My previous post on Senator Kerry's nuanced position on abortion elicited this response.
I can't let this one go without pointing out a fundamental fact to you. George Bush was the Governor of Texas and had the personal power to stop capitol punishment in his state and he did nothing (allowing 119 executions). I know that he is not Catholic but what he did or failed to do was against Catholic doctrine. Also, I'm pretty sure that the Pope came out and called the war in Iraq an unjust war but that seems to be OK with you so, are we going to call the Catholic Church wrong on that one? So it seems that we all twist our beliefs to fit our own personal world view, including yourself.
Both are valid points. Like the reader, I too am confused how much of the religious right in the United States is pro-life but support the death penalty. I did some reading on this and the Catholic Catechism is not 100% against the death penalty. I quote the following from the Vatican website.
2266 The efforts of the state to curb the spread of behavior harmful to people's rights and to the basic rules of civil society correspond to the requirement of safeguarding the common good. Legitimate public authority has the right and duty to inflict punishment proportionate to the gravity of the offense. Punishment has the primary aim of redressing the disorder introduced by the offense. When it is willingly accepted by the guilty party, it assumes the value of expiation. Punishment then, in addition to defending public order and protecting people's safety, has a medicinal purpose: as far as possible, it must contribute to the correction of the guilty party.
2267 Assuming that the guilty party's identity and responsibility have been fully determined, the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.
If, however, non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people's safety from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and more in conformity to the dignity of the human person.
Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an offense incapable of doing harm - without definitely taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself - the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity "are very rare, if not practically nonexistent."
I do not add this to try to counter the argument but as an attempt to learn myself. In a lot of respects this blog is me, learning out loud. Obviously 119 executions do not meet the condition of being rare.
On this issue of the Catholic Churches opposition to the war I have to admit that I struggle with this one. I discussed this one at more length in this post and this follow-up post. For the sake of clarity I will include the portion on the just war doctrine:
2309 The strict conditions for legitimate defense by military force require rigorous consideration. The gravity of such a decision makes it subject to rigorous conditions of moral legitimacy. At one and the same time: - the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain; - all other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective; - there must be serious prospects of success; - the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. The power of modern means of destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition.
I will concede that it was proven that all other means had be shown to be impractical or ineffective (you may choose otherwise). Therefore the main objection is in "lasting, grave and certain". This is where the Bush Administrations concept of pre-emptive action disagrees with the teaching of the Catholic Church. However, in a post 9/11 world I have a hard time disagreeing with President Bush on this one.
One final thought, my main problem with what Senator Kerry said in the debate was that he said his faith teaches him that abortion is wrong, but that he won't do anything about it. I doubt that President Bush (or then Governor) said I believe the death penalty is wrong but I am doing it anyway, or my faith tells me the war in Iraq is wrong but I am going ahead anyway. As I said in the post, it was that Senator Kerry quotes faith with no deeds, and them immediately shows his faith has no deeds.
Anyways, thank you for taking time to respond to one of my posts. I appreciate it.
