In the news lately, the media often tries to pin Catholics as hypocrites in the abortion debate, especially surrounding the impending Obamacare. The media slams Catholics for denying the right to murder children, while at the same time supporting the death penalty.
The Pope, then Josef Cardinal Ratzinger, reminds Catholics the fine line between intrinsically evil acts (e.g. Abortion and Euthanasia) and acts of the prudential order (e.g. Waging War and Capital Punishment.) Acts of the prudential order's sinfulness depends on the facts and circumstances, while intrinsically evil acts are always immoral in and of itself.
Cardinal Ratzinger: "For example, if a Catholic were to be at odds with the Holy Father on the application of capital punishment or on the decision to wage war, he would not for that reason be considered unworthy to present himself to receive Holy Communion. While the Church exhorts civil authorities to seek peace, not war, and to exercise discretion and mercy in imposing punishment on criminals, 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."
27 comments:
I'm against the death penalty. You are taking the opporunity away from God entering into that individual's heart.
In addition to TC's point, the death penalty causes more trouble than it does good. There is absolutely no evidence that supports the theory that capital punishment deters crime. It's a costly process that clogs our courts, has put innocent people to death in numerous cases and puts us in a class with countries like China, Iran, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. So in summary, it doesn't work, has resulted in killing innocents and costs the taxpayers money-sounds like a business the government needs to get out of.
In severe circumstances, the death penalty should be used to abate future atrocities against humanity.
The death penalty should be not be used as a punishment for what the criminal has done, but rather as a step to prevent what might he do. China uses the death penalty inappropriately. The European nations neglect it's necessity. Somewhere in between there is an appropriate use of the death penalty.
God's Love is both Merciful and Just. His Mercy cannot exist with out His Justice. And, both his Mercy and Justice is infinite. We can be forgiven for all sins by Him, but we will also be judged by God perfectly according to our own actions. Our society should also be based on this model. Our Mercy should be great, and our Justice should be applied without misgivings. It would not be just to subject our society to potential future atrocities. A good example would be the execution of Sadam Hussein.
Again, I will emphasize my first sentence again... "In severe circumstances, the death penalty should be used to abate future atrocities against humanity."
Now, governments do overuse the penalty for policital purposes. A good example are the Eastern countries and Texas, perhaps.
The penalty should be used sparingly. In times of great distress, the penalty would become a necessity.
I would strongly disagree with both of you. God had plenty of opportunity to enter the individual's heart, particularly before the crime was committed. Apparently He chose not to.
There's plenty of evidence that the death penalty acts as a deterrent. Tons of citations can be found in this link, for starters:
http://www.heritage.org/research/Crime/tst082807a.cfm
More importantly, in my mind, the rationale for the death penalty is that it makes it impossible for the offender to rape or murder someone again.
Plus it's a lot more costly to keep someone in jail than it is to kill them. I'm no fan of Saudi Arabia or China or other places where there is no rule of law, but that doesn't make the death penalty wrong. We have habeaus corpus, trial by jury and an appeals process, they don't.
Finally, the reason the death penalty clogs the courts is because we wait too long to put the offenders to death. Death row is too long. We need a new law that once you are sentenced to death, you receive the death penalty within a year. No more pussy footing around.
The main point of this article was not to argue how much or if our country should use the death penalty. But rather, to point out that the death penalty is not intrinsically evil by itself. In severe circumstances, the penalty can be justified.
On the other hand, abortion and euthanasia are intrinsically evil and can never be justified.
Sadam: Hell of an outlier and probably not a good point of debate for a discussion about the general applicability of the DP. In suggesting his execution was a proper exercise of the DP, it would seem 99.9% of executions aren't. But what good did his execution do? He certainly would never commit crime again if he were locked up. It certainly isn't a deterrent to future egomaniacal dictators-they don't think about that. So maybe the argument will be that it allowed Iraqis to move on and made them feel justice was served-certainly a unique circumstance but IMHO, not a good precedent.
PAT - I'll take your points one at a time.
1. You say God chose not to enter this person's heart? So if it was God's choice, why punish this guy at all? He was just unlucky.
2. I'll say the studies are simply inconclusive - I can throw up stats from amnestyusa that say the opposite. There are just too many factors to consider and too few executions. We can call the stats a wash but let me ask you a question. Do you think someone that walks in to his house, sees a man with his wife (in flagrante delicto) and kills that man is deterred by the thought of the death penalty? Or for that matter, someone on drugs/drunk or mentally ill? Or someone committing armed robbery that ends with a death? A lot of time, criminals don't go into situations thinking someone will die. And a lot of pre-meditated murderers don't think they'll get caught.
3. If the most important rationale for you is individual deterrent, I think we can both agree life imprisonment has the same effect.
4. Check your facts - it's more costly to execute someone because of the reality of your last paragraph.
Bottom line - taking a life is taking a life. I don't think we should do it because I don't think it works, we make mistakes and it isn't practical. Defining severe circumstances seem to be a slippery slope to me
Are birth control pills are intrinsically evil?
What do the youth in Asia have to do with all of this?
Nice joke Weazel, very clever.
Barstool, I'm not sure if I get your point.
I'm not a researcher, so I don't know the statistics on how the death penalty is an effective deterrent. Not sure why you brought that up since I never made that argument.
I'm not so sure you can rely on your presumption that once Sadam was locked up, he would never commit a crime again. Even if Sadam were locked up forever, he could still wield power from behind bars just has Hitler before WWII. The Bath Party could possibly have fed off of Sadam's plight. This is all speculation. The death penalty eliminated that speculation.
Contraception is intrinsically evil. An act to intentionally prohibit God's role in the procreation of His children is intrinsically evil.
I think you might be watching too much Anderson Cooper on CNN.
I don't watch news on TV and I'm sorry for creating a death penalty debate as I guess that strayed from your intended topic. Still, I enjoy the debate and discussion that arises about death penalty and abortion as they're interesting topics.
Sadam - you're right, an imprisoned Sadam could have created issues, I really don't know about the Iraqi situation. Still, it's an extremely unique situation and not sure one I'd want to base my entire view on the rightness and wrongness of the DP on.
Is "family planning" (making an intentionally choice to have sex when the result is not likely to result in procreation) intrinsically evil?
I enjoy the discussion too about the death penalty, there are a millions points to cover.
My main concern surrounds why Capital Punishment and Abortion are different. The media spins the two acts to be on equal moral ground, which clearly is not the case.
I'm glad you brought up "family planning." I assume you are referring to Natural Family Planning promoted by the Catholic Church.
Natural Family Planning is not intrinsically evil. Whether or not the use of it is immoral depends upon the intentions.
Why is NFP not instrinsically evil? In itself, using "NFP" does not give the couple complete control over procreation; the possibility of life is at the will of God. Whether or not the use of it is immoral depends upon the couple's intentions.
When the couple uses NFP to create a reasonable family size, or to appropriately space out children, and the couple is willing to accept any child produced through the process, the intentions of NFP are good and can be used.
But, when the couple uses NFP to strictly prohibit the chance of any procreation, the usage becomes immoral.
So you see, actions which are not instrincically evil in itself can become immoral through intentions. But, instrincally evil acts are always immoral.
Buzzkill
1. First of all, I'm not smart enough to even know if there's a God or not. I think there probably is and I want there to be, but I have no idea how He works or whatever. In the meantime, we can't just sit around wait for shit to happen. We gotta enforce our laws and bring people to justice.
2. I know you could throw up stats from amnestyusa on this but let's face it, amnestyusa is run by a bunch of crazies. I trust Heritage because it's run by white people who wear golf shirts and shower regularly. If you think the stats are a wash then let's just keep what we already have because we must not be smart enough to create something better.
3a. The most important rationale for me is not individual deterrent. It is, once again, to prevent the convicted from ever committing the same crime twice. The real-life Hannibal Lectors that find ways to escape/cheat their way out of the system, the guys that people like Huckabee commuted in Arkansas, etc.
3b. In each crime, you've described a situation in which the accused could not be convicted of 1st degree murder, which is the only form of murder for which one can receive a death penalty sentence. All involve some sort of heat of passion or outside influence which negates malice aforethought. So I'm not sure whether they'd be deterred or not, but it doesn't matter because they wouldn't be able to receive the death penalty anyway.
4. I'm not sure what facts to check but I do know that if someone stops existing they will no longer cost money. So I guess the answer is we need to start processing death row inmates more efficiently and more quickly.
Taking a life is indeed taking a life. I guess where we disagree is on when it's justified. For convicted first-degree murderers and rapists, I just don't see a problem with it.
With that logic, why can't the use of a condom, pulling out, or birth control be NOT intrinsically evil? People get pregnant on birth control, using condoms and pulling out. The chances of pregnancy are arguably less when using a condom and birth control than when employing NFP but more when employing the "pull out" method.
By your argument, as long as "complete control over procreation" is not given to the couple, then the method is not intrinsically evil.
So if a married couple who would accept a child, uses birth control (setting aside the abortion within birth control argument) a condom or the "pulling out method", their acts would not be intrinsically evil right?
Pat -
1. Still, you're talking about punishing someone for something he couldn't control. My point is that that original statement is flawed.
2. There are some crazies at heritage too.
3. I misspoke - what I meant by individual deterrent was deterring that specific individual. I don't think people ever escape life sentences for murder. If you want you can balance that out against the innocent people that get killed by the DP.
3a. It's possible some of those situations could result in the DP. But lets take the obvious pre-meditated murder. Again, do you think someone that is so full of hate or being payed to kill will not do it because there is the possibility they may get the DP?
4. It's the process of getting someone to the gas chamber that creates more expense than life in prison. I agree, if the DP is to be effective, we need it to be quicker. The bottom line though is, it's not gonna happen. Our society no longer has the will.
With the current setup, it's not effective or worth the $.
Phase 1 - Collect Underpants
Phase 2 - ?
Phase 3 - Profit
"Back in my day there weren't these fancy birth control methods like pullin' out"
Scott Tenorman
Hey Barstool, sorry for the delay in response. I've been in vacation mode the past few days and have not checked this blog in a while.
I've already given a clear defense of my position. You are arguing for the sake of arguing. Anything I provide will be construed by you into an absurd counter argument. If you bring up a different topic or question, I'll be glad to answer it.
I'm looking for you to clarify how the "intrinsically evil" definition applies to more than NFP because it's my belief that it doesn't. I really don't want you to think I'm arguing for argument's sake. It's a view I've always been interested in and was never really able to accept. I value the discussion-please don't end it because you question my intentions.
Ok, fair enough and no problem. Let's look at this a different way.
The logic used to determine why NFP is different from Condoms or other contraceptions is the intrinsic nature of the act in terms of morality.
To come to this conclusion, you have to determine which action is morally right and which is morally wrong. (I'm working in the context of the Catholic moral theology.)
First, you have to belive God is Good, and the Goodness of God is the basis for all morality. Anything contrary to the Nature of God is immoral. So, all that is good is in some way like God, and all that is evil is in some way contrary to God.
NFP is different from using a condom because of the nature of it. The nature of NFP is not to prevent the procreation of children, but to have children in a responsible way. Since the nature of NFP is in line with the nature of God, the act is moral.
The nature of condoms, pulling out, and birth control is to totally prevent the procreation of children. Even if you say there is a possibility of still conceiving a child and a couple is using the acts to responsibly have children, the nature of the act itself is to prevent the possibility of having children. The act itself is not in line with God's goodness.
Here, the end does not justify the means. In NFP, the means is in line with God's goodness. With contreptives, the means is not.
You say the nature of NFP is not to prevent procreation but to have children in a responsible way. NFP is a method to achieve and avoid pregnancies. The US Conference of Catholic Bishops says so. I think we all understand that by taking advantage of what we know about a woman's cycle, the couple can manage procreation. By avoiding pregnancies, couples can have children in a responsible way. I completely agree.
Where we disagree, where I think the Church is parsing words, and where our discussion may come to an end is in saying that NFP is more moral than the use of, for example, "pulling out". Why is this so? This method takes advantage of what we've learned via science about the act of sex-just in the way NFP dies.
Which method prevents the possibility more? NFP does. The intrinsic nature of the act of NFP it to prevent pregnancy in order to responsibly manage having children, same as the intrinsic nature of "pulling out" can be. I don't think any other reason for the use of NFP can be articulated. Sometimes it is used to achieve and sometimes it is used to prevent. It's an active choice by the couple, just as the use of other methods of contraception.
The Church tries to tell me there's a difference in "preventing pregnancy" and "responsibly having children". That doesn't comport with my personal logic, seems to be an untrue parsing of words and therefore I don't accept it.
I appreciate your willingness to engage here.
I understand your logic, and I agree with you slightly that NFP can be used to directly prohibit children. When used in this way, NFP becomes a serious sin. This is why NFP cannot become a way of life.
Under certain conditions, NFP is used to to procure a healthy family. (To prevent financial distress and other serious problems.) The reason it is moraly right, when used under the correct conditions, is that it does not directly stop conception. I may disagree with you in saying pulling out is different. Use of NFP is an extremely gray area, and it has to be discerned differently for each couple.
Interesting article about the guy who invented the pill and the Church's decision to ban it. If you don't have time to read it all, check out section 1 & 5. 2-4 basically discusses the way in which the pill prevents cancer in women.
http://www.gladwell.com/2000/2000_03_10_a_rock.htm
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