attribute to them a general and always durable value." [Translated from the Italian]
In 2004, Card. Ratzinger wrote: "[...] it may still be permissible to take up arms to repel an aggressor or to have recourse to capital punishment. There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not however with regard to abortion and euthanasia."
From the Iota Unum chapter: "to take away a man’s life is by no means to take away the transcendent end for which he was born and which guarantees his true dignity."
So what's wrong with killing the innocent as in abortion? Of course there is Exodus 23:7: "The innocent and just person thou shalt not put to death." But also, from the same Summa question Tollefsen quotes, albeit article 6:
"[H]e who kills a just man, sins more grievously than he who slays a sinful man: first, because he injures one whom he should love more, and so acts more in opposition to charity: secondly, because he inflicts an injury on a man who is less deserving of one, and so acts more in opposition to justice: thirdly, because he deprives the community of a greater good: fourthly, because he despises God more, according to Luke 10:16, 'He that despiseth you despiseth Me.' On the other hand it is accidental to the slaying that the just man whose life is taken be received by God into glory."
The Iota Unum chapter concludes: "[T]he death penalty, and indeed any kind of punishment, is illegitimate if one posits that the individual is independent of the moral law and ultimately of the civil law as well, thanks to the protection afforded by his own subjective moral code. Capital punishment comes to be regarded as barbarous in an irreligious society, that is shut within earthly horizons and which feels it has no right to deprive a man of the only good there is."
Antonin Scalia thinks similarly when he writes: "the major impetus behind modern aversion to the death penalty is the equation of private morality with governmental morality. This is a predictable (though I believe erroneous and regrettable) reaction to modern, democratic self–government."
Tollefsen commits makes this error when he says: "It could well be that no human being has the authority to warrant intentional killing, even of the guilty."
Certainly "no human being has the authority" of his own power, but that does not imply that God does not give that authority to the civil government.
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