Tuesday, March 19, AD 2024 12:18am

PopeWatch: Contradictions

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Father Brian Harrison at One Peter Five examines the problems that arise when a pope contradicts an earlier pope:

 

 

Last week saw the release of an important interview (PDF link) given by Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, Archbishop of Vienna and one of Pope Francis’ most trusted theological advisers and spokesmen, to the Roman Jesuit journal La Civiltà Cattolica. The topic was the Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia (AL):

This interview has already made waves round the world, mainly because of His Eminence’s insistence on three points: first, that an apostolic exhortation such as AL is indeed an authoritative magisterial document, containing teaching that Catholics must assent to; secondly, that all previous teachings on marriage and the family must now be interpreted in the light of AL; and finally, that AL is indeed to be understood as allowing divorced and civilly remarried Catholics to receive the sacraments of Reconciliation and Eucharist in some cases, even without a commitment to live ‘as brother and sister’.

I actually have no quarrel in principle with Cardinal Schönborn’s first point, about the status of apostolic exhortations. Though relatively recent in origin, they are fairly high in the ‘pecking order’ of magisterial documents – probably just a tad beneath encyclicals. To a large extent they are indeed hortatory and pastoral in tone and content, rather than strictly doctrinal. But Schönborn is correct in  pointing out that when certain passages are worded in such a way as to manifest the Pontiff’s intention to inculcate some doctrinal truth, that certainly counts as magisterial teaching. I also agree with the principle of theological method that underlies Cardinal Schönborn’s second controversial statement – that all previous magisterial statements on marriage and the family must now be interpreted in the light of AL. However, what His Eminence says is not the whole truth.

Let me explain. It has often happened in the historical development of Catholic doctrine that certain teachings which at an earlier stage were not fully explicated were subsequently clarified by new interventions of the magisterium. For instance, the ancient faith of the Church that the Blessed Virgin was without sin did not make entirely clear whether her perfect sinlessness began at the very moment of her conception. Hence, as is well known, some distinguished theologians over the centuries disputed her Immaculate Conception until Bl. Pius IX finally settled the question dogmatically in 1854. So when a later magisterial teaching adds precision or clarity to an earlier one, or draws out its logical implications, then of course we’re going to interpret the earlier statement(s) in the light of the later one.

But what happens when the reverse is the case – when a more recent magisterial statement is less clearly expressed than an earlier one? This has been a problem with certain documents of Vatican Council II. Since the sometimes deep theological cracks between ‘liberal’ and ‘conservative’ Fathers had to be papered over so as to get a consensus vote, the final texts on some topics – e.g., religious freedom, biblical inerrancy, ecumenism, the definition of Christ’s Church, his social kingship, and whether those dying as non-believers can be saved – are less clear than earlier relevant statements of the magisterium. In this new situation, correct theological methodology requires us to interpret the new teaching in the light of the old one. Unfortunately, Cardinal Schönborn’s one-sided presentation says nothing about this complementary norm.

In both situations, the basic interpretative principle is the same:  we should interpret less clear magisterial statements in the light of those that are expressed more clearly, regardless of which happened to come first. That common-sense norm derives from a still more basic principle, namely, the revealed promise of Jesus that his Holy Spirit will always be present in the Church to guide and keep her in the path of truth (cf. John 14: 16-17, 26). So when two apparently contrasting magisterial statements can reasonably be harmonized, they should be.

However, that raises another question: What if it seems impossible to reconcile two papal affirmations dealing with faith and morals?  This brings us to the third and most contentious of the controversial positions now espoused by Cardinal Schönborn. Some have sought to reconcile with previous papal teaching Pope Francis’ statements in AL #305 and its notorious footnote 351, which says that “in certain cases” Catholics living “in an objective situation of sin” (notably the divorced and civilly remarried) can receive “the help of the sacraments” – sacraments which the same footnote identifies as Penance and Eucharist. According to would-be reconcilers, the Holy Father should here be understood as implicitly restricting this sacramental “help” to those who commit to live ‘as brother and sister’.

Given the context, this bland reading of note 351 never struck me as very plausible. In any case, it has now been rejected decisively – almost scornfully! – by the learned prelate whom Francis himself has repeatedly designated as the most trustworthy commentator on the new apostolic exhortation. Moreover, this occurs in an interview that the Pope would almost certainly have read beforehand. (Every issue of this top-drawer Jesuit journal is vetted by the Vatican Secretariat of State prior to publication.) When editor Spadaro asks Schönborn if he agrees that it’s “obvious” Pope Francis is not limiting this sacramental “help” to couples living as brother and sister, His Eminence immediately responds, “Yes, certainly!” He then spells it right out: the present Holy Father “does not stop short at the kinds of cases that are specified [by John Paul II]in no. 84 of Familiaris consortio.” (That is, those cases where the couple abstain from sexual intimacy.)

Hopefully Schönborn’s authority will at least settle the debate as to what Pope Francis means and intends on this point. But let’s look again at this key article of Pope St. John Paul II’s 1981 apostolic exhortation on the family. In the troubled wake of AL, most appeals to the authority of FC #84 have cited its exclusion of (sexually active) remarried divorcees from the Eucharist. But still more basic is what this article says about the sacrament of Penance. For if you can’t be absolved, you can’t go to Communion anywhere – not even in a church where this would cause no scandal.  And John Paul affirms, “Reconciliation in the sacrament of Penance, which would open the way to the Eucharist, can only be granted to those who, repenting of having broken the sign of the Covenant and of fidelity to Christ, . . . take on themselves the duty to live in complete continence, that is, by abstinence from the acts proper to married couples.”

Now, this is where the rubber hits the road, folks. Pope John Paul, in continuity with all his predecessors from time immemorial, has reaffirmed that only those divorced and civilly remarried Catholics who commit to live in complete continence may be given sacramental absolution. But Pope Francis now says that those who make that commitment are not the only such Catholics who can be absolved.

“Only” vs. “Not only”.  No ‘hermeneutic of continuity’ can mask that stark contradiction. But that hasn’t stopped some from trying. We have seen two principal attempts to square the circle.

 

Go here to read the rest.  Pope Francis has brought to the fore the problem that occurs when a Pope contradicts a previous pope on a question of faith and morals.  Pope Francis does this more frequently than any pope I can recall, although certainly it has occurred in previous papacies.  When  such contradictions occur the usual Catholic response has been to deny that there is a contradiction, to attempt to distinguish what the popes were writing about, or to attempt to ignore the whole thing.  This problem has gotten worse over the past century and a half, as modern Popes write a good deal more than their earlier predecessors and often seem blithely indifferent to the fact that they are contradicting a prior Pope.  Such contradictions do harm to the respect that Catholics are called upon to have for their popes and also does damage frequently to the intellectual honesty that should ever be a hallmark of Catholicism.

 

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Penguin Fan
Penguin Fan
Wednesday, July 20, AD 2016 4:28am

AL reminds me of a Liberty Mutual commercial. “What does Page Five of your car insurance policy say? Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.”
AL is hundreds of pages of blah blah blah blah blah blah.

bill bannon
bill bannon
Wednesday, July 20, AD 2016 5:21am

. Yet if you finesse the words, three Popes in a row now have contradicted scripture itself and tradition and a recent Pope on the death penalty….by pretending e.g. that world prisons safely prevent murderers from phoning a murder hit to gang members out on the street from prison….like in Latin America lol. Ludicrous liberal imaging for Euro world opinion.
No theologian says boo because everyone fears their Church position loss. The Eucharist alone got intellectuals out of the fear position.
Father Brian Harrison is a gift to many discussions though too obedient on torture after clashing with Mark Shea who is a form of torture.
A kidnapper is arrested but won’t give the location of two dying children. Common sense…apply pain…limit permanent serious damage. Remove one tooth…drill the root without pain killer…he draws a map in under a minute. I would. If he doesn’t…you know you tried.

bill bannon
bill bannon
Wednesday, July 20, AD 2016 7:32am

I should not suggest that Shea changed Harrison on torture. Harrison did not feel bound by an anti torture note in the Compendium of Social Teachings because the note was authored by the Commission on social justice which is not magisterial. But Harrison changed when Pope Benedict reiterated the message of the note. I disagree with his obedience to Benedict because scripture repeatedly affirms torture and thus one is obeying Benedict while not obeying e.g. the following…
Proverbs 20:30..” Evil is driven out by bloody lashes and a scourging to the inmost being.”…”a rod for the back of fools” Proverbs 26:3….and John 2:15 ” He made a whip of cords”… said of Christ.
Popes should work at nuancing the area not forbidding something Christ did. Read the catechism on torture….Christ acted against the catechism definition.

Foxfier
Admin
Wednesday, July 20, AD 2016 11:42am

bill bannon –
The previous pope flatly stated that it capital punishment is licit, even if his prudential judgement was that it wasn’t currently needed. He even used it as an example to contrast with an intrinsic evil like abortion.
I don’t know about JPII, but I’d guess he had similar views.

bill bannon
bill bannon
Wednesday, July 20, AD 2016 2:16pm

Foxfier,
Would that it were so….but…. Cardinal Ratzinger contrasted abortion with the death penalty and allowed you to use it… in a letter to Bishops. Pope Benedict …seemingly a body double of Ratzinger….sought abolition as did St. JPII :

– Pope Benedict XVI Post-synodal Apostolic Exhortation Africae Munus Benin, November 19,
“…I draw the attention of society’s leaders to the need to make every effort to eliminate the death penalty and to reform the penal system…”

St. John Paul II…St. Louis 1999:
“I renew the appeal…to end the death penalty, which is both cruel and unnecessary.”

You can’t use it Foxfier if your man succeeds in abolishing it which Benedict did in the Phillipines congradualating its President when she told him they abolished it. Now they have a president who wants to reward citizens for killing resistant drug dealers as he did as mayor in his town….where vigilantes frequently did drive by shootings of drug dealers.

Foxfier
Admin
Wednesday, July 20, AD 2016 2:31pm

You’re not understanding, Bill– I told you that he believed it wasn’t needed anymore.
That’s probably why he chose it for the famous example, as a “I think this is currently not needed” vs “this IS NOT MORAL.”
That he repeatedly said he didn’t believe it was needed doesn’t change that he did not teach it was now inherently immoral. He couldn’t, but he didn’t even try.
****
Think of it as being like a self-defense situation. If you don’t have any other reasonable option, you can kill the aggressor.
If you do have another reasonable option– say, his only weapon is his fists, he’s only trying to kill you, and you have a nice big oak door you can slam in his face and lock– then it’s, to steal a phrase, cruel and unnecessary to shoot him.

bill bannon
bill bannon
Wednesday, July 20, AD 2016 3:08pm

Foxfier,
You like them but they both became pacifist and overly soft in very old age when testosterone faded. Can you imagine Cardinal Ratzinger having a personal fragrance?…no…Benedict did.
If you are trying to abolish the death penalty worldwide, (Benedict not Ratzinger so tried) then you no longer see it as a last and legit resort…you see it as no resort at all. St.JPII just called it “cruel” above in my last post which means inherently wrong in theology jargon but St. JPII called both slavery and torture and deportation intrinsically evil in Splendor of the Truth and they simply are not. Leviticus 25:44 onward is God giving perpetual slavery over foreigners to the Jews and I already gave several torture verses….and deportation can be good or bad as Germany is now learning.
Nov. 2011…Benedict…general audience:
” To special groups:

I greet the distinguished delegations from various countries taking part in the meeting promoted by the Community of Sant’Egidio on the theme: No Justice without Life. I express my hope that your deliberations will encourage the political and legislative initiatives being promoted in a growing number of countries to eliminate the death penalty and to continue the substantive progress made in conforming penal law both to the human dignity of prisoners and the effective maintenance of public order. Upon all the English-speaking pilgrims present, including those from the United States, I invoke God’s blessings of joy and peace!”

No Justice without Life…he affirms that slogan but it means the dath penalty is evil….not no lnger necessary.
Contrast all of this mularkey with Romans 13:4 from the Holy Spirit…. “But if you do evil, be afraid, for it does not bear the sword without purpose; it is the servant of God to inflict wrath on the evildoer.”
Do you see any of these last three Popes connecting God’s wrath to executions as the positive thing that Romans is implying? No…in fact the verse is not mentioned in Evangelium Vitae at all and it was key to Aquinas and probably to Pius XII.

Foxfier
Admin
Wednesday, July 20, AD 2016 3:31pm

If you are trying to abolish the death penalty worldwide, (Benedict not Ratzinger so tried) then you no longer see it as a last and legit resort…you see it as no resort at all.

If the situation was as he judged it to be, then he’d be right.
****
You keep trying to tell me that their personal judgements as if those are binding teachings.
The pope doesn’t have special prudential judgment powers. Their judgement is not infallible– it’s not even inherently any better than anybody else with the same information.
It DOES NOT MATTER if the Pope thinks that double-chocolate-espresso ice cream is the worst thing to happen to chocolate, milk and coffee in all of time; a Catholic can think it’s awesome. (We’re not to call him a dum-dum and ignorant poopie head or otherwise get nasty, both because we’re supposed to be decent people and because it’s insulting to the office.)

T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Wednesday, July 20, AD 2016 3:51pm

What’s the word for exhibiting greater concern over a couple scores of justly-convicted/sentenced murderers than over scores of millions of (gestational human) babies (the epitome of innocence) killed by abortions?
.
It tells me where lie their priorities.

bill bannon
bill bannon
Wednesday, July 20, AD 2016 4:14pm

. Christ used the severest insulting language ( whited sepulchers) for the very authorities that He said sat on the chair of Moses…which is where the Popes now sit.
I think He likes my term “mularkey” because non death penalty Brazil the largest Catholic population had 50,674 murders in 2014….non death penalty Catholic Austria had 40. Affluent cultures like Austria have few murders regardless of punishment type. I’ve been jumped or attempted jumped 10 or so times in my life…never by an investment banker. Always by the poor. UN figures show non death penalty northern nominally Catholic Latin America as the number one murderous large region on earth…often death penalty East Asia is the safest large area on earth despite a billion poor. Brazil’s 50,674 murders become by murder rate in a similar number of Chinese people
about 3000 murders…mostly poor in both countries. There are many other factors but safe to say, the lack of a death penalty is horrible where the poor predominate. No death penalty might well be killing 47,000 down to 20,000 people a year just in Brazil. The US Supreme Court comparing warring deterrence studies found that xecution saves lives …after stopping it for four years. The Popes by not looking at UN stats AS TO POOR DOMINATED COUNTRIES ONLY and by fighting the death penalty…are getting tens of thousands of people murdered per year when they are successful in the future in poor countries. Africa…mostly poor again…having few executions is the second worst murderous area of the world. East Asia is slightly safer even than Europe which is safe due to not being poor dominated. Christ is not pleased with Brazil’s 50,000 murders a year….the largest Catholic population on earth and we’ve been there for 500 years. I think Christ likes my use of “mularkey”. Have you ever heard one of these Popes mention Catholic and coincidentally non death penalty northern Latin America as being number one in murder on earth? No…I think all three never looked at any world stats…such data is never in their comments at all. That is bizarre.

Foxfier
Admin
Wednesday, July 20, AD 2016 4:20pm

Was Christ “disrespectful or scornfully abusive,” or was He telling the truth?
A painful truth, but He was rather known for hard sayings when it was needed.
Not accusations, but truth.
***
You’re still not responding to any actual points, Bill.

bill bannon
bill bannon
Wednesday, July 20, AD 2016 4:24pm

ps…correction what is 50,674 murders in Brazil is about 2100 in China.

bill bannon
bill bannon
Wednesday, July 20, AD 2016 4:26pm

Foxfier,
You responded zero to an actual question about Romans 13:4.

Foxfier
Admin
Wednesday, July 20, AD 2016 4:30pm

I also did not talk about elephants, tax rates or the price of tea in China.

That is because they’re all irrelevant to your still unsupported notion that the Popes have contradicted scripture.

bill bannon
bill bannon
Wednesday, July 20, AD 2016 4:39pm

So you think their each of these three Popes seeking abolition worldwide of the death penalty is not contradictory of the Romans 13:4 saying that execution acts as a servant to God’s wrath on the evil doer?

bill bannon
bill bannon
Wednesday, July 20, AD 2016 5:30pm

For folks following this, Romans 13:4 at the end of the Bible is rooted somewhat in God giving both Jews and Gentiles a mandate to execute murderers in the beginning of the Bible in Gen.9:5-6. And God did this just prior to the first government appearing with Nimrod in Gen. 10:8. So this was not a Jewish thing but a universal thing and you find it in the catechism in the below article
ccc 2260. Does it fit with ccc 2267 which carries a prudential judgement that execution is rarely necessary? I think the two passages were written by two different Cardinals assigned to the topic…and they do seem at odds…like Cardinals are at odds over AL….here is ccc 2260:

ccc 2260
2260 The covenant between God and mankind is interwoven with reminders of God’s gift of human life and man’s murderous violence:
” For your lifeblood I will surely require a reckoning. . . . Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for God made man in his own image.” 59
The Old Testament always considered blood a sacred sign of life.60 This teaching remains necessary for all time.”
……….
Read ccc 2267 and you feel transported to surely a different Cardinal writing on the topic…and one closer to the Popes’ abhorrence of executions which abhorrence is non scriptural as you can see from this cite and my cite of Rom.13:4.

Foxfier
Admin
Wednesday, July 20, AD 2016 11:32pm

I’ve explained it several times now.
What part are you either not getting, or not agreeing with?

bill bannon
bill bannon
Thursday, July 21, AD 2016 4:40am

The prudential versus doctrinal issue that is the heart of your point doesn’t matter outside your conscience and a theology classroom. In the real world, several Popes used the “prudential” to circumvent “doctrine and scripture” and they placed that prudential judgement in ccc 2267…in a catechism where it strikes 96% of Catholics as doctrine.. The prudential doesn’t belong in a catechism but St. JPII with the assistance of Ratzinger began that precedent in ccc 2267.

Francis saw that successful circumvention of doctrine by the prudential and then used the idea of dichotomy a slightly different way…the dichotomy between the doctrinal and the pastoral. He says he is not changing doctrine on receiving the Eucharist but rather he says he is being pastoral. If this keeps up, the next three Popes might hypothetically use either “prudential” or “pastoral” to change more doctrine effectively…de facto.

I habitually ignore by now the prudential claim of St.JPII and Benedict because I know from extensive stat reading…that they did no research on deterrence or they did skimming of the liberal school for maybe a week. SCOTUS read both schools for FOUR YEARS and agreed with pro death penalty studies and resumed the death penalty in the US….which they had halted themselves!!
About ten non death penalty Catholic countries are a literal nightmare of murder rates and none of these Popes are even faintly aware of that…because they read no stats on world murder rates. St. JPII circumvented an entire discipline of penology and never refers to any deterrence study because he abhors the death penalty. Prudential is a cover word hiding his real belief…that the death penalty is “cruel” ( he said that in St. Louis 1999) and that is not a prudential word…it’s a doctrinal word concerning his gut belief. He literally removed the death penalty mandate from the middle of Gen.9:5-6 and quotes only the front and back of the passage in section 39 of Evangelium Vitae and effectively hides the middle of the biblical couplet from readers of an encyclical which is partly about the death penalty.

Foxfier
Admin
Thursday, July 21, AD 2016 11:41am

The prudential versus doctrinal issue that is the heart of your point doesn’t matter outside your conscience and a theology classroom.

You’re wrong.
I wish there was a nicer way to say it, but your argument is based on exactly what makes the current Pope and 90% of politics so annoying– the idea that putting principles into effect is going to look identical.
Hell, that’s what makes Shee such an annoyance.
The principles are binding. What we do about them, that’s where it gets ugly– you don’t get to avoid that by declaring that people who don’t judge the situation the same as yourself are going against the Binding teachings.

bill bannon
bill bannon
Thursday, July 21, AD 2016 2:13pm

Adios…your chosen slender slice of all my long posts is the last word between us.

Foxfier
Admin
Thursday, July 21, AD 2016 2:33pm

Don’t let the conversation’s door hit you.
You’ve spent at least a half-dozen posts trying to drag off in every direction except for your initial claim.
At long last, you returned to the initial topic, and it’s wrong.
No matter how much you tried to turn it around so that the Pope’s prudential judgement is binding, it is not.
Since you can’t support it, and changing the subject doesn’t work, you had to quit.

bill bannon
bill bannon
Saturday, July 23, AD 2016 5:07am

Except I never said the prudential is binding anywhere….show us where….and I never have said the prudential is binding elsewhere on the net since I have a minor in Catholic college theology.
I said right above you there that the prudential was placed in a catechism (ccc 2267) where it does not belong and where ” it STRIKES 96% of Catholics as doctrinal”. It is as though you don’t even read the other person and are determined to protect a paradigm that they never attacked.

Foxfier
Admin
Saturday, July 23, AD 2016 9:47am

Except I never said the prudential is binding anywhere….show us where
Easily:
Yet if you finesse the words, three Popes in a row now have contradicted scripture itself and tradition and a recent Pope on the death penalty
They only could contradict it if they now said it is never alright.
They did not. They judged that in this situation, it’s not right.
The only way that them saying “right now, it’s not OK” could contradict scripture is if their prudential judgement was binding.

bill bannon
bill bannon
Saturday, July 23, AD 2016 12:44pm

Both St.JPII and Francis do say it is never alright. You’re seeing the catechism as the same as the three Popes. Incorrect.. After the catechism
said that rare use was allowed if necessary, the three Popes contradicted that afterwards. St. JPII said it was “cruel” in 1999 in St. Louis which if true would not permit the rare use of the catechism position. That which is cruel is evil per se and permits of no rare use. Pope Francis wants to change the catechism and never did agree with its rare use clause and has appointed a commission to work on that because he says ” thou shalt not kill” forbids the death penalty. Both men disbelieve the Bible wherein God gives multiple death penalties in the same book in which He says…” thou shalt not kill”. Ergo St.JPII and Francis are clearly against it per se not just right now…a term none of them use but you inferred it from the catechism. But they have abrogated that most recent catechism by calling ” cruel” etc. something God gave over 33 times in scripture in the first person imperative.
Benedict likewise wants it abolished worldwide which means he too has broke with ccc 2267 which is prudential….which they are not. They’re not saying it is bad right now…ccc2267 said that…they have moved to its being bad per se…one by calling it cruel….one by saying it’s against the fifth commandment and one by wanting it stopped everywhere despite all poor countries lacking secure prisons…..which was the reasoning of stopping the death penalty in ccc 2267 ( which never was true).
Francis intends to condemn it per se in a new catechism revision so he never held the prudential position of ccc 2267. The other two Popes held it as they issued the catechism…then they changed again to ” cruel” and total abolishment….without rare use. None of them used your phrase….” right now it’s not ok”. The prisons of the past centuries in Europe and in the Roman empire were more secure than Mexico’s are now…from which Pablo Gusman escaped twice.

Entirely separate from the three Popes is my position and the Church’s…that the prudential does not bind.

Foxfier
Admin
Saturday, July 23, AD 2016 3:15pm

Both St.JPII and Francis do say it is never alright.

Actual quotes, with sources if not links.

bill bannon
bill bannon
Saturday, July 23, AD 2016 4:01pm

Poe Francis…here:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/jun/23/pope-francis-could-revise-catechism-absolutely-for/

St.JPII I gave you already right after your very first post…..Benedict there too.

Will you be obliged by a Francis doctrinal condemnation of the death penalty in the next catechism? No….it will clearly contradict God in Romans 13:4. Dei Verbum in Vatican II said the Magisterium is “not above the word of God but must serve it…passing down what is handed to them”.
Why did the Council say that if the wrong thing never happened? It said it because the wrong thing has happened. Chaput just informed his non annulled remarrieds that they can’t receive Eucharist despite AL
and Pope Francis unless they live chastely.

bill bannon
bill bannon
Saturday, July 23, AD 2016 4:08pm

Dei Verbum cite is from chapter 2, section 10.

Foxfier
Admin
Saturday, July 23, AD 2016 9:12pm

Francis, in your link, says this:
“Nowadays the death penalty is unacceptable, however grave the crime of the convicted person,”
That is the exact quote they give. There’s a heck of a lot of chatter before that, but that’s the only quote from Francis.
Pretty obviously, that’s a situational claim, or he wouldn’t bother with “nowadays.”
The quotes for the other two, likewise.
They do not say that capital punishment is inherently immoral.
Let me quote then Cardinal Ratzinger:
Not all moral issues have the same moral weight as abortion and euthanasia. 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.
You’ll have to find one of them actually saying something to the effect of “the death penalty is never morally permissible.” Not, “these days there’s no need,” but actually saying “it’s not morally allowed.”

Foxfier
Admin
Saturday, July 23, AD 2016 9:17pm

The context for JPII’s quote might also be useful:
“A sign of hope is the increasing recognition that the dignity of human life must never be taken away, even in the case of someone who has done great evil. Modern society has the means of protecting itself, without definitively denying criminals the chance to reform. I renew the appeal I made recently at Christmas for a consensus to end the death penalty, which is cruel and unnecessary”.
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/secretariat_state/documents/rc_seg-st_doc_02111999_death-penalty_en.html
VERY explicitly situational.
****
If only he’d addressed it in an encycli…. oh, wait:
56. This is the context in which to place the problem of the death penalty. On this matter there is a growing tendency, both in the Church and in civil society, to demand that it be applied in a very limited way or even that it be abolished completely. The problem must be viewed in the context of a system of penal justice ever more in line with human dignity and thus, in the end, with God’s plan for man and society. The primary purpose of the punishment which society inflicts is “to redress the disorder caused by the offence”.46 Public authority must redress the violation of personal and social rights by imposing on the offender an adequate punishment for the crime, as a condition for the offender to regain the exercise of his or her freedom. In this way authority also fulfils the purpose of defending public order and ensuring people’s safety, while at the same time offering the offender an incentive and help to change his or her behaviour and be rehabilitated. 47

It is clear that, for these purposes to be achieved, the nature and extent of the punishment must be carefully evaluated and decided upon, and ought not go to the extreme of executing the offender except in cases of absolute necessity: in other words, when it would not be possible otherwise to defend society. Today however, as a result of steady improvements in the organization of the penal system, such cases are very rare, if not practically non-existent.

In any event, the principle set forth in the new Catechism of the Catholic Church remains valid: “If bloodless means are sufficient to defend human lives against an aggressor and to protect public order and the safety of persons, public authority must limit itself to such means, because they better correspond to the concrete conditions of the common good and are more in conformity to the dignity of the human person”.48
http://w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_25031995_evangelium-vitae.html
ALSO very explicitly a judgement call, not a statement that an inherent moral wrong.

bill bannon
bill bannon
Sunday, July 24, AD 2016 7:00am

Lol. At the Francis link, you only had to press the blue word ” reported” to then read these nuggets of anti biblical, doctrinal, no situational insults to all death penalties….

Vatican City, Jun 22, 2016 / 04:37 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- In a video message sent Wednesday to a gathering of advocates for abolition of the death penalty, Pope Francis welcomed their efforts as a way to promote the right to life of all persons…
Capital punishment “is an offence to the inviolability of life and to the dignity of the human person,” Pope Francis continued. “It likewise contradicts God’s plan for individuals and society, and his merciful justice.”. ( that shows that any situational comments about ” Nowadays” is cover for his real belief which is absolute)

He expressed his “personal appreciation” to the participants for their “commitment to a world free of the death penalty.”

That “public opinion is manifesting a growing opposition to the death penalty, even as a means of legitimate social defence,” he called a “sign of hope.”

In addition to being offensive to the inviolability of human life, Pope Francis said that the death penalty is not “consonant with any just purpose of punishment.” ( that means that God was unjust about 33 times in the Bible as He gave one death penalty to Gentiles and about 32 to Jews)

“It does not render justice to victims, but instead fosters vengeance. The commandment ‘Thou shalt not kill’ has absolute value and applies both to the innocent and to the guilty.”

……….

MEMORIZE….just that last sentence couplet Foxfier. It’s saying implicitly that God fostered vengeance for 4000 years. And the final sentence is the stupidest moment in Catholic Biblical exegesis evah. God gives ” thou shalt not kill” in the same book in which He gives multiple death penalties….Francis didn’t read Deuteronomy past chapter five.

John Paul II finally got you to do a 2nd long copy and paste post….but it’s the same tale. The word “cruel” is never used by a situationalist death penalty commentator which you are portraying him as. A real situationalist commentator would see the death penalty as severe when needed…not cruel when needed….since cruel acts are bad in any century. Had you read Evangelium Vitae completely, you would have seen that absolutist side of John Paul II:
Section 40
” Of course we must recognize that in the Old Testament this sense of the value of life, though already quite marked, does not yet reach the refinement found in the Sermon on the Mount. This is apparent in some aspects of the current penal legislation, which provided for severe forms of corporal punishment and even the death penalty. But the overall message, which the New Testament will bring to perfection, is a forceful appeal for respect for the inviolability of physical life and the integrity of the person. It culminates in the positive commandment which obliges us to be responsible for our neighbour as for ourselves: “You shall love your neighbour as yourself” (Lev 19:18). ”

He is seeing the death penalties of the OT as not really from God and he is seeing Christ as bringing inviolability which means no death penalty ever….not nowadays or any days after the sermon on the mount. His comments you quote that seem to accept it in the past if necessary are not quite honest. Section 40 is the real John Paul who hated aspects of the Old Testament and saw them as not from God. If you believe in inviolability as he did…you found the death penalty disgusting. But God no where supports inviolability. He has Elijah kill 552 men and God praises Jehu for slaughtering the house of Ahab. God has Samuel kill Agag because Saul failed to. The inviolability value is a red herring that is only true in the Bible of the innocent not the guilty. Romans 13:4….from God….found the death penalty not only protective but a servant to bringing about God’s wrath. The passage was critical to Aquinas and no where in the encyclical HV.

bill bannon
bill bannon
Sunday, July 24, AD 2016 8:02am

For folks following this, here is the actual situation..context… for world murder rates from UN figures:

Rate Count
Americas 16.3 157,000
Africa 12.5 135,000
World. 6.2 437,000
Europe 3.0 22,000
Oceania 3.0 1,100
Asia 2.9. 122,000

If Popes are interested in murder victim safety as opposed to Euro and media approval…then they should know the above 2012 UN tallied murder victim rates per 100,000. The Americas where the majority of Catholics live is the most murderous area on earth with a rate of 16.3 and a total count of 157,000 murders. But half of that figure is comng from non death penalty northern Latin America…Chile, Canada, and the US have much lower rates than 16.3 and northern Latin America’s rate is roughly high 20’s per 100,000. Brazil for example has c.one third of the 157,000 murders and Mexico has 1/8th and they are the two largest Catholic dominant countries.
If a Pope were really interested in the safety of murder victims rather than non violence reputation, wouldn’t he at least know that the non death penalty solution was not working for decades at all in protecting 50674 murder victims n the largest Catholic country…Brazil….which has over 20 of the 50 most murderous cities on earth.
Where there are majority middle class, murder rates are low. Where there are majority poor, the death penalty is critical….making Asia the safest area on earth…many death penalties either in Muslim areas or China and making non death penalty Brazil and Mexico awful…in part…there are other variables. Drugs factor in Mexico but China would have larger drug gangs if it did not speedily execute.

bill bannon
bill bannon
Sunday, July 24, AD 2016 8:12am

Summary:
If a recent Pope believes in inviolability….his talk of “nowadays” is cover for an absolutest position against the death penalty. The Popes avoid Romans 13:4 because it continues God’s non inviolability idea of the Old Testament.

Foxfier
Admin
Sunday, July 24, AD 2016 8:33am

Do you think God’s plan is that I have to shoot someone, most likely in front of my innocent children, after he tries to kill us?
No.
Does that mean that it’s inherently immoral?
No. It means it’s a cruddy situation that could be avoided by the right people following God’s will. In this case, the attacker not being a scumbag that tries to harm me and mine.
*******
None of the quotes you offered say what you have repeatedly accused them of saying.
You have to resort to saying “yeah, he says that, but he’s lying to cover what he really thinks.”
The constant subject change to the bloody freaking obvious point that their judgement doesn’t reflect the situation accurately doesn’t do a dang thing to prove your claims.

bill bannon
bill bannon
Sunday, July 24, AD 2016 9:17am

Inviolability as their key word is pivotal. It like cruel is absolutist.
Modernity as to poor dominated countries like Brazil need the death penalty MORE than previous centuries. Romans 13:4 was written within an empire that had non escapable life sentences in the mines….ie God wrote through the human author a death penalty that speaks of God’s wrath ( which bblcally means death..hscal or spiritual) … and the death penalty serving that wrath during a totally secure Roman penology which Evangelium Vitae sees as modern because it needed that for its conclusion. Francis will never mention God’s wrath as part of the death penalty…none of them did….but God did. At some point, you need to love His word when Popes contradict it or edit it out of sight. The vast majority of Popes til Pius XII affirmed the death penalty as they did that the remarrieds not receiving if they were having sex. Prior to Romans becoming canon for sure in the late 4th century, there were pacifist saints and perhaps Popes. But we know Romans 13:4 to be from God after 387 or so.

bill bannon
bill bannon
Sunday, July 24, AD 2016 9:20am

awful typo mistakes…(which biblically means death…physical or spiritual).

Foxfier
Admin
Sunday, July 24, AD 2016 3:57pm

*is still waiting to find out if Bill thinks it is God’s plan that she shoot someone in front of her children*

Foxfier
Admin
Sunday, July 24, AD 2016 4:09pm

Reading the translation of his video comments, it’s really obvious he’s talking in the context of “these days.”
http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/messages/pont-messages/2016/documents/papa-francesco_20160621_videomessaggio-vi-congresso-contro-pena-di-morte.html
With his customary clarity and recognition that others may not agree with the situation as he judges it to stand.
****
Additionally, you have yet to provide what you claimed for the prior two Popes.

bill bannon
bill bannon
Sunday, July 24, AD 2016 4:51pm

Foxfier,
It is God’s Will that you shoot a criminal who intends to kill you or your children. That’s why you have a pistol permit. I have a black man in my life who I fought on the street to his defeat who says he’ll glock me one day. Bet ya I get him first because he’ll want to make a speech first during which he’ll depart for judgement. I didn’t talk when I choked him out and I never talk in a fight.
Aquinas and Pius XII would affirm you in that action hands down. And if you see Francis as having customary clarity, we are on two different planet earths. I had the Jesuits for 8 years…they were all more clarity capable than him.
Bye…no tears, no scenes…I want to remember you just as you are. You’re a past gamer. This debate is a word game to you. I had two friends murdered…never a game to me.

Foxfier
Admin
Sunday, July 24, AD 2016 5:35pm

It is God’s Will that you shoot a criminal who intends to kill you or your children.
For that to be true, He would have to will the criminal to attack us.
His will is that the man not do that; by free choice, he chose against His will, so I’m left having to make choices on how to avoid that.
And if you see Francis as having customary clarity, we are on two different planet earths.
Think about it for a few seconds.
How clear is he usually?
Then that level, even in the negative, is his customary level.
Rather like I’ll explain after dropping something or running into an object that I’m displaying my usual grace and charm.
Bye…no tears, no scenes…I want to remember you just as you are.
Again?
This debate is a word game to you.
Wrong kind of game.
I had two friends murdered…never a game to me.
Ah yes, totally relevant to your still unsupported claims about the last three popes.
One of us is treating it like a game– or at least something other than a rational discussion.

bill bannon
bill bannon
Sunday, July 24, AD 2016 5:52pm

Totally false. It was God’s will that Jehu slaughter the house of Ahab (He praised him for it) and it was not God’s will that the house of Ahab worshipped idols and persecuted the true prophets. Read the Bible cover to cover or suffer needlessly. Here’s what’s going to happen to you if you hesitate with a criminal due to confused theology…NJ suburbs….judge afterwards sent this thug to life plus ….for habitual crime ending in this one:

https://youtu.be/qU0EJS3cJIc

Foxfier
Admin
Sunday, July 24, AD 2016 6:29pm

For it to be His will, He’d have to will the situation that leads up to it.
I chose self defense for a very simple reason: it’s well established.
You’re not trying to kill the man.
You’re trying to stop the threat.
If you can do that without death, you must.
***
Now, the judgement of what you can do, that’s prudential.
I have had some people argue that it’s never needed to kill someone– they tend to be the same ones that insist that you have no good reason to think that a midnight burglar could possibly want anything but the stolen item he has in his hands at the point where you catch him, even if he’s got a gun in his waistband.
(That is, showing really, really bad prudential judgement, may it never harm them or anyone else.)

bill bannon
bill bannon
Sunday, July 24, AD 2016 6:56pm

. In the video, such an unarmed man moving towards you as you are holding a gun has one idea…that you will hesitate as a woman long enough for him to grab the gun. He’ll talk as he moves toward you as con number one. If you start shooting at that advancing unarmed man at ten feet but keep hitting non vital organs, he may still reach you as was the threat in the Michael Brown case who had to be shot seven times prior to falling. Which means get your shots perfect with a pistol or get a shotgun with its superior stopping power and wound trauma.

Foxfier
Admin
Sunday, July 24, AD 2016 8:02pm

That poor woman who was home with her sons, because they were sick– she emptied her .38 into him with self-defense rounds, at near point blank range (not as dangerous as the walking situation, they’d retreated to a crawl space at the attic– the guy was too big to enter quickly).
The guy walked away and drove a few blocks.
***
There’s the related idea that because someone is small, they’re not dangerous.
I was on galley duty with a Marine scout. He’d regularly pick up and TOSS Marines who were over six foot tall– and he wasn’t on any kind of drugs. Woman? Less likely to be muscular. More likely to have a weapon, or a really crazy idea that will maim you. Humans are so easy to break.
***
The “how can you shoot someone over a stereo” folks don’t like these examples.

bill bannon
bill bannon
Sunday, July 24, AD 2016 8:26pm

Lady in crawl space….one more argument for a shotgun. Pistol grip shotgun with magnum shells will give you a swollen hand though next hours …even if 20 gauge….but they’re more maneuverable than full length shotguns in a room but need range testing prior to buying one if you’re a petite female.

Foxfier
Admin
Sunday, July 24, AD 2016 10:11pm

That whole case was a really good example of why the legal “duty to retreat” is a horrible idea– the most defensible place she had was while he was trying to come in the back door. Put a table in front of it, she’d have time to reload even if it’s a glass windowed model.

Foxfier
Admin
Sunday, July 24, AD 2016 10:15pm

If you’re ever looking for more stories– especially if you’re trying to train someone to think in terms of self defense and “you can do something about this” situations– Guns Save Lives has a LOT of stories.
http://gunssavelives.net/browse-stories/
The 911 call for the mom and kids story is the most bored one ever… calling the husband was actually a pretty good idea; not sure I’d have the sense to do that.
http://gunssavelives.net/self-defense/ga-woman-hiding-in-crawlspace-with-2-kids-shoots-intruder-5-times/

bill bannon
bill bannon
Monday, July 25, AD 2016 5:34am

I bookmarked it. N.J. is so anti victim, I’ll have to check there for N.J. stories.

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