Vatican City, Oct 12, 2017 / 09:37 am (CNA).- On Wednesday, Pope Francis told a gathering in Rome that the Catechism of the Catholic Church should significantly revise its treatment of the death penalty.
It’s no surprise that Francis proposed a stronger theological condemnation of capital punishment. He’s criticized the practice throughout his papacy, as did his most immediate predecessors, Pope St. John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI. All three popes have pled for clemency when the execution of condemned prisoners is imminent, and all three have linked capital punishment to the “culture of death” and the “throwaway culture” they’ve criticized. All three have called for nations to abolish the death penalty.
The Church’s official position on the death penalty is nuanced. The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains that the “Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty,” assuming a criminal’s guilt is sufficiently established, and only when execution seems to be the only just way of protecting public safety.
In his landmark encyclical Evangelium Vitae, issued in 1995, John Paul wrote that the punishment of criminals should focus on rehabilitation, while also ensuring the common good – public order and safety. He opposed capital punishment “except in cases of absolute necessity,” when a community would have no other means to protect itself.
Because of the resources available for modern and secure penal systems, John Paul said that today, “such cases are very rare, if practically non-existent.”
In fact, the Catechism was formally revised in 1997 to reflect the teaching of Evangelium Vitae.
The gist of the Church’s current teaching on the death penalty is this: the state has the right to execute criminals, if there is no doubt about that the crime was grave and the offender is guilty. The state cannot justly execute a criminal if it can protect the common good and public safety equally well through non-lethal means. It is the job of the state to judge its own civil conditions and capacity for punishment, in order to determine how to apply those principles, but, when doing so, it should take seriously the moral direction of popes and bishops who have repeatedly said that the death penalty seems unnecessary in the context of developed nations.
On Wednesday, Francis proposed a strikingly different vision. He said that the death penalty “is in itself contrary to the Gospel.” For many theologians, this language, and the idea that the death penalty “in itself” is contrary to the Gospel, has evoked the theological concept of “intrinsically evil acts,” a group which includes torture, rape, lying, abortion, and sexual immorality.
The distinction is important. Intrinsically evil acts are understood to be wrong in all cases, regardless of the circumstances, intention, or rationale. The morality of other kinds of acts is judged, in part, by circumstances. The traditional teaching on the death penalty puts it in the latter category; the morality of a particular execution is partially determined, as the Catechism explains, by the state’s ability to secure the common good in other ways.
Classifying capital punishment as an intrinsically evil act would say that there are no circumstances, in any time and place, in which it can be justified.
Francis’ speech recognized this distinction. He explained that thinking about the death penalty in a new way is the result of the development of social doctrine.
“We are not in the presence of some contradiction with the teaching of the past,” he explained, “because the defense of the dignity of human life from the first moment of conception until natural death has always been found in the teaching of the Church.
“The harmonious development of doctrine, however, requires that we [now] leave out arguments which now appear decisively contrary to the new understanding of Christian truth,” namely, the circumstantial qualifiers which guide current moral reasoning about executions.
Francis proposes that because the Church has gradually developed a deeper understanding of human dignity, over time, we are now able to recognize that execution is always immoral.
The development of doctrine is a thorny theological concept. Theologians have already begun asking whether Francis’ proposal represents a development of prior positions, or a rupture from them. This debate will be complex, likely contentious, and not quickly resolved. But given increased attention to the death penalty in the last half-century, it is an important question to resolve.
Francis did not announce which Vatican offices would be responsible for the reforms he proposed. Past revisions have included the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which is likely to take a lead role in this process. But the Holy Father has a penchant for involving voices beyond traditional structures, so consultation may include some unexpected figures.
There is an additional factor of interest for American readers. In 2014, Pope Francis said that the use of long-term solitary confinement is a kind of torture. This position is also held by many psychologists, who have noted that solitary incarnation can have a profoundly negative impact on mental health. Long-term solitary confinement is the most prominent alternative to the death penalty proffered by American corrections officials, especially for habitual unmanageable inmates.
If long-term solitary confinement is a kind of torture, and thus an intrinsically evil act, it can never be morally justified. If execution also begins to be classified as an intrinsically evil act, Catholics will have to think carefully and creatively about very different approaches to criminal justice in the United States. Spurring that thinking may be a part of what Pope Francis has in mind.
Death penalty opponents across the world have cheered Pope Francis’ comments on capital punishment. But his remarks on Thursday might also reveal something about the Pope’s understanding of doctrine’s development, a theological issue with effect on many other elements of the pontiff’s teaching, including the already controversial Amoris Laetitia. That conversation will probably make fewer headlines, but for the Church, its implications could be significant.
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Once again the faithful are asked to suffer the cancellation of public demonstration of homage to Our Lady. This recalls last year’s locking of Church doors and dispensations at Mass because of its non-essential nature. Is it any wonder that no faith is fast disappearing under the rod of such activity?
Scripture warns against a fear of material. Scripture and seeks to rather provoke fear of the eternal spiritual. (Matthew 10:28) Perennial Magisterial teaching on virtue speaks to courage and hope; where are these demonstrable in Francis? Francis chooses to travel alone with carriers of uncleanliness banned from his path. Rather should we seek and see Our Lord who sacrificed His Holy Humanity so sinners could be cleansed and made like Him.
If avoiding Covid is the reason, why didn’t he cancel the Pachamama worship in St. Peter’s?
The Pope did not have to do what you suggest here because there was the Pachamama icon was never worshipped at the Vatican. It is a lie that is still being spread by those who hate our Pope.
He had his MC place the ceremonial bowl of dirt, which specifically symbolizes Pachamama, an Idol, on St. Peter’s altar at the offertory, where it remained throughout the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. And shortly after that, public Mass was canceled throughout the world and most all the Catholic churches in the whole world shut down for months, unprecedented in the history of the Church. Also it was most assuredly worshipped in the Vatican gardens, by a large circle of individuals including two Franciscans bowed their foreheads down to the ground before the idol.
People in different parts of the world show their respect in different ways. Why should everything be done in the western way, Europeans way that we are so used to. Pagan Romans used to genuflect and Catholics adopted that pagan custom. We place wedding rings on the altar.
It was clearly declared by the Pope that there was no worship. I believe him.
It is extremely curious how hypocritical and contradictory some people can be!
I know a person who tends to idolize Francis as a pope beyond criticism. Yet that same person finds a problem with Eastern Catholic Churches, in communion with the pope and with the Universal Church, simply because those Eastern Churches do not hang upon Francis’ every last word and remain aloof from embroiling RCC controversies.
Now that same person sees no problem with inculturating pagan customs and idols to Roman Catholicism simply because the pope has done so.
I leave you now to go get a grip. Good night and good day.
Mal, I am from Africa and I attend Mass with African Catholics every Sunday. I can tell you with certainty that the worship of a Demon Fertility Idol would never be allowed here. Inculturation here means, at most, using traditional African musical instruments and dress (the laity, not the Priest); it does not involve any change in worship or the sacraments.
What Francis did in 2019 is despicable, and the Covid epidemic is the Divine Punishment for it. Francis needs to atone for his violation of the 1st Commandment in sackcloth and ashes.
Interestingly, Covid spread to Italy AFTER the Pachamamas were honored, blessed, and brought into Vatican cathedrals. One could say the Pachamama idol worship led to God’s allowing Covid.
https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/ewtns-fr-mitch-pacwa-condemns-pachamama-worship-at-amazon-synod/
meiron, many years ago I walked into a classroom and on a wall I saw a picture placed quite prominently. The students told me that that was a picture of Jesus. However, I knew that it was not. It was a photograph of Jeffrey Hunter, the actor who had played Jesus. I wonder how many people prayed to pictures like that? And many more? All pictures, paintings of human beings and sold to us as Jesus.
I often wonder how our practices would have been if the Church had remained in Israel instead of moving to Greece and Rome which had icons of Gods.
What is your point?
Such comments seem to some as coming from the dark side of the moon. Catholics do not pray to pictures.
(Although, there’s the tale of a Protestant minister complaining to a priest that such is so; and the post Vatican II priest retorted that, no, we do not pray to statutes or pictures, we pray to banners!)
As for St. Paul and the Church crossing over to Macedonia and then to Athens, this is the Providential reason that truths of the self-revealing God can be expressed, however finitely, in the conceptual language of “reason” and “persons” and the “one and the many.” Part of the early Councils dealing with the Trinity, the three Persons of the Trinity in One God, and the two natures of Christ in one Person.
The revealed Faith–more than a religion–went the direction of analogous human reason (analogous to the interior mystery of God), rather than in the other direction of symbols which account for the many mystery religions that flourished in the late Roman Empire. Even the Jews did not remain in Israel, but dispersed into the Diaspora following the destruction of the Temple in 70 A.D.
In short, the Catholic Church is in history, but not of history, founded by Christ and indwelled by the Holy Spirit.
Yes, it is true that we Catholics do not worship pictures and icons, however, they are blessed and considered holy. So, why would you still persist in Protestant style accusing the Pope of worshipping an icon which represents the motherness of earth to the Amazonian Catholics? And still deliberately confusing it with the Andean (not Amazonian) pagan goddess which looks completely different. The icon was erroneously called Pachamama but this is not what the Amazonian Catholics call it.
Pope Francis, a very faithful Catholic, who is devoted to our Lady knows very well the difference between worshipping God and venerating our Lady and the saints. The so-called Pachamama in question, represents the life-sustaining gifts from God that are made available to us in and through the earth. They show their gratitude in this way because, unlike us “civilized” people, they live off the earth. We have our cars, wedding rings, and houses blessed. Just different.
Wikipedia seems to know more than some Catholics about what the Pachamamma idol represents. It has nothing to offer Catholicism. It contradicts Catholicism. There is a diabolical disorientation within those who cannot see.
“Pachamama is a goddess revered by the indigenous peoples of the Andes. In Inca mythology she is an “Earth Mother” type goddess,[1] and a fertility goddess who presides over planting and harvesting, embodies the mountains, and causes earthquakes. She is also an ever-present and independent deity who has her own creative power to sustain life on this earth.”
There is a presentation on Pachamama by Fr. Mitch Pawca on YouTube titled “Fr. Mitch Pawca on Pachamama idol worship”:
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHCxjaWUZTg
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He said that the people of the Andes place Pachamama above Jesus and Mary.
S meiron, why did the other countries – India, Indonesia etc – get Covid. They did not have anything to do with the icons. Faulty reasoning from a website that does spread such falsehood.
“The pope will ask the Virgin Mary in prayer “to protect the Romans, the city in which they live, and the sick who need Her maternal protection everywhere in the world,” the statement said.”
This is the beautiful message that should warm our hearts. Pope Francis has always been devoted to our Lady, who would appreciate the continuation of this devotion in a manner that accommodates the sacredness of the occasion and the physical wellbeing of the people. Mary, who was concerned about the lack of wine at a wedding, will be equally concerned about the devastating effects of the virus. Well, that’s the Mother that I know.