Pope St. John Paul II favored the abolition of capital punishment. However, the catechism he promulgated nevertheless taught that the death penalty can be legitimate “if this is the only possible way of effectively defending […]
Our forebears in the Faith were much stronger than us morally and spiritually. Not for them the lax observance and flaccid sentimentality that characterize so […]
John Finnis is a prominent Catholic law professor and chief apostle of the “new natural law theory” (NNLT) invented by the late Germain Grisez in the 1960s. At Public Discourse, Finnis and I have been […]
A demonstration that it has been infallibly taught by the ordinary magisterium of the Church that the death penalty is not intrinsically wrong. Not even […]
Griffiths’ review in First Things of By Man Shall His Blood Be Shed is rich in condescension, high in dudgeon, and largely devoid of substantive […]
given the “hermeneutic of continuity” emphasized by Pope Benedict XVI – and given especially the teaching of the First Vatican Council that popes have no […]
In order to defend the suggestion that a pope could teach that capital punishment is always and intrinsically immoral, you have to maintain that the […]
There simply is no way to make an absolute condemnation of capital punishment consistent with past scriptural and papal teaching. The only way out of […]
Editor’s note: This is Part 2 of a two-part article on Catholicism and the death penalty originally published in June 2016. Part 1 was titled “Why the Church Cannot Reverse Past Teaching on Capital Punishment”. As […]
Editor’s note: This first part of a two-part article on Catholicism and the death penalty was originally posted on July 17, 2016. It is reposted now that By Man Shall His Blood Be Shed: A Catholic Defense […]
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