Journeys of a Catholic Poster Girl

Comment by Digitizdat

October 11, 2008 @ 5:59 pm

Where did you find these five non-negotiable issues for voting Catholics? Is this list list something that the Holy See advocates? That doesn’t jibe with the way I’ve been raised. What about the death penalty??

Regarding the Iraq war, Cardinal Martino spoke on behalf of the Vatican, saying that he hopes Saddam’s capture “contributes to peace and the reconstruction of Iraq. But it would be illusory to think that it will repair the damage caused by that great defeat for humanity which war always represents.”

Sounds pretty conclusive to me. Not much room for disagreement there.

Comment by catholicpostergirl

October 11, 2008 @ 7:47 pm

I can’t remember where I actually saw that list of five non-negotiable things–it’s been awhile (the last election) and stuck with me.
I do have the pamphlet “Catholics in the Public Square” by Most Rev. Thomas J. Olmsted, who also talks about this issue (page 29). He quotes BXVI on March 30, 2006 (In an address to European politicians:

“As far as the Catholic Church is concerned, the principle focus of her interventions in the public arena is the protection and promotion of the dignity of the person…Among these the following emerges clearly today:
–Protection of Life in all its stages, from the first moment of conception until natural death;
–Recognition and promotion of the natural structure of the family as a union between a man and a woman based on marriage and its defense from attempts to make it juridically equivalent to radically different forms of union which in reality harm and contribute to its destabilization, obscuring its particular character and its irreplaceable social role;
–the protection of the rights of parents to educate their children.”

The Bishop (who is writing the pamphlet) goes on to say that “I should note, however, that other issues, while not intrinsically evil, deserve prayerful consideration, such as questions of war and capital punishment, poverty issues and matters relating to illegeal immigration.”

(The pamphlet I mentioned is published by Basilica Press)

Comment by Digitizdat

October 11, 2008 @ 9:10 pm

Thank you for responding!

These writings from Bishop Olmsted only create more questions for me because, although I’m familiar with the concept of having different degrees of sin, I am far from convinced that capital punishment is not intrinsically evil, and I’m shocked to read that coming from a member of the clergy.

“Protection of Life in all its stages, from the first moment of conception until natural death”

I mean that is not a subtle statement. I think it makes abortion exactly as unacceptable as capital punishment. Am I misreading this?

Comment by catholicpostergirl

October 11, 2008 @ 9:33 pm

OK I have gone to the Catechism for clarity.
There are two relevant passages that I have found: 2266 and 2267 (Part Three, “Life in Christ”)
They are rather long, especially 2267, so I will do my best to clarify and sum up here, but it may be worth it to do a google search for the CCC and then look up these two directly.
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 the duty to inflict punishment proportianate to the gravity of the offense.
So, society has the right to punish, but the section goes on to save that it must “as far as possible” contribute to the correction of the guilty party. So–a rehabilitation angle.
The next section deals with Capital Punishment directly:
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 agreessor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these are more in keeping with the common good and more in conformity with the dignity of the human person.
Today, in face, as a consequence of the possibilities which that state has for effectively preventing crime, by rendering one whop has committed an offense incapable of doing harm–without definitively taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself–the case in which the execution of the offender is an absolutely necessity “are very rare, if not practically non-existent.” (That last quote is taken from JPII’s Evangelium Vitae.

So–the CCC establishes the right of the state to protect itself and gives very, very limited ways in which capital punishment is justifiable. The faliability of the state is one of the reasons I am against the death penalty, personally. So, while the church is against it in most cases (see 2267), there is a very, very small window where it is appropriate for use.

Comment by Digitizdat

October 11, 2008 @ 10:42 pm

That is a coherent argument for capital punishment in extreme circumstances, and the very same reasoning is used in the Just War Theory. It is essentially saying that I, as a defender of my country, may kill in order to preserve the safety of my country’s people, provided there is no other alternative for handling an unjust aggressor.

However, in the United States we have maximum security prisons which are capable of safely containing a criminal for the rest of his or her natural life. A person facing the death penalty is already contained in a maximum security prison. By that reasoning, I do not believe capital punishment could ever be justified in this country, and therefore should be abolished, just like abortion.

So, by that reasoning, I am still not convinced that it is OK to condemn Obama for his stance on abortion, and not simultaneously and equally condemn all the other candidates for the same (because NONE of them are perfectly pro-life, including Palin, who thinks it’s OK to perform an abortion if the mother’s life is endangered), or for their stance on the death penalty. Doing so amounts to scaling abortion against the death penalty, and by the reasoning I used above, that is not appropriate in a country capable of containing dangerous criminals indefinitely.

Comment by Digitizdat

October 12, 2008 @ 4:55 am

Hi… maybe we could take this discussion to email. I know you haven’t approved my last comment yet, but I feel like maybe it was too confrontational, and I don’t want to alienate you or anyone else reading this. You are a pretty well informed Catholic, and I really just want to pick your brain on this particular issue, because it’s difficult to discuss this kind of thing in person without offending someone. Please feel free to ignore it, and just email a response to me directly at blog at mcgreal dot org, if you like. Thanks again for the discussion!

Comment by catholicpostergirl

October 12, 2008 @ 12:55 pm

No the reason I didn’t respond earlier is because I went to bed! LOL.
I believe the important distinction is that the Church does allow the death penalty to be used, in very, very limited circumstances. Abortion, however, is never justifiable. One is always inherently evil (abortion) while the Church, with Capital Punishment, is allowing the state to protect itself, but only if stringent criteria is used.

Comment by Digitizdat

October 12, 2008 @ 1:20 pm

Yes, but my argument is that in the case of the United Staes, with our maximum security prisons capable of containing dangerous criminals indefinitely, capital punishment is inherently evil. It is never justifiable, and therefore should receive the same criticism from people who profess to be pro-life as abortion.

Comment by catholicpostergirl

October 12, 2008 @ 1:37 pm

I agree. We can contain criminals indefinitely, but the CCC wasn’t written for the American church. It was written for the Church as a whole.
The CCC doesn’t say that Capital Punishment is intrinsically evil. Therefore it’s not on the same level as abortion.