General
Catechism changes demand the impossible
The new text on capital punishment seems to require Catholics to substitute this Pope’s judgment on this subject for their own. […]
capital punishment
Analysis
How and why the death penalty deters murder in contemporary America
Too many churchmen simply ignore the evidence that the death penalty saves lives and promotes public order. Catholic public officials charged with the care of the […]
Features
Hot Air vs. Capital Punishment: A Reply to Paul Griffiths and David Bentley Hart
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 […]
Features
Yes, traditional Church teaching on capital punishment is definitive
given the “hermeneutic of continuity” emphasized by Pope Benedict XVI – and given especially the teaching of the First Vatican Council that popes have no […]
Analysis
Is opposition to the death penalty Thomistic?
Given Pope Francis’s own high regard for St. Thomas (together with the historical papal approbation he has enjoyed) when it comes to doctrinal issues, we […]
Features
Is there really a definitive teaching of the Church on capital punishment?
A second response to Professor Edward Feser […]
Features
Catholic theologians must set an example of intellectual honesty: A reply to Prof. Robert Fastiggi
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 […]
Analysis
A Critique of Faggioli’s interpretation of early Ratzinger’s view of Scripture, Tradition, and Authority
Massimo Faggioli’s naïve biblicism cannot account for different levels of authoritative Church teachings in Catholicism, with some being foundational, irreformable, and definitive, and others being […]
The Dispatch
Sententia communis? Just ‘sententia communis’?
Many of the assertions hitherto listed by theologians with a surfeit of restraint as merely, say, “sententia communis” might, upon closer investigation in light of […]
The Dispatch
Capital Punishment and the Papal Magisterium: A Response to Dr. Edward Feser
The issue is not so much whether prior popes were in error in their scriptural citations. The issue is whether their scriptural appeals qualify as […]