Tuesday, March 19, AD 2024 4:32am

PopeWatch: Violence in the Name of God

VATICAN-POPE-AUDIENCE

 

Sandro Magister has an interesting look at a theological paper that has been released by the Vatican, which was initiated at the request of Pope Benedict in 2008:

“Heresy” and “dogma.” The two words in the Church that almost no one dares to say anymore – all the more so in this season of “mercy” – suddenly came back to the forefront on January 16, in their full meaning and in the most official form, on the front page of “L’Osservatore Romano.”

“As far as the Christian faith is concerned, violence in the name of God is a heresy pure and simple”: this is what the editorial in the pope’s newspaper calls the “unmistakable thesis” of the document of the international theological commission made public that same day.

And vice versa: “Scrupulous respect for religious freedom stems from that which is most dogmatic in the idea of God that the Christian faith has to offer.”

The international theological commission, instituted after Vatican Council II, is an arm of the congregation for the doctrine of the faith, is headed by its prefect, and is made up of thirty theologians of various nations, appointed by the pope “ad quinquennium.”

The document made public on January 16 was ordered by Benedict XVI in 2008, in the context of his dialogue with contemporary culture, in order to reopen within it a pathway toward God, the true God. It was crafted over five years by 10 members of the commission, including the Chinese Salesian Savio Tai Fai Hon, today the secretary of “Propaganda fide,” the Swiss Dominican Charles Morerod, today the bishop of Lausanne, Geneva, and Fribourg, and the Italian Pierangelo Sequeri, a leading representative of the theological school of Milan.

For now the complete text of the document is available only in its Italian version – elegant and incisive as rarely happens with theological texts, thanks to the pen and the mind of Sequeri, even if here and there it is not easy to read – while in eight more languages an introductory summary is ready, with the complete translation still to come:

> God the Trinity and the unity of humanity. Christian monotheism and its opposition to violence

The title provides a glimpse of the document’s motivation: to fight the widespread idea that monotheism, faith in the one God, is synonymous with obscurantism and intolerance, is an indestructible seed of violence . And therefore is to be banned from civil society.

Jews, Muslims, Christians are the target of this typically relativistic theorem, which demonstrates that it intends to replace monotheism with a moderate “polytheism” deceptively presented as peaceful and tolerant.

Jews are charged with having faith in a vindictive God “of wrath and war,” that of the Old Testament, and this is imputed to them with a preconceived hostility that the document says is present “even in sophisticated culture” (one recent example of this theological anti-Judaism is provided in Italy by Eugenio Scalfari, the ultra-secularist “interviewer” of Pope Francis.

Held against the Muslims – with the reinforcement of the facts – is “the order of Muhammad to defend the faith by means of the sword,” as Emperor Manuel II Palaiologos had denounced in his dialogue with the Persian sage made known around the world by Benedict XVI in the Regensburg lecture of September 12, 2006. And it is curious that, on the same day as the release of the document of the thirty theologians, a 36-page document appeared on the Huffington Post written by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the destruction of the Twin Towers and a detainee at Guantanamo, which cites Benedict XVI in order to refute the idea that the Quran legitimizes the use of force as a means for religious conversion, and justifies the attack of September 11, 2001 as an exclusively political revolt of the oppressed against the oppressor:

> Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s Statement to the Crusaders…

But Christians are the main enemy to be overthrown, in present-day anti-religious polemics. And it is here that the document brings into play the concepts of heresy and dogma.

The mere thought – it affirms – that the Christian vision associates faith with violence is consummate heresy. While it is an irrevocable dogma that “the Son, in his love for the Father, draws violence upon himself, sparing friends and enemies, or rather all men,” and therefore, with his ignominious death confronted and overcome, “he annihilates in a single act the power of sin and the justification of violence.”

The document is rich with argumentation and effective both in its “pars destruens,” where it unveils the flimsiness of the modern condemnation of monotheism, and in its “pars construens,” where it highlights the Trinitarian nature of Christianity, which distinguishes it from the other forms of monotheism and is the basis of “the irrevocable seriousness of the Gospel interdict with regard to all contamination between religion and violence.”

The document is not silent about Christian concession to religious violence in history. But it urges the recognition of the present time as the “kairòs,” the decisive moment, of an “irreversible departure” of Christianity from such violence.

Go here to read the rest.  Only the introduction and a preliminary note have thus far been translated into English.  Go here to read it.  PopeWatch will refrain from commentary until it has been translated, except to note that while Christianity is a religion of peace and brotherhood, it has often taken swords, not infrequently wielded at the request and with the prayers of the Church, to ensure that Christians are not murdered wholesale.  While nonviolence is obviously the preferred mode for any Christian, it often is not an effective response to the violent, especially when the violent threaten the weak and helpless.

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Barbara Gordon
Barbara Gordon
Friday, February 14, AD 2014 12:56am

“Scrupulous respect for religious freedom stems from that which is most dogmatic in the idea of God that the Christian faith has to offer.”

Amen & amen!

Looking forward to the full English translation.

Botolph
Friday, February 14, AD 2014 8:36am

We believe that Jesus Christ is the fullest revelation of God. In And through Jesus Christ, God has taken upon Himself the suffering, sin, violence of the world and has become the means of reconciliation between God and man and man and man. So much did God respect His creature created in His image, so much did He love ‘man,’ that He took into Himself all that is opposed to both God and man.

Jesus Christ in being the fullest revelation of God is the hermeneutic of God. Whoever sees Him, sees the Father. The Lord Jesus could have had countless hordes of angels to protect Him from His arrest and Passion, as well as a tempting jump at the suggestion of Satan. Yet precisely when He Himself renounced this ‘just’ use of force, He tells Peter, “He who lives by the sword dies by the sword”. The ‘ethic of discipleship’ which He gave to all His followers likewise calls for the renunciation of violence as disciples.

How a country that is tasked to protect its citizens from unjust aggression and harm etc is to act is a different if related matter. Christ’s teaching was directed to the Community of Disciples, the Church. Yes, there have been too many incidents in which violence has not only been used but ‘blessed’ by popes, bishops and priests-and not all were in self-defense. All were, however, given their ‘reasons’ that at the time sounded justified.

The Church is renouncing all use of violence and is saying that no one can justify ‘killing in Name of God’

T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Friday, February 14, AD 2014 11:55am

I have previously provided to fundamentalist pacifists the following quotation: “Tax collectors also came to be baptized, and said to him (St. John the Baptist), ‘teacher, what shall we do?’ And he said to them, “Collect no more than is appointed you.’ Soldiers also asked him, ‘And we, what shall we do?’ And he said to them, ‘Rob no one by violence or by false accusation, and be content with your wages.’”
Luke 3, 12 – 14 – John preaches repentance; and counsels charity and justice.
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From this I take away a diferent lesson: “. . . as well as a tempting jump at the suggestion of Satan.” Jesus responded saying, “Thou shalt not put the Lord, thy God, to the test.” It had little to do with pacifism or Charity – the two are not equivalent.
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Should Pope Urban, Count Bohemund, et al have abandoned the Christians of Palestine to their muslim slavers and tormentors? Up to 1097, the 400+ year history of Muhammedanism is a litany of conquests, crimes, invasions, massacres, rapine.
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Should Charles Martel have passively allowed the filthy pagans to destroy the Church and the peoples of western Europe?
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Should St. Bernard de Clairvaux be de-canonized for his support of the Knights Templars and the wars to save Palestine?

Mary De Voe
Friday, February 14, AD 2014 12:52pm

“Violence in the Name of God” is an oxymoron. (I am always tickled by the word “moron” at the end of oxymoron.)
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“You shall not go about spreading slander among your kinsmen; nor shall you stand idly when your neighbor’s life is at stake. I am the Lord. — Leviticus 19:16.’
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A very great harm that came out of Vatican II was that the Old Testament was extinct. Jesus came to fulfill the law, not to abolish it. Ghandi said of “an eye for an eye”: “the whole world would be blinded”. Not so. An “eye for an eye” was to prevent anyone losing an eye when he kept the law.
Armed force as the force given to St. Michael, whom we implore everyday to deliver us from Satan is Justice in action. Violence, as the word suggests, is a crime against the law and against humanity, the same humanity that armed force protects.

Botolph
Friday, February 14, AD 2014 1:34pm

Mary De Voe,

Mary, if anything, Vatican II brought out the Old Testament more. Those of us who participate in the Ordinary Form hear it as the first reading almost every single Sunday. I am old enough to remember that was not the case with the ‘older’ lectionary.

Other than “we can agree to disagree’ I am not sure what to say to Donald, T. Shaw and to you Mary. The Church qua Church [I am not speaking about how a country needs to/should protect its citizens etc] is not going to seek a military, violent solution or even one that uses force against her external enemies. We did not begin armed uprisings, etc when Rome was persecuting us-and we are here, not the Caesars. You simply are not going to ever see it, it is that clear at this point.

When heresy is being taught and or spread it will be by teaching, convincing etc, the weapons of the Spirit that the Church will take up. There will be no ‘capital punishment’ for teaching heresy or leading others into schism.

I do want to make clear however, that the Church does not espouse pacifism for ‘states’ or Catholic citizens. That is a whole other issue and conversation.

Botolph
Friday, February 14, AD 2014 2:18pm

Donald,

My first comment is this: ‘practice’ in the sense of policies etc. is not dogma/doctrine. I could argue that the Church since the time of Charlemagne etc ‘broke’ with the early Church’s stand on violence etc.

Reading Thomas’ statement I concur with what he is writing. Clerics themselves definitely should not be taking up arms. It is their duty as pastors of souls to dispose and counsel their flocks concerning just war doctrine. Thomas does not say that clerics ought to be calling up a Catholic or Christian version of a fatwa or jihad.

Botolph
Friday, February 14, AD 2014 2:40pm

Donald,

None of the Church Fathers was perfect nor was Thomas Aquinas. They are saints, and sure teachers but not in every single statement they make. Augustine’s theology gave us Catholic orthodoxy but also both Lutheran and Calvinist and later, Jansenist versions of the relationship of grace and human nature. [And I love Augustine!] Even the Fathers need to be read within the Tradition of the Church and at times balanced or even corrected by it. Augustine called in the Roman troops on stubborn schismatics who were causing him a major pain in the neck. Should we do that today? [If we even could?]

Thomas Aquinas in his writings thought slavery was ok (preferable to executing people caught in battle). Shall we ‘fight’ for slavery? Thomas Aquinas was dead set against the growing (at the time) ‘teaching’ of the Immaculate Conception, should be we throw that out too?

I have no problem with someone saying they disagree with the Church’s direction in this area. However, it is quite another to castigate the Church as if the present day Church is in some form of apostasy because she declares “killing in the Name of God’ is verbotin

John by any other name
John by any other name
Friday, February 14, AD 2014 3:31pm

Would it be correct to review the Catechism as the “official” stance, if, for instance, we would not regard Aquinas as authoritative in this situation?
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If so, I know that “just war” is provided for within the Catechism. Further, the Catechism states that those whom are entrusted with protecting people would be under a “grave duty” to do so.

2263 The legitimate defense of persons and societies is not an exception to the prohibition against the murder of the innocent that constitutes intentional killing. “The act of self-defense can have a double effect: the preservation of one’s own life; and the killing of the aggressor. . . . The one is intended, the other is not.”

2264 Love toward oneself remains a fundamental principle of morality. Therefore it is legitimate to insist on respect for one’s own right to life. Someone who defends his life is not guilty of murder even if he is forced to deal his aggressor a lethal blow:
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“If a man in self-defense uses more than necessary violence, it will be unlawful: whereas if he repels force with moderation, his defense will be lawful. . . . Nor is it necessary for salvation that a man omit the act of moderate self-defense to avoid killing the other man, since one is bound to take more care of one’s own life than of another’s.”
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2265 Legitimate defense can be not only a right but a grave duty for one who is responsible for the lives of others. The defense of the common good requires that an unjust aggressor be rendered unable to cause harm. For this reason, those who legitimately hold authority also have the right to use arms to repel aggressors against the civil community entrusted to their responsibility.
[…skipping a bit…]
2308 All citizens and all governments are obliged to work for the avoidance of war.
However, “as long as the danger of war persists and there is no international authority with the necessary competence and power, governments cannot be denied the right of lawful self-defense, once all peace efforts have failed.”
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http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p3s2c2a5.htm

What I’m puzzled by is who, at least insofar as Catholicism is concerned, is arguing for “killing in God’s name”. Let me add: I think that saying “just war” is the same as “killing in God’s name” is a false equivalence. I don’t see where that is coming from in the text of the article.

Botolph
Friday, February 14, AD 2014 4:08pm

John by any other name,

The Catechism is a sure resource or compendium of the teaching of the Catholic Church. The Church still teaches ‘just war’ principles just as it continues to teach the social teachings/principles of the Church, etc. In each of my responses I have been very careful to state that the issue in question is NOT what the “State” needs to do or ought to do to protect its citizens etc, What is in question is what the Church herself, as Church ‘should do’ in the face of persecution etc or even ‘heresy’ etc.

Donald,
I think the two of us (as well as all Catholics) need to be clear when we speak in terms of the Tradition of the Church (with a capital T), traditions of the Church, the various eras of history in which the Church has journeyed, and her various responses etc. You and I for example are roughly the same age. I remember hearing two things all the time concerning the Church: the Church never changes and No matter where you go Mass is always the same.

Donald, I was still an altar boy when I went to serve Mass in a Carmelite chapel [I of course assumed Mass was the same-I am speaking ‘pre-Vatican II’] and the priest said that “My Mass is different than yours, you might find it hard to serve” He was not some heretic or liturgical experimenter, he simply was stating that he celebrated Mass according to the Carmelite Rite which was indeed quite distinct from the Mass I knew [Tridentine]

In the ninth grade in social studies my teacher, who was a Maronite of Lebanese descent gave me a research topic: a survey of all the Christian churches and sects in the Middle East. I was stunned to realize that many of these churches were in fact in union with the pope yet had vastly different Liturgies, disciplines (priests could marry) etc. This also brought me to a preliminary awareness that the Church that I knew was while in substance [One Holy Catholic and Apostolic] the same, had taken on various forms in different parts of the world: Europe, Middle East, etc.

The Tradition of the Church is always the norm, the rule. It is never up for grabs nor can it be conveniently forgotten when “I” want to. It is what has come down from the Apostles. This Tradition cannot change; only our understanding of it can develop under the guidance of the Magisterium. The traditions of the Church, while venerable etc. can and indeed do change. The Church of the Fathers was much more developed than the Church of the first few centuries. The Church of the Middle Ages was very ‘different’ from the Church of the Fathers. The Church after Trent [post-Renaissance and post-Reformation] was really very different from the Church of the Middle Ages, and we are going through another one of these major transitions right now. Same Church in substance but not in appearance

I will totally agree Donald that the catechesis of the Church-with adults (I am not speaking of the catechesis of children-that is a whole other subject) has been sorely lacking-right from the first days after Vatican II. Official Church teachings do make the connection with the teaching of the Church down through the ages [that’s the whole point of the hermeneutic of continuity]

Augustine and Thomas-both great saints and doctors of the Church-would be the first ones to say-that in reading/quoting them we need to constantly keep in mind what the Church is saying etc Augustine went so far as to make this ‘radical’ statement: “I would not believe in the Gospel myself if the authority of the Catholic Church did not influence me to do so”

Mattock
Mattock
Friday, February 14, AD 2014 5:03pm

“Blessed be the Lord my God, who teacheth my hands to fight, and my fingers to war.”

How about some practical application to this Quaker-like theology? Police officers should no longer carry guns if they feel that they’re protecting the public as part of their obligations before God. (You could say, “In God’s Name.”) If a man feels called to a vocation in the military, he should refuse a combat role. He can’t use violence in God’s name after all.

The Catholic Church does not do jihads, but we do believe that force and even violence are necessary parts of governing and living in a fallen world. Look up the Congo in the 60s for a convenient and recent case study.

This muddy and esoteric theology needs to stop. Give practical examples. Perhaps the actual document will be more balanced than the brief, but still. . .

Is this something that really needs to be discussed now. Why are the progressives atheists dictating the narrative? Why are we on the defensive? Perhaps the Church should call the progressives to account.

If violence can never be done in the name of God, how can a good Catholic father make a morning offering and own a hand gun. Either I can give everything to God, or I can’t. I think a Catholic man should pray that God give him grace to develop good aim every time he goes to the range. Am I wrong? What is a gun or a sword for? For show?

Santus Dominus Deus Sabaoth

We should not be so eager to throw our ancestors and our betters under the tread of progress. Now is not an age or a place for level heads and wisdom to surpass the great saints of old. He already have a very complete moral theology regarding the use of force and violence. Let us not assume that the lenses of post-modernism will help us see these truths in such greater contrast as to make obsolete all past ages.

Perhaps the Church should rather have a discussion about a Catholic man’s obligation to protect the weak. We are called to be meek. We are called not to count the cost. But we are not called to stand by as the innocent are raped and murdered. Tolstoy was wrong. Tolstoy was even a heretic. Rousseau was wrong. Courage is a virtue.

Botolph
Friday, February 14, AD 2014 5:40pm

I will say it again and will keep saying it. I have not been speaking about a government, state or even a municipalities right, duty and obligation to protect its citizens, especially the weaker ones.

The subject is “killing in the Name of God”-that is not, and I repeat, the same as the obligation to protect citizens by a State. However it is a particularly virilent and aberrant ‘ideology’ of at least a segment (if not the whole) of a monotheistic religion: Islam., The subject is about the Church’s response-not the State’s (any State for that matter)

In respsonse to this virilent strain of monotheistic religion the Church has done the following:

1) make the theological claim that no one can claim Killing in the Name of God as something willed by God or justified-that goes right to the heart of Islamicist ideology

2) reiterating time again the principle of freedom of religion-which Islamicists oppose

3) reiterates time and again the necessity of the distinction between organized Religion and the State-again this goes right to the heart of Islamic understanding of the relationship of mosque and state in Sharia law

4)that it is inconceivable and to be opposed by all nations of good will etc that the Middle East does not have Christians living there in freedom etc

5)carrying on dialogues with any and all governments who will listen concerning the above points-as the Vatican ambassador did just this week before Congress

Non-violent is not passive-just ask Gandhi and Martin Luther King

Mattock
Mattock
Friday, February 14, AD 2014 6:41pm

Sorry Botolph. The Church *has* organized wars. Ask Saint Dominic about the Albigensian Crusade. He supported that you know. Pope Innocent III called for it. Was that wrong? How about the Battle of Lepanto? Pope Saint Pius V set that up. Did he err? What has changed? This Church v. State distinction in diplomacy is clearly modern. If the Church can influence diplomacy for the better, it should. What you’re really arguing for is the idea that the Church, and Christianity as a whole, has no place in international affairs. That is simply not defensible. “Killing in the name of God” it imprecise as an idea. It is simply a modern rhetorical tool to attack the actions of our ancestors. The Holy League claimed to act in the name of God when they defended Christendom from enslavement. They killed men that day. To argue that times have changed and that we have “progressed” past such barbaric thought is beyond patronizing and leads inevitably to a hermeneutic incompatible with the teachings of the Church.

Mary De Voe
Friday, February 14, AD 2014 7:32pm

Saint Joan of Arc was sent by God, killing in the Name of God, those who would enslave France, those who would have driven God out of France.
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Then, there was Judith who beheaded Holofernes.
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And the prophet Samuel who hew Agag into pieces saying: “As your sword has made women childless, so your mother shall be childless.

And George Patton who said: “Kill them with kindness.” in a war of usurpation and aggression.

Justice is predicated on intent. Violence is evil intent. Armed force is necessary love of Justice and truth.

Barbara Gordon
Barbara Gordon
Friday, February 14, AD 2014 8:51pm

Great discussion guys! I would like to get to practical modern day reality. Since everyone seems to agree that a state can kill to defend its citizens–and since the Church (actually no Christian denomination anywhere in the world) has an army with physical weapons–WHO would do any killing in the name of God? What would be a real life scenario under which this would occur right now? And WHO would order (or give them the authority/justification) to do the killing “in the name of God?”.
I guess it just seems like a moot point to me. I can’t recall a Pope in my adult lifetime ever sanctioning any war & saying that the killing was being carried out in the name of God. All I ever recall is the encouragement to end any fighting & restore peace.

PS. If a priest knew how to use a gun & had access to one while members of his parish were being shot in cold blood with a shot gun in front of him (as happened with Southern Baptist Convention missionaries during a Wednesday evening church service in Ft Worth, TX in years past– at the hands of a lone, crazed gunman)–by all means I would WANT that priest to kill the gunman in the name of God & stop the slaughter–even though no state matters were involved.

Michael Paterson-Seymour
Michael Paterson-Seymour
Saturday, February 15, AD 2014 3:37am

In her “War & Murder,” Miss Anscombe pointed out the dangers of pacifism and of ignoring of the distinction between precepts and counsel.

“The turning of counsels into precepts results in high-sounding principles. Principles that are mistakenly high and strict are a trap; they may easily lead in the end directly or indirectly to the justification of monstrous things. Thus if the evangelical counsel about poverty were turned into a precept forbidding property owning, people would pay lip service to it as the ideal, while in practice they went in for swindling. “Absolute honesty!” it would be said: “I can respect that – but of course that means having no property; and while I respect those who follow that course, I have to compromise with the sordid world myself.” If then one must ‘compromise with evil’ by owning property and engaging in trade, then the amount of swindling one does will depend on convenience. This imaginary case is paralleled by what is so commonly said: absolute pacifism is an ideal; unable to follow that, and committed to ‘compromise with evil’, one must go the whole hog and wage war a outrance…

Now pacifism teaches people to make no distinction between the shedding of innocent blood and the shedding of any human blood. And in this way pacifism has corrupted enormous numbers of people who will not act according to its tenets. They become convinced that a number of things are wicked which are not; hence seeing no way of avoiding wickedness, they set no limits to it. How endlessly pacifists argue that all war must be a l’outrance! that those wage war must go as far as technological advance permits in the destruction of the enemy’s people. As if the Napoleonic wars were perforce fuller of massacres than the French war of Henry V of England. It is not true: the reverse took place.”

Mary De Voe
Saturday, February 15, AD 2014 9:02am

Botolph: “Thomas Aquinas in his writings thought slavery was ok (preferable to executing people caught in battle). Shall we ‘fight’ for slavery? Thomas Aquinas was dead set against the growing (at the time) ‘teaching’ of the Immaculate Conception, should be we throw that out too?
I have no problem with someone saying they disagree with the Church’s direction in this area. However, it is quite another to castigate the Church as if the present day Church is in some form of apostasy because she declares “killing in the Name of God’ is verbotin”

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Thomas Aquinas’ slavery was a penitential chain-gang, prisoners of an unjust war of aggression as Pearl Harbor. Without a prison system, penitential chain-gangs were all that good men have. More just than execution, as Aquinas says.
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“Thomas Aquinas was dead set against the growing (at the time) ‘teaching’ of the Immaculate Conception, should be we throw that out too?”
Until Our Lady, herself appeared and defined herself by saying: “I AM THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION” the “teaching” needed to be left to Our Lady. No one can say that Thomas Aquinas rejected the teaching of the Virgin Birth.
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“killing in the Name of God’ is verbotin” Killing in the Name of God is not verbotin. Killing in the Name of God is called for by God. St. Joan of Arc, at Lepanto, at Lexington (remember the Redcoats stayed around to fire back. They did not engage pacifism.) and every unjust aggression.

Mary De Voe
Saturday, February 15, AD 2014 9:24am

Barbara Gordon: “I can’t recall a Pope in my adult lifetime ever sanctioning any war & saying that the killing was being carried out in the name of God.”
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Pope Pius XII sanctioned the war against Hitler, but maybe you are too young. Pope Pius XII sanctioned the war against Hitler in a very subtle and silent way. He resisted, as all resistance was “underground.” No, Pope Pius XII never drove a Sherman tank into the barbed wire enclosures of the concentration camps, nor did he machine gun the cliffs at Omaha beach or drop the atom bomb at Hiroshima-Nagasaki. Pope Pius (peace) XII rallied the monks and nuns and officials to assist the innocent in every way possible, sending over 800,000 into Haiti, the only country that would accept Jews in the Western Hemisphere, hiding Jews even in the Vatican.
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Maybe Hitler, raised Catholic, repented as he went down from a bullet in his head, or Stalin who was raised Christian and who died of an asthma attack two weeks after he executed his physician, too, may have repented.

Botolph
Saturday, February 15, AD 2014 9:34am

Folks [since there are several of you at once I am attempting to catch up with lol]

I really have been attempting to relay that “there can be no killing in the Name of God” has to do with
1) the Church as Church’s response to the issue. BTW Pope John Paul was the first one to raise it immediately following the vicious 9/11 attack.
2) while it attests to the Church as Church’s response, it also drives right to the heart of the Islamicist ideology which does hold that one can and should kill in the Name of God
3) This has nothing to do with the Church’s ‘just war teaching’. That has not changed.
4) This is not imposing ‘pacifism’ on anyone, although every Catholic needs to see themselves called to be peacemakers [a Catholic soldier can indeed do this etc]
5) This has nothing to do with the State’s obligation to protect its citizens, especially its weakest-in any case the State would be killing in its own name not God’s

Having set out those points, I want to address a few other comments etc. I am well aware that since the time of Saint Augustine segments of the Church relied on and used force and even violence against Her internal (heretics, witches) and external foes (Crusades, the Albigensian Crusade, pogroms etc). The question is this: what doctrine of the faith were they based on? They were certainly ‘policies’ etc.. Those policies differed from the ‘policies’ of the early Church, just as some policies of the Church today differ from those of the “Medieval Church”. If indeed they were doctrines of the Church in faith and morals (and not simply applications of them) then the Medieval Church apostasized from the Early Church? [of course some think it did-I strongly disagree with that position]. So too, the Church in our day has not ‘apostasized’ from the Medieval Church simply because of a change in ‘policies’. if one insists the present day Church has then it is only logical and faithful to the facts that the Medieval Church did so in relation to the Early Church. Any one really want to go there?

The whole story of Joan of Arc is indeed a case in point. Joan of Arc is called by the saints to raise up troops to defeat the English so that the Dauphin will be crowned King of France. However, a Church trial led by bishops under the thumb of the English, tried her as a witch and a heretic and burned her at the stake. For someone who thinks in black and white you have a saint being persecuted by ‘bad bishops’, but life is seldom that easy to discern. I would maintain that certainly Joan was attempting to fulfill her vocation. I would also maintain that the bishops and the ecclesiastical court, minus the English pressure, were equally fulfilling their vocations and given the times applied both force and violence on Joan.

Whether we are speaking of Pope Urban II’s call for the First Crusade ( preached by none other than Saint Bernard of Clairvaux whose uncle founded the Knights Templar!), Pope Innocent III’s call for the Albigensian Crusade or Pope St Pius V’s call for the rosary to be prayed to back the Battle of Lepanto, they were Church men living within a certain ecclesial, social, political world and were attempting to do the best they could given what they had. I do not and will not condemn them, even if I have questions about their policies etc. [which as a human being and a Catholic I have a right to do]

Now fast forward to 1870, Pope Pius IX, First Vatican Council. Christendom was all but completely gone. Italian reunification was taking place at a breaknet spead and the Papal States were almost completely a footnote in history. The Holy Spirit guiding the Council Fathers declared the infallibility of the pope when speaking ex cathedra in matters of faith and moral [this makes it possible for a pope to make a doctrine a dogma-on the same level as an Ecumenical Council; it does not limit the pope’s infallibility to only this extraordinary level of authority. It does however stake out ‘the territory’ of the Church: faith and morals
It is the First Vatican Council that actually redirected the Church toward the direction we see today. George Weigel has written an excellent book on this called Evangelical Catholicism. Since Vatican I, popes and the Church have been outspoken etc on issues of faith and morals. She no longer has the forces of Christendom to call up against her foes. She no longer has armies defending Papal States. Stalin’s cynical yet ironic question: “How many troops does the Pope have?” reveals where the strength of the Church lies. Stalin is not only in his grave but so is his Soviet Empire, brought down by peoples yelling in the streets, “We want God”

As I mentioned before “No killing in the Name of God” is only one portion of a whole series of principles which the Church is making against the Islamicist ideology. We are not afraid of reason because the Logos through Whom everything came into being and continues in exitence has become flesh and is in our midst [whole point of Pope Benedict’s Regensburg address]. No killing in the Name of God is another crucial piece. The distinction [distinction is not the same as separation] between God and Ceasar (Church and State, Mosque and State] was begun by Jesus Christ Himself, not the modern secular state-this is another key element which goes right to the heart of Islamicist ideology [Sharia Law, Islamicist States], Freedom of Religion is yet another.

There are those who will criticize these. That’s ok, I have questions concerning the Church raising up troops in the Middle Ages etc. However, this is where the Catholic Church is and is going. All aboard………

Jeanne Rohl
Jeanne Rohl
Saturday, February 15, AD 2014 10:27am

Where are we at today? Should we have such courage to stand up to the evil in this world! If there is evil within our midst that endangers the lives of any human, even at the disgust of war we should deal with it swiftly, and while we seem to be catapulting into the den of Islam and depravity of every matter without nary a peep, as “sheep led to the slaughter”, our world is being “cast into hell by Satan and all the evil spirits prowling about the world seeking the ruin of souls.” Semantics. As I have always said with the “abortion” wars for the last 40+ years, they fired the first shot. We were called into bloody action for a bloody murderous act. At lease Jesus gave Peter three cock crows. He has given the world millions of cocks crowing for 2000 years and we still don’t get it. To think that we as a world Church have succumbed through our own sinfulness and have been responsible for this non warring effort to teach as Jesus taught is beyond any amount of common sense that I can get my mind around. We have redefined right and wrong. Now we pay for the fruit of our semantic treatment of the true Word.

Botolph
Saturday, February 15, AD 2014 10:48am

Jeanne Rohl,

I am not sure what you actually mean when you said, “To think that we as a world Church have succumbed through our own sinfulness and have been responsible for this non warring effort to teach as Jesus taught is beyond any amount of common sense that I can get my mind around. We have redefined right and wrong” Jeanne, sorry but I am not sure what you are saying here, which I need to do before responding.

William P. Walsh
William P. Walsh
Saturday, February 15, AD 2014 3:03pm

I hope I’m not off-point with this but when I defend my life against an attacker, I act in my own name. If I seek to save another from attack, I act in their name. If I serve in the army of my country, I act in her name. God does not need me to defend Him with violence but does expect me to so defend myself, my family, my neighbor, my country and even the Church when these are violently attacked by a person or entity.
The circumstances, perceptions and situations have changed through the centuries yet are not the principles the same?

Botolph
Saturday, February 15, AD 2014 4:14pm

William P Walsh

You are not off-point and you are not wrong. Killing in the Name of God has to do with a organized religion, more specifically a Monotheistic Religion stating it was good to kill in the Name of God. What the Church is saying is that this is wrong and that the Church will not be calling on anyone to kill in the Name of God.

This is not a call to pacifism, a renunciation of such things as the right to self-defense, defending others, just-war principles and the like. Further while it marks a certain development within the Church’s consciousness-one that is not new with this papacy or even the Church of Vatican II etc. [When is the last time a pope called for or urged a crusade?] it is specifically aimed at Islamicist ideology and also certain ideologies found in nationalist Hindhus in India and even a certain form of Buddhism.

William P. Walsh
William P. Walsh
Saturday, February 15, AD 2014 6:02pm

Thank you Botolph. I am both humbled and honored to elicit your response. There is indeed a vast gulf in the understanding of the nature of God by Christians and Muslims, almost to the point of whether we indeed worship the same God. Our God is Love. As to the history of the Church with her marks of beauty and, at times, warts: “He said unto them: Therefore every scribe instructed in the kingdom of heaven, is like to a man that is a householder, who bringeth forth out of his treasure new things and old”. So there is development. The deposit of Faith is not discerned in an instant. It took me a long time to understand what I do at present-seventy-three years or so in fact. Luke tells us concerning Our Lord “And Jesus advanced in wisdom, and age, and grace with God and men”. So His Mystical Body, the Church is much the same. Nonetheless, if Christendom were under attack now as it was in the Middle Ages, I think Francis I would take the same position as Urban II, Deus Vult.

Phillip
Phillip
Saturday, February 15, AD 2014 7:41pm

Late to this discussion. We must remember any moral act has three components – the moral object, the intention (the end sought or the remote end) and the circumstances. The question in most of the above cases relates to the moral object – what is chosen (the proximate act) to achieve the end.

When one repels aggression with force, the moral object is self-defense if this is what the intention of the proximate act (moral object) is. (In Aquinas, one cannot directly intend to kill the aggressor, otherwise this is killing which can never be directly intended even in self-defense). Even in capital punishment, the state does not directly kill. Rather, the moral object is defense against a criminal which cannot be deterred in other ways.

So, from an analysis from the perspective, one may never kill for any reason. But one may engage in defense or repelling unjust aggression even to the point of (indirectly) killing another.

In this sense, one may use force (violence?) in God’s name though one may never kill in God’s name.

Barbara Gordon
Barbara Gordon
Saturday, February 15, AD 2014 9:53pm

Mary De Voe,

I was indeed born over 2 decades after WW 2.

Michael Paterson-Seymour
Michael Paterson-Seymour
Sunday, February 16, AD 2014 2:51am

Philip

St Thomas distinguishes between the public authorities, who may intend the death of those against whom they fight and an individual, acting in self-defence, where the death must not be directly intended, but a consequence of the measures taken to ward off the attack.

“I answer that, Nothing hinders one act from having two effects, only one of which is intended, while the other is beside the intention. Now moral acts take their species according to what is intended, and not according to what is beside the intention, since this is accidental as explained above (43, 3; I-II, 12, 1). Accordingly the act of self-defence may have two effects, one is the saving of one’s life, the other is the slaying of the aggressor. Therefore this act, since one’s intention is to save one’s own life, is not unlawful, seeing that it is natural to everything to keep itself in “being,” as far as possible. And yet, though proceeding from a good intention, an act may be rendered unlawful, if it be out of proportion to the end. Wherefore if a man, in self-defence, uses more than necessary violence, it will be unlawful: whereas if he repel force with moderation his defence will be lawful, because according to the jurists [Cap. Significasti, De Homicid. volunt. vel casual.], “it is lawful to repel force by force, provided one does not exceed the limits of a blameless defence.” Nor is t necessary for salvation that a man omit the act of moderate self-defence in order to avoid killing the other man, since one is bound to take more care of one’s own life than of another’s. But as it is unlawful to take a man’s life, except for the public authority acting for the common good, as stated above (Article 3), it is not lawful for a man to intend killing a man in self-defence, except for such as have public authority, who while intending to kill a man in self-defence, refer this to the public good, as in the case of a soldier fighting against the foe, and in the minister of the judge struggling with robbers, although even these sin if they be moved by private animosity. (ST II II q 64 7)”

Later theologians have pointed out that St Thomas’s treatment is not exhaustive – different considerations may apply to people in remote places, without government, ships at sea and so forth.

Of course, the law may invest the private individual with a power to repress crime. Thus, Exodus 22:2 (which was the civil law of the Jewish commonwealth) provides that “If a thief is caught breaking in at night and is struck a fatal blow, the defender is not guilty of bloodshed” and the Roman law allowed the killing of a nocturnal thief; in the daytime, he could only be killed, if he defended himself with a weapon and if the person attacked called for help, “endo ploratom” to show he was not acting by stealth.

Phillip
Phillip
Sunday, February 16, AD 2014 4:36am

I am aware of this. I deferred further exploration of this point as theologians differ as to whether Aquinas meant one could directly intend killing on the part of a public authority or not (this is not a position I think is defensible but some many do.)
I rather point out the current thought of the Church in that capital punishment may only be used in defense of society and thus it follows self-defense much more closely in that the intention is not killing but defense.

Mary De Voe
Sunday, February 16, AD 2014 9:19am

God is love. God needs someone to love. Jesus Christ, the Son of God is loved by God. The Son of God loves His Father. The Third Person of the Blessed Trinity, The Holy Spirit, is the love WHO proceeds from the Father to the Son and from the Son to the Father.
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Allah has no son.
In Spain , the heretics and witches were given a choice: convert to Catholicism or leave. Those who insisted upon staying, stayed at their own risk and also violated state law. The Crusades were a just war against aggression in the Holy Lands.
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Only for killing a man, must a man be put to death. Exodus 20?
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This is essential, because Islam orders persons to be put to death for blasphemy. Jesus Christ was crucified for blasphemy. Jesus said that He was the Son of God.
Here, we have a spectacular sight of separation of church and state. It has been noted that persons have been executed by the state for crimes against the church, or that the church has employed the state to execute offenders of religion. In every case, a sin against the church carries a crime against man. Blasphemy, real and true blasphemy scandalizes the soul and invites crimes against man.I do not know the particulars of many of the instances but the basic fact is that even when the Pope consents to execute the sinners, the Pope excommunicates himself by mortal sin and the state annihilates itself by executing an innocent man.
At Nuremberg, the question was asked: “Where did we go wrong? and the answer came: “When you killed the first innocent man.”
Violence, that is not just war or the security of the nation, through armed force, in the Name of God is the greatest blasphemy against God

Mary De Voe
Sunday, February 16, AD 2014 9:34am

Phillip: “I rather point out the current thought of the Church in that capital punishment may only be used in defense of society and thus it follows self-defense much more closely in that the intention is not killing but defense.”
Capital punishment is defense but it is also the remedy to save the murderer’s immortal soul and let no one tell you differently. It is called bringing the murderer to Justice without which the murderer’s soul may not enter into the Beatific Vision, Who is Justice. Offering the murderer forgiveness which the murderer does not accept, is futile and violates the victim’s right to forgive or not to forgive. The state does not own the victim or the murderer. The Catholic Church does not own the victim or the murderer. God owns the victim and murderer and the Church and the state.(Render unto God what is God’s) Bringing the murderer to Justice is bringing the murder to God Who is Justice. So much of the state’s banality in capital punishment banning is nothing more than the imposition of atheism. “And may God have mercy on your immortal soul” is said no more. If a man is not willing to accept his punishment for capital one homicide, he is not a man, but cowardly demon and let him go to the gallows.

slainte
slainte
Sunday, February 16, AD 2014 9:37am

Father Robert Barron just released two pieces collectively entitled, “Extreme Demands, Extreme Mercy” which recognize the Church’s universal call to holiness for the faithful to live heroically virtuous and moral lives. Father analogizes the Church’s social teaching on sexual morality and “Just War” to illustrate the high bar set by the Church for its faithful to become saints and its merciful remedy for those who fall short of the ideal.
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I would suggest that the Church recognizes for itself the highest bar (and a counter-cultural example) when it stringently departs from violence in the name of God…or as Father Barron says, “Does anyone actually think that a Church that is designed to produce saints ought to be dialing down its moral ideals?”
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Father Barron describes the standards a State must simultaneously meet to merit a Just War:
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1) declaration by a competent authority,
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2) the presence of a just cause,
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3) some proportion between the good to be achieved and the negativity of the war,
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4) discrimination between combatants and non combatants,
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5) right intention on the part of those engaged in the conflict,
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6) last resort, and
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7) a reasonable hope of success.
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Sources: http://youtu.be/R0jpylnK2y8 and http://youtu.be/tC6WEWuXS4A

Mary De Voe
Sunday, February 16, AD 2014 9:43am

Michael Paterson-Seymour: I have found the Old Testament and Moses’ law to be the foundation of all law. Atheism removing the Bible from the public square is no less than a violation of the inheritance of the people in pursuit of their Happiness. “No law is good law is nonsense.”

Spambot3049
Spambot3049
Sunday, February 16, AD 2014 9:59am

“Capital punishment is defense but it is also the remedy to save the murderer’s immortal soul and let no one tell you differently.”
Disagree. The amount of time between the guilty verdict and the execution is an arbitrary duration chosen by the state. Not every convict has a change of mind and true repentance during that arbitrary time period. A lifetime sentence gives the convict his full natural life, as chosen by God, to decide whether to repent.
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I also disagree with this: “Offering the murderer forgiveness which the murderer does not accept, is futile and violates the victim’s right to forgive or not to forgive.”
Not only do I not agree, but the part about “the victim’s right to forgive or not to forgive” does not even make sense. The victim of the murderer is dead, and yet we know that forgiveness of a murderer is still possible.
Murder is not only a crime against an individual, but also the victim’s family and against civilized society as a whole. Each of us is harmed (some more than others) by the murder of another of member of society, and we are all called to overcome that harm and forgive the perpetrator. No?

Mary De Voe
Sunday, February 16, AD 2014 10:15am

slainte: some comment on Father Barron’s take of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Monday night quarterbacking. Hindsight is 20/20. Are you going to kill me or are you going to only rape or rob me? to be asked of a drug crazed assailant who probably does not even know the answer himself. It is God’s law that Father Barron and St. Thomas are presenting. Extenuating circumstances are present.
Two weeks before the United States dropped the atomic bomb, leaflets were dropped on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki warning the inhabitants of the bomb. The Japs (that is what they were called) were called on to surrender (many times). The Japs did not surrender.
When the atomic bomb was first detonated, many scientists believed that the whole atmosphere would become a chain reaction and the globe would cease to exist. As attested to by the atomic tests on American soldiers, no one knew or could predict the power of nuclear fission. We knew that the atomic bomb could end the war. The kamikazes would be ended. The death marches would be ended. The slave camps would be ended. Just war theory. Some reasonable hope of success.
I believe that the atomic bomb fulfilled all of Thomas Aquinas’ prerequisites. Many of the non-combatants may have carried the bloodguilt for the war, either consented to the war or did nothing to stop the war (resistance). There was horrible death and destruction on all sides.
Must go to Mass return later

Mary De Voe
Sunday, February 16, AD 2014 10:19am

Spambot: ““Capital punishment is defense but it is also the remedy to save the murderer’s immortal soul and let no one tell you differently.”
Disagree. The amount of time between the guilty verdict and the execution is an arbitrary duration chosen by the state. Not every convict has a change of mind and true repentance during that arbitrary time period. A lifetime sentence gives the convict his full natural life, as chosen by God, to decide whether to repent.”
A repentant capital one murderer will expire with grief over the sin and crime. A living capital one murderer does not point to his innocence only his recalcitrance and arrogance before God.

slainte
slainte
Sunday, February 16, AD 2014 10:57am

Mr. McClarey writes, “…Not at this time in America. It is an almost endless cycle of appeals in which many of the convicted murderers die of other causes prior to being put to death by the State…”
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For those who are wrongly convicted of capital crimes, I am grateful for a system of justice that exhausts an appeal process before permitting a state to deprive a person of life.
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A friend and colleague who was certified for capital cases in NYS and who practiced exclusively in this area was convinced that many innocent persons were wrongly convicted, and executed, because of ineffective or imcompetent counsel.
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Legal Aid attorneys were, and are, overwhelmed and understaffed which contributes to an inability, despite best efforts, to provide optimal legal services to the poor and indigent charged with capital crimes.
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The appeal process represents one final opportunity to get justice right in those instances where error may have occurred in a lower Court.

Spambot3049
Spambot3049
Sunday, February 16, AD 2014 11:33am

Mostly I was disagreeing with the notion that we must not forgive an unrepentant murderer. To extract concessions from the sinner as a pre-condition of forgiveness can be explained as Darwinism in action, with no need for supernatural grace.

Phillip
Phillip
Sunday, February 16, AD 2014 12:20pm

“Capital punishment is defense but it is also the remedy to save the murderer’s immortal soul and let no one tell you differently.”

That is one of the reasons that capital punishment has been argued as licit. However, with the Catechism, the Church seems to be ruling this out solely in favor of defense.

Whether this is a definitive pronouncement, I will leave to others.

slainte
slainte
Sunday, February 16, AD 2014 1:18pm

Mr. McClarey writes, “The last execution in New York State was in 1963…”
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But….

“…The death penalty has been abolished and reinstated several times in New York. New York’s death penalty was accidentally abolished in 1860, when the legislature passed measures that repealed hanging as a method of execution but provided no other means of carrying out a death sentence. The mistake was corrected a year later in 1861.
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Lewis E. Lawes, the warden of Sing Sing Prison from 1920-1941, advocated for the abolition of capital punishment. Although he supervised 303 executions, Lawes believed that capital punishment was inequitable and not a deterrent. He noted that barely 1 in 80 killers was executed, and said “Did you ever see a rich man go the whole route through to the Death House? I don’t know of any.”
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In 1967, a compromise law was passed allowing for a very limited death penalty. In 1972, the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated all death penalty statutes in the country in Furman v. Georgia. The New York legislature rewrote the state’s statute in 1973, providing for a mandatory death sentence for murdering a police officer, a correctional officer, or a murder in prison by an inmate serving a life sentence. In 1977, New York’s high court effectively struck down the death penalty for the murder of a police officer or a correctional officer, and a 1984 ruling struck down capital punishment for murders committed by inmates serving life sentences, effectively abolishing New York’s death penalty. From 1978 until 1994, measures repeatedly passed both houses of New York’s state legislature that would have expanded or reinstated the death penalty, only to be vetoed by governors Hugh Carey and Mario Cuomo.
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In 1995 newly-elected Governor George Pataki fulfilled a campaign promise and signed legislation reinstating the death penalty in New York, designating lethal injection as the new method of execution. In 2004, that statute was declared unconstitutional by the New York Court of Appeals, and in 2007 the last remaining death sentence was reduced to life, leaving New York with a vacant death row and no viable death penalty laws. In 2008 Governor David Paterson issued an executive order requiring the removal of all execution equipment from state facilities.
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Source: http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/new-york-1.
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In the 1990s, when I was associated with a commercial litigation firm and feeling somewhat overwhelmed, I would reorient myself by visiting the “Tombs” in lower Manhattan (the Criminal Court at 40 Centre Street) where criminal arraignments occurred late into the night.
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I observed first hand the Ass’t District Attorneys petition the Court and the Legal Aid lawyers respond in defense for bail and other forms of relief. On the evenings I attended, there were few privately retained defense attorneys. It was only then that I fully understood the heavy burden that was borne by the ADAs and the Legal Aid lawyers whose caseloads were voluminous. There appeared to be fewer Legal Aid attorneys thatn ADAs; yet the Legal Aid attorneys were responsible for representing many who were in fact innocent persons.
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Likewise the ADAs had their hands full which no doubt benefitted accused persons better able to afford skilled, private defense counsel.
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I believe Barry Scheck, Esq. began to work on the Innocence Project during the period when the death penaly was in effect in NYS to find alternative ways (ie., DNA evidence) to exonerate wrongly convicted prisoners as well as to offer a good faith defense for the accused. While I do not know Mr. Scheck, he became well known in connection with the OJ Simpson murder case.

slainte
slainte
Sunday, February 16, AD 2014 1:49pm

Ms. McClarey writes: “…Which excludes the vast majority of convicted murderers. Our appeal process for convicted murderers is a sick expensive joke that goes on for decades…”
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I do not advocate abuse of process. I support a convicted person’s right to a full and fair opportunity to appeal the holdings of a lower court to determine whether material error has occurred which would justify acquital. I defer to the Court to place reasonable limitations on this process which serve the interests of justice.
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As a Catholic, I take seriously the Church’s admonition that all life is sacred from the moment of conception to the moment of natural death. Any earthly authority that inserts itself into this process must be very carefully monitored and, where appropriate, countermanded to honor God’s ultimate authority as creator and judge.

slainte
slainte
Sunday, February 16, AD 2014 1:59pm

What does the death penalty accomplish that life in prison without parole does not?

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