The big news of the day in Catholic (and other) circles concerns the announcement that Francis has issued a rescript to the CDF changing the neo-church teaching on the death penalty as stated in the so-called Catechism of the Catholic Church. (CCC)
In short, CCC 2267 most recently reflected the wishes of John Paul II to say that cases of the death penalty as an absolute necessity for effectively preventing crime are “very rare, if not practically non-existent;” the quote coming from his Encyclical, Evangelium Vitae.
This treatment left the door cracked ever-so-slightly for the just use of capital punishment; in fact, Cardinal Ratzinger as Prefect of the CDF subsequently affirmed as much.
One of the major flaws in this treatment, however, was that it focused exclusively on the death penalty as a means of protecting society; without any regard for its use as a form of punishment – more on that momentarily.
Now, thanks to Francis, CCC 2267 will henceforth feature a quote from his own most highly favored source of inspiration, himself, stating:
Consequently, the Church teaches, in the light of the Gospel, that “the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person”, and she works with determination for its abolition worldwide.
The CDF explained the reasons for the change in a Letter to Bishops; one that makes perfectly clear that the Conciliar Captains of Newchurch have totally abandoned the idea that capital punishment is a legitimate exercise of civil authority in applying retributive justice.
At this, let’s take an abbreviated look at the Church’s traditional doctrine on Capital Punishment as stated in the Roman Catechism (aka Catechism of the Council of Trent).
In its treatment of the Fifth Commandment, the Roman Catechism states under the heading of “Exceptions” the following:
Execution Of Criminals
Another kind of lawful slaying belongs to the civil authorities, to whom is entrusted power of life and death, by the legal and judicious exercise of which they punish the guilty and protect the innocent. The just use of this power, far from involving the crime of murder, is an act of paramount obedience to this Commandment which prohibits murder. The end of the Commandment is the preservation and security of human life. Now the punishments inflicted by the civil authority, which is the legitimate avenger of crime, naturally tend to this end, since they give security to life by repressing outrage and violence. Hence these words of David: In the morning I put to death all the wicked of the land, that I might cut off all the workers of iniquity from the city of the Lord. [Emphasis added]
One notes that the traditional teaching on the just use of the death penalty, unlike that of post-conciliar churchmen, recognizes the State’s duty to not only protect the innocent, but also to punish the guilty; it nowhere suggests that the State is always and everywhere duty bound to protect the life of the guilty.
NB: The Roman Catechism also speaks of the death penalty as that which tends toward “the preservation and security of human life.”
How can this be?
Simply put, the security of human life is not limited to man’s natural ends; a point lost on conciliar churchmen like neo-conservative superstar Archbishop Charles Chaput, who in a 2012 article in his diocesan newspaper equated the death penalty to “answering violence with violence.”
Completely absent from the minds of such men is the reality that proportionate punishment justly rendered (as in the case of a death penalty leveled against those who murder the innocent) can have a purifying effect on the soul of the perpetrator as expiation is made; thereby rendering a service to the spiritual good and supernatural life of both the guilty individual and society as a whole.
St. Thomas Aquinas affirmed that the death penalty can serve as a powerful impetus for the criminal’s conversion, and that it also carries the potential for having a purgatorial effect on the guilty party if the punishment is accepted with contrition. As such, the death penalty can hardly be dismissed as devoid of mercy, much less justice.
Consider as well the following citations of the traditional doctrine:
The secular power can without mortal sin carry out a sentence of death, provided it proceeds in imposing the penalty not from hatred but with judgment, not carelessly, but with due solicitude. (Pope Innocent III, DS 795/425)
Even in the case of the death penalty the State does not dispose of the individual’s right to life. Rather public authority limits itself to depriving the offender of the good of life in expiation for his guilt, after he, through his crime, deprived himself of his own right to life. (Pope Pius XII, Address given September 14, 1952)
The post-conciliar approach to the death penalty – epitomized in the Bergoglian treatment – is born of two errors; a hyper-inflated view of human dignity, and a distorted view of the State.
Let’s begin with a closer look at the latter.
From the time of Vatican Council II and the promulgation of Dignitatis Humanae, the Church has refrained from preaching the immutable truth that the civil authorities in the various States derive their authority neither from constitutions nor the will of the people, but from Almighty God (more properly, Christ the King) to Whom they are beholden.
Lost in the process is the traditional Catholic understanding of the civil authority as a representative of God.
As such, it is no longer clear in the minds of moderns that the State has the right to visit the death penalty upon the guilty; not simply as a means of protecting its citizens, but as a means of applying retributive justice in the name of God, thereby rendering a genuine and valuable service to the common good.
By contrast, Archbishop Chaput, whose arguments are representative of those who support the Newchurch approach to capital punishment, wrote:
Nor does [the death penalty] heal or redress any wounds, because only forgiveness can do that. (ibid.)
Modern day Rome’s movement to abolish capital punishment is a veritable time bomb that necessarily invites all manner of heresies that are lurking just beneath its surface.
Consider:
- If indeed the death penalty does not “heal or redress any wounds,” what then shall we say of the Creator’s decree, spoken to Adam as an expression of Perfect Justice, “But of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat. For in what day soever thou shalt eat of it, thou shalt die the death” (Genesis 2:17).
- If indeed the death penalty does not “heal or redress any wounds,” what then shall we say of the death of Our Blessed Lord on the Cross?
- If indeed the death penalty does not “heal or redress any wounds,” what then shall we say of the grace poured out upon the Church, “drunk with the blood of the saints and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus?” (Apocalypse 17:6)
You see, if one carries to their logical conclusion the arguments put forth in favor of the Wojtyłan-Bergoglian approach to capital punishment, effectively undermined along the way are such fundamental doctrines as the Church’s understanding that the wages of sin is death; her teaching concerning Our Lord’s work of Redemption, and the Catholic conviction that our individual sufferings and death can be redemptive for ourselves and for others.
But the devastation doesn’t stop there.
Also at stake is immutable doctrine concerning the identity of the Holy Catholic Church as the Mystical Body of Christ wherein the work of Redemption continues; the nature of Holy Mass wherein the Sacred Victim is offered in atonement for our sins, and therefore likewise our understanding of Holy Orders and the role of the priesthood.
Indeed, even the doctrine of the faith concerning Baptism as that through which we die with Christ – a death entirely necessary in order to rise with Him to new life – is placed in jeopardy.
In other words, if Newchurch’s teaching on the death penalty stands, like dominoes, numerous authentic Catholic doctrines are destined to fall.
This brings me to the more egregious error upon which the post-conciliar approach to the death penalty is based; namely, a hyper-inflated view of human dignity.
The aforementioned CDF Letter to Bishops repeatedly claims recourse to the “dignity” of the human person; with the underlying suggestion being that this applies specifically to those who commit the most serious of crimes:
This development centers principally on the clearer awareness of the Church for the respect due to every human life. Along this line, John Paul II affirmed: “Not even a murderer loses his personal dignity, and God himself pledges to guarantee this.”
…today the increasing understanding that the dignity of a person is not lost even after committing the most serious crimes…
… eliminate the death penalty and to continue the substantive progress made in conforming penal law both to the human dignity of prisoners…
… a decisive commitment to favor a mentality that recognizes the dignity of every human life…
Having made its case, the Letter claims:
It is in this light that Pope Francis has asked for a revision of the formulation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church on the death penalty in a manner that affirms that “no matter how serious the crime that has been committed, the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and the dignity of the person.”
The inviolability and the dignity of the person…
The wording here is rather interesting; it suggests that the human person has both inviolability and dignity, which in a certain sense is true. And yet, we must take a closer look.
First, understand that “inviolable” simply means that which cannot be violated, corrupted, or diminished.
The human being has a unique dignity among the creatures of the earth. Unlike the beasts, having been created in the image and likeness of God, he is a rational person. Even the most egregious sinner remains a human being; i.e., he does not truly lose his personhood. In this sense, one may perhaps speak of the inviolability of the person, though in the present case, the phrase practically guarantees error.
How so?
It would be a grave error to imagine (as modern day churchmen most certainly do) that the human person therefore has “inviolable dignity” – that is, a dignity that cannot be violated, corrupted or diminished. It most certainly can. How? By sin.
St. Thomas Aquinas stated the following while addressing (in the affirmative) the question: Whether it is lawful to kill sinners?
By sinning man departs from the order of reason, and consequently falls away from human dignity … and he falls into the slavish state of the beasts. (cf ST, II-II, Q64, A2)
Interestingly, the Roman Catechism begins its examination of “exceptions” to the Fifth Commandment by stating that it does not pertain to the killing of “irrational animals.” From there, it addresses the just execution of criminals (cited above). This progression of thought is eminently logical in light of Aquinas’ teaching that by sin man can lose his dignity and descend to the state of the beasts.
Treating human dignity as inviolable, as if it cannot be diminished much less lost, however, is precisely the error upon which the Newchurch treatment of capital punishment is founded.
John Paul the Great Humanist – the same who paved the road that led to the recent Bergoglian update (if one can call it that) – made this error perfectly plain (to cite just one example) in a 1993 address to a gathering of psychiatrists in Rome when he stated:
…the human person is a unity of body and spirit, possessing an inviolable dignity as one made in the image of God and called to a transcendent destiny.
Do you see what he did there? He took the inviolability of personhood as based upon man having been created in God’s image, and he misapplied it to human dignity.
A decade before John Paul II made the statement above, a document issued by the Vatican’s International Theological Commission provided evidence of just how deeply this error had already taken root in Rome in a text entitled, The Dignity and Rights of the Human Person:
In his [sic] Incarnation he [sic] conferred maximum dignity on human nature. For that reason the Son of God is united in some way to every man (GS 22 § 2; RH 8).
Get that? Every man without distinction enjoys maximum dignity, in his human nature, simply by virtue of the Incarnation! If this were so (and it is not), then yes, human dignity would be inviolable.
Note the origins of this madness – Vatican Council II, and the disastrous inaugural Encyclical of the John Paul II’s pontificate, Redemptor Hominis.
While it may not be immediately obvious, what we have here is yet another concrete manifestation of the warning given by Our Lady of Fatima as described by the future Pope Pius XII, which reads in part as follows:
A day will come when the civilized world will deny its God, when the Church will doubt as Peter doubted. She will be tempted to believe that man has become God.
You see, inviolable dignity rightly belongs by nature to just One, and that is God. In other words, the dignity proper to God cannot be violated, corrupted or diminished – the mechanism by which this happens being sin – because of who He is in His very nature.
One may be compelled to ask:
But what of Our Lord Jesus Christ, true God and true man?
Perhaps a theologian could write several thousand words on this topic, but for our purposes, it is enough to recognize that the dignity proper to Our Lord, in His human nature, was inviolable by virtue of the hypostatic union; His “two natures which undergo no confusion, no change, no division, no separation.” (Council of Chalcedon)
As for Our Lady, the New Eve, while she lived her entire life in perfect union with the will of God, she could have exercised the free will to sin (thus diminishing her dignity) had she so chosen; just as Eve had. As such, we cannot say even of the Blessed Virgin that her dignity as a human creature of God was inviolable.
In conclusion, when a Dicastery of the Roman Curia states that the Incarnation has conferred maximum dignity on human nature as a whole, and John Paul II declares that the dignity of the human person is inviolable, and Francis decrees that the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person, we need to understand what is really happening:
Those who claim to speak in the name of the Church have surely succumbed to the temptation to believe that man has become God.
Just as Our Lady of Fatima forewarned.
IMPORTANT NOTE: The launch of the Inquisitor has led to a decrease in content posted at akaCatholic. Eventually, this will not be the case. In addition to costing time, the newspaper is taking a financial toll. I knew it would and accept this challenge willingly, trusting that Our Lord will – as He always has – raise up the supporters that we need. If you feel so compelled, now would be a great time to donate. – Louie
Has there ever been a Pope in history who in formulating his teaching, not only does not have recourse to Scripture, the Fathers, Councils or the encyclicals of his predecessors, but can reference solely himself? It is surely unheard of.
The humility of Bergoglio! How poor St. Francis must be prostrate before God at this moment, apologising for the man who has usurped his name and memory!
The humiliation of it.
At this rate, taking a human life in self-defence or in defence of another will be declared a mortal sin…
It seems to me that there is a lot more being revealed and it is coming faster these days. People are waking up to the decades of corruption, scams and lying reports we have all been showered with coming from the Rome . Is it because the culprits have become bolder or a veil is being lifted?
In addition to the superb rationale you have provided Louie, there is one thing more.
He has no authority to change dogma or doctrine on his own. His authority is only to pass along the faith, not change it in any way. He certainly cannot do this on his own, but if no one holds to that understanding, then anything is permitted. He can change the church at his whim, and he is!
This only confirms what we have come to accept this past week with the McCarrick child molesting debacle, the Church is gone. It is impossible to say the gates of hell have not prevailed, if this does not get corrected soon. Come Lord Jesus!
“It is impossible to say the gates of hell have not prevailed, if this does not get corrected soon.”
Sede Vacante makes it possible to still say and believe that the gates of hell have not prevailed.
I know , I’ve said this before but the deep Catholic Spirituality of the East is in my bones and these bones must cry out. The Gates of Hell cannot attack or prevail because as this ancient icon depicts along with the Nicene Creed, Our Savior broke down the Gates of Hell and opened them for all the righteous who died before His salvific Sacrifice.
Hell will never win.
https://blogs.ancientfaith.com/glory2godforallthings/2016/04/30/knocking-gates-hell/
Bergoglio’s latest pronouncement has nothing to do with the death penalty. It is about Power. Bergoglio is intoxicated with the power of the Papacy. He isn’t happy unless he is drawing attention to himself. It’s all about HIM! What will he do next? I don’t know, but it won’t be anything Catholic. He will just keep going and going until he is stopped by Divine Intervention. It is not humanly possible to stop a narcissistic tyrant. Our hope is the Power of Prayer.
No Death For Anyone!!!
Except for the innocent unborn!
Ironically the ‘Dignity’ card was leveraged by the pro-life movement, and as Louie warned way back this has led to an erroneous divinizing of the unborn and also logically every individual.
But the point missed is that of Justice. The Guilty Deserve Death. The Innocent Do Not. The murder of unborn children is UNJUST. Now we let the guilty live, and we murder the innocent.
The reason the clerical chumps don’t accept Original Sin and Genesis is because they believe in Charles Darwin and Nicoli Copernicus.
Undermine the Scriptures on Origins and you destroy everything. And the God who created in 6 Days is as fictional as the God who was so very mean and commanded people to be put to death.
Only the God we can scourge and bludgeon to death, one who is obligated to serve us, and lay all the blame on, is acceptable to these fornicators of men as well as doctrine.
With this it is absolutely crystal clear that Francis is a Class A Formal Heretic and I would love to see the idiot who would try and defend this or call it ‘ambigious’.
Some idiots just want to pretend it doesn’t exist. Like Michael Voris.
https://twitter.com/Michael_Voris/status/1025039876775993344
I was sympathetic to Voris before and held out a little hope for him. But with this one tweet he has destroyed his credibility as a Catholic entirely.
Yes, we should not forget about McCarrick and co. but for him to so non-nonchalantly brush this breaking news aside only tells me that he is obsessed with dropped balls of some other kind.
That Francis ain’t Catholic is clear to all.
The questions we are left with is either –
a) Are we now in a state of sedevacantism?
b) Was he ever Pope in the first place, or does Benedict XVI still retain the keys as per his botched nonsensical papal diarchy views?
What’s sure as hell is that Cardinal Burke and the kitten crowd need to live up to their own meowing rhetoric –
“If a Pope would formally profess heresy he would cease, by that act, to be the Pope. It’s automatic. And so, that could happen.” – Cardinal Burke.
What excuse will Burke make now?
That the Catechism is not a public document intended to directly teach the faithful like some one-off encyclical or private letter?
Things are going to be very interesting now. Let’s see who is going to downplay what.
So far Skojec, Ferrera, Barnhardt and Louie are looking good.
Meanwhile Voris has shot himself in the foot. One prays he manages to hobble back onto the field, but it’s been so long now that I don’t think he remembers on which side is the goal he’s supposed to kick the ball into…
Johnno, what about the heresies of Ratzinger and Wojtyla and Montini? Do they get a pass but Bergolio gets the boot?
Also…
Humane Vitae is coming up next!
You know it!
This “Gospel” Bergolio is reading and referring to will surely see to it.
We should take bets on what he’ll emphasize in order to justify his hellish license.
a) The intimacy of the Couple
b) The Poverty
c) The inviolability and dignity of women
d) The ‘humbleness’ of small families
e) Good for the Earth
f) Collegiality that Paul VI circumvented
g) Love for the Immigrants and Refugees
h) To Feel closer in function to our homosexual brethren
i) More Unity with the already fornicating Protestants
j) Because being the Pope is fun
k) U.N. sustainable development goals
Depends… There’s still time to try Ratzinger.
He could shed light on the motives of the other two as to whether they rise to the level of formally holding their heresy or did so being beheld to a Council they believed was authentic.
Unfortunately, we can no longer investigate the Popes of the 1800s on for their support of the heresy of heliocentrism. But if they were guilty then the Church would’ve failed. So theirs had to be material.
But one thing all these fools did was leave themselves an ‘out’ and never commit so blatantly to paper.
Not so with Francis. Not anymore.
it’ll be interesting to see what rabbits the apologists start pulling out of hats for this one.
Some imagine Francis is trying to distract us away from McCarrick.
I suspect the opposite -Francis is using McCarrick to quietly shovel through his imposition of heresy upon the faithful.
And if any Catholic should raise a stink, they’ll be slammed with being concerned over some ‘outdated discipline’ rather than show concern for the sexually abused.
Francis isn’t going to let a crisis go to waste.
https://twitter.com/Michael_Voris/status/1025039876775993344
Remember Voris is a proponent of O.pus Dei . They take a vow to support the Pope. Consider him compromised.
Vox cantoris now claims he has been banned by twitter for 7 days after tweeting about sodomite coverups and Francis.
http://voxcantor.blogspot.com/
That concerns me . Is this the beginning of moves against Catholics who are rightly expressing their concerns over the corruption in the Church and the initiation of shadow banning?
Was Borgoglio even validly elected to the Papacy ?
This is what retired Bishop Gracidas has to say.
https://abyssum.org/
“This Pope is doing things that are so contrary to the faith, against the Church, destructive to the faith of the Church, the Church itself…”
What’s this? Some “conservative” bishop or “rad trads” non-stop 24/7 blaming of Pope Francis for destroying PJPII’ s “new springtime” of the church again? Oops, no, sorry, my mistake, this is what Archbishop LeFebvre, considered a top theologian in his day (before VII anyway), was saying about Pope Paul VI in 1976. So most likely his answer to your above question would be a resounding yes.
Next, Francis will infallibly declare himself a saint — while’s he’s still alive.
Try? By whom? Who gets to try a Pope? You think modernist clergy will suddendly see the light and abjure their modernism? Heretics do not try heretics. But you arw right that Bergolio is using this to distract from the McCarrick fallout.
Does anyone have Cardinal Burke’s email address? It’s time for a major rant at this bloody man. Someone has to do something and do something now.
The change in the Death Penalty doctrine has been going on since JPII’s catechism. Francis’ edit is just more in your face.
The JPII Catechism is the Catechism of the Vatican II Council. Heresies were initially “put on paper” in the Council documents themselves and then codified in its heretical, universal instruction manual, the JPII Catechism.
All of these men know the true teachings of the Catholic Faith, but all of these men agree with the Council and Catechism of Heresy. All of these men are as guilty as the other.
I only hope that Francis is finally the wake up call to this bigger (albeit unhappy) reality.
TGS, it will not do any good. Burke is probably compromised himself. Remember the whole tranny religious in Madison?
Archbishop Chaput writes: “Nor does [the death penalty] heal or redress any wounds, because only forgiveness can do that.” But this is an argument against any punishment at all. How about “Three years in jail for burglary doesn’t heal or redress any wounds, because only forgiveness can do that.” Or “A traffic ticket doesn’t… etc.” These liberals are so lost in their ideal world that they forget the one they live in.
A friend and her husband just sent me their pics taken with Burke while visiting.
Forget Burke, forget Ratzinger, both are not what they are portrayed to be.
It’s all about “forgiveness” .
Forgive the disordered clergy and Prelates and things can go on just the way it has been for them.
Zero tolerance for penance or retribution.
If criminally charged?
Here’s a buck from the collection plates for restitution .
Easy come ,easy go.
I remember.
Also, Burke was alleged to have crossed the police tape and take the files from Fr Kunz’s rectory office right after the murder.
After all it was Diocesan property and there might be something of interest in them for the chancery and not the police.
Is Burke a double agent? Traditional when he wants to be; New Order when he wants to be.
The Unsaint JPII-Wojtyla tried to pull the same denial of Catholic teaching when he published the “New” Catechism in 1997. The pushback against Wojtyla was intense. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and U.S. Presidential candidate Patrick Buchanan at the time took out a full-page advertisement in the New York Times demonstrating logically how Wojtyla’s position was not Catholic and in fact denied the constant teaching of the Church.
As a result, Wojtyla recanted his false teaching when the authoritative Latin version of the “New” Catechism was published.
In Sacred Scripture the principle is also represented in many places, especially in the words of St. Dismas, the Good Thief on the cross beside Christ, who was being crucified for serious crimes and says to his fellow criminal on the other side of Christ: “Dost not even thou fear God, seeing that thou art under the same sentence? AND WE INDEED JUSTLY, FOR WE ARE RECEIVING WHAT OUR DEEDS DESERVED, but this man [Christ] has done nothing wrong”. (Luke 23:40-41). Christ didn’t turn around and tell Dismas he did not deserve to die while he was a thief when the death penalty is reserved for convicted murderers.
Waste of time.
Burke is a V2 NO modernist like Ratzinger. You cannot be traditional and still say the NO “mass.” The whole conservative wing of the NO sect (that includes FSSP/ICK have to prop up the heresies of V2 so they have to be very careful when condemning Bergolio that they dont condemn themselves. This is why Bergolio can basically do whatever he wants and no one can challenge him doctrinally.
“….they have to be very careful when condemning Bergoglio that they don’t condemn themselves. This is why Bergoglio can basically do whatever he wants and no one can challenge him doctrinally.”
Or when they challenge them (aka the long-forgotten Dubia), it’s really just for show to make others think they aren’t heretics too. Controlled opposition of sorts.
You mean, “Who gets to try a not-a-Pope?”
As if the investigation should find in December that a Pope had lost is office back in August, then the man being judged presently would not be a Pope.
Now as to whether any of them have the balls to do this in 2018… I have no idea.
But I know what will happen if they don’t!
And it’s not going to be a good time for any of us.
There’s no doubt that VII and John Paul II wanted to limit the death penalty to be practically non-existent.
But they never too as great a step as Bergolio has, and they knew they still had to give leeway for the long standing doctrine that JPII couldn’t revoke any more than he could revoke the sentence against Galileo and the condemnation of his propositions as formally heretical.
What is arguable by the Novus Ordo apologists is that the Holy Spirit prevented VII and JPII from going that mile. And we can entertain that in light of the Church’s 200 year ongoing failure to uphold Geocentricity by speaking in hypotheticals.
But the Holy Spirit has proven to be remarkably absent with regards to anything Bergolio has been doing.
There are no convenient ‘outs.’
Not in Amoris Letitia, and certainly not here with the change to the Catechism.
And Bergolio has never been hiding his intentions.
He just entertains his ghost writer’s desire to attempt a spin for the remaining gullible because of ‘the gospel according to St. Dignity’ or something…
Burke is caught within a contradictory position.
As others have pointed out. Burke has no choice but to re-examine the whole VII paradigm.
That’s because I suspect he well knows that Bergolio with use VII and the post-conciliar Popes in his defence.
Thus if Burke wants to make a case against Bergolio he has to simultaneously critique the post-conciliar Popes and VII as a whole.
That’s a much bigger plate.
For even if Burke were willing to take on the task of criticizing the Council, the rest of the modernist cabal will immediately and arbitrarily just slander him in the media and call him a Heretic and a Lefebvrist and a Russian Agent and a Racist and an Anti-Semite and a Homophobe and a Misogynist and a Brexiter and a Dog-kicker and a white heterosexual male…
It doesn’t have to make any sense. You simply freeze and isolate the target, and attempt to keep him too busy defending himself to do anything.
Burke will not do anything until he’s willing to accept that a formal schism will occur by nature of the beast he is going to tackle. The VII paradigm versus the actual Church.
Already we are seeing downplaying through statements made to reassure the general public that the Catechism is NOT a Magisterial document. And that Francis’ statements are not absolutist terms and are just couched in ‘pastoral’ ‘accompanying’ ‘encouraging’ terms.
This is the Amoris Letitia excuse all over again. And we might even have to refer to some footnote or other CDF pastoral letter to explain the change in more vague language terms…
So Francis’ use of “no matter how serious the crime that has been committed, the death penalty is inadmissible” must be explained via some other hermeneutic… in this case via a letter…
http://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/en/bollettino/pubblico/2018/08/02/180802b.html
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9. The new revision affirms that the understanding of the inadmissibility of the death penalty grew “in the light of the Gospel.”[13] The Gospel, in fact, helps to understand better the order of creation that the Son of God assumed, purified, and brought to fulfillment. It also invites us to the mercy and patience of the Lord that gives to each person the time to convert oneself.
10. The new formulation of number 2267 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church desires to give energy to a movement towards a decisive commitment to favor a mentality that recognizes the dignity of every human life and, in respectful dialogue with civil authorities, to encourage the creation of conditions that allow for the elimination of the death penalty where it is still in effect.
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So hey guys! It’s not *really* saying that the Death Penalty is *Inadmissible*… they just mean that they *desire* *to give energy* *to a movement* *towards a decisive* *commitment to favor* *mentality* *to encourage*….
to eliminate something absolutely…
Affirming what they deny and denying what they affirm.
Why Mr. CDF?
Is it because is is bad and immoral….? Or is this about *feelings* of the general public…? Or… what…?
Canon 3 from Vatican I section 4 “On Faith and Reason”:
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“4. On Faith and Reason
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* * *
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3. If anyone says that it is possible that at some time, GIVEN THE ADVANCEMENT OF KNOWLEDGE, a sense may be assigned to the dogmas propounded by the Church WHICH IS DIFFERENT FROM THAT WHICH THE CHURCH HAS UNDERSTOOD AND UNDERSTANDS: let him be anathema.”
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The new section of the “Catechism” almost tracks the language of this canon, and justifies the “new teaching” based on advancement of knowledge:
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“2267. Recourse to the death penalty on the part of legitimate authority, following a fair trial, was long considered an appropriate response to the gravity of certain crimes and an acceptable, albeit extreme, means of safeguarding the common good.
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Today, however, THERE IS AN INCREASING AWARENESS that the dignity of the person is not lost even after the commission of very serious crimes. In addition, A NEW UNDERSTANDING has emerged of the significance of penal sanctions imposed by the state. Lastly, more effective systems of detention have been developed, which ensure the due protection of citizens but, at the same time, do not definitively deprive the guilty of the possibility of redemption.
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Consequently, the Church teaches, in the light of the Gospel, that ‘the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person’,[1] and she works with determination for its abolition worldwide”
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Thus this is not only an attack on the teaching in question – the death penalty – but also an attack on the magisterium of the Church. It is essentially an in-your-face rejection of the cited canon from Vatican 1 on the irreformability of Church teachings.
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In my view this is providential, because who knows what position any particular conciliar bishop or priest holds on the heresies from Vatican II, or on “Pope Francis'” teachings on marriage. But now many of them won’t be able to help themselves and will take a public position on this purported “new teaching”. The issues are so simple any Catholic can repeat the prior understanding of the Church’s teaching on the death penalty – e.g., the idea of the appropriateness of the punishment, or the expiatory nature of the punishment – to the bishop or priest and how this “new teaching” clearly excludes these prior understandings. The exclusion of these prior understandings means the teaching has changed in a manner denounced by Vatican I. As Catholics we owe a duty to them of charitable correction, so any bishop or priest who defends this “new teaching” should be corrected by the faithful. If they do not abjure this “new teaching” they should be denounced to their faces as the heretics they are by the faithful.
Too bad John Salza couldn’t make your “Who’s Who List” of clear thinkers. But, being a regular contributor here, you’re aware he first has to answer Louie’s challenge for having tried to malign Louie in an anti-“Remnant” article. Unfortunately, the anti-“Remnant” does not have a search box to reference JS’s nonsense.
Very good quote of Vatican I.
Taken together with the verbatim CDF letter, there is more than enough ample evidence to take them out like Elijah did and slit their throats by the river.
Oops… it seems that what Elijah did is now… inadmissible…
Who wants to bet though, then if a prophet like Elijah did come back, Francis and co. would be the first to cast stones? But I guess he is not a woman and just a patriarchal male, so it would be okay.
Just for the record: my theory is that Pope Francis chose to preemptively remove the death penalty from the catechism because he senses that the filth and rot to be exposed will so enrage Catholics that they will demand it of their prelates and even their Pope. Former Cardinal (now archbishop) McCarrick is supposedly only the tip of the iceberg. The depravity and evil go deep, wide and even more sick than we can probably imagine (which is saying a lot in our day). My theory is that Pope Francis is virtue signaling the hierarchy that he is in control of things still and will protect them (for a price of course) by changing unchangeable doctrine.
If what an article on ChurchMilitant.com says is right…every single priest, bishop, cardinal and pope has a file that lists ALL of their heinous private sins…thus the virtual silence across the hierarchy. It reminds me of Scientology that keeps track of all of your secret sins. In order to help “clear” you of course. Not.
Can you imagine your priest keeping track of the sins you confessed? Your therapist tracking all the horrible things done to you and that you did? The Church says it keeps this info in order to help spiritual directors help priests. But A) if you had any sodomite activity or experience before the seminary, you shouldn’t be a priest. Period. B) If you are tempted to cheat with women then let your current spiritual director know and if he had a brain, don’t bother to right it down.
This record of everything evil they ever did explains A LOT about the silence. This practice needs to end. It’s not like it’s helped any of them or us.
God bless~
MMC..how would Michael Voris knows this? Even I doubt that there is a file on every priest, etc that lists all of their private sins.
Supposedly a priest wrote the article revealing this. Here is the link:
https://www.churchmilitant.com/news/article/why-priests-dont-blow-the-whistle
I hope you are right in your doubts. But why else is the entire hierarchy silent on this?
God bless~
Maybe I’m missing it MMC, but I don’t see where it states that they keep track of confessed sins.
Something still doesn’t add up for me; however, from my perspective, the main reason why these guys stay silent is because they are all Modernists hell-bent on damaging the Faith and Church. Why would they stop their fellow travelers from doing damage in any way that they can?
2VT, there are two wings in the NO sect these days. Ratzinger represents one wing and Bergolio the other. They differ only on timing and tactics. Deep down they are both modernists. In my opinion, the Ratzinger types are the more dangerous and harmful to the Church. Bergolio is actually doing us all a rather wonderful favor by revealing just exactly what the NO sect believes. Ad multos annos, Jorge. Keep ’em coming. Next it will be sodomite marriage blessings and wymen deaconesses. I hope he does it quickly.