00 04/08/2018 22:51

Edward Feser is co-author of By Man Shall His Blood Be Shed: A Catholic Defense of Capital Punishment.

In a move that surprised no one, Pope Francis has once again appeared to contradict two millennia of clear and consistent scriptural and Catholic teaching. The Vatican has announced that the Catechism of the Catholic Church will be changed to declare the death penalty “inadmissible” given the “inviolability and dignity of the person” as understood “in the light of the Gospel.”

There has always been disagreement among Catholics about whether capital punishment is, in practice, the morally best way to uphold justice and social order.

However, the Church has always taught, clearly and consistently, that the death penalty is in principle consistent with both natural law and the Gospel.
- This is taught throughout scripture — from Genesis 9 to Romans 13 and many points in between — and the Church maintains that scripture cannot teach moral error.
- It was taught by the Fathers of the Church, including those Fathers who opposed the application of capital punishment in practice.
- It was taught by the Doctors of the Church, including St. Thomas Aquinas, the Church’s greatest theologian; St. Alphonsus Liguori, her greatest moral theologian; and St. Robert Bellarmine, who, more than any other Doctor, illuminated how Christian teaching applies to modern political circumstances.
- It was clearly and consistently taught by the popes up to and including Pope Benedict XVI.

That Christians can in principle legitimately resort to the death penalty is taught by
- the Roman Catechism promulgated by Pope St. Pius V,
- the Catechism of Christian Doctrine promulgated by Pope St. Pius X, and
- the 1992 and 1997 versions of the most recent Catechism promulgated by Pope St. John Paul II — this last despite the fact that John Paul was famously opposed to applying capital punishment in practice.

- Pope St. Innocent I and Pope Innocent III taught that acceptance of the legitimacy in principle of capital punishment is a requirement of Catholic orthodoxy.
- Pope Pius XII explicitly endorsed the death penalty on several occasions.
- This is why Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, as John Paul’s chief doctrinal officer, explicitly affirmed in a 2004 memorandum:
If a Catholic were to be at odds with the Holy Father on the application of capital punishment … he would not for that reason be considered unworthy to present himself to receive Holy Communion. While the Church exhorts civil authorities … to exercise discretion and mercy in imposing punishment on criminals, it may still be permissible … to have recourse to capital punishment.

Joseph Bessette and I document this traditional teaching at length in our recent book. For reasons I have set out in a more recent article, the traditional teaching clearly meets the criteria for an infallible and irreformable teaching of the Church’s ordinary Magisterium. It is no surprise that so many popes have been careful to uphold it, nor that Bellarmine judged it “heretical” to maintain that Christians cannot in theory apply capital punishment.

So, has Pope Francis now contradicted this teaching? On the one hand, the letter issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith announcing the change asserts that it constitutes “an authentic development of doctrine that is not in contradiction with the prior teachings of the Magisterium.” Nor does the new language introduced into the catechism clearly and explicitly state that the death penalty is intrinsically contrary to either natural law or the Gospel.

On the other hand, the Catechism as John Paul left it had already taken the doctrinal considerations as far as they could be taken in an abolitionist direction, consistent with past teaching. That is why, when holding that the cases in which capital punishment is called for are “very rare, if not practically non-existent,” John Paul’s Catechism appeals to prudential considerations concerning what is strictly necessary in order to protect society.

Pope Francis, by contrast, wants the Catechism to teach that capital punishment ought never to be used (rather than “very rarely” used), and he justifies this change not on prudential grounds, but “so as to better reflect the development of the doctrine on this point.”

The implication is that Pope Francis thinks that considerations of doctrine or principle rule out the use of capital punishment in an absolute way.

Moreover, to say, as the pope does, that the death penalty conflicts with “the inviolability and dignity of the person” insinuates that the practice is intrinsically contrary to natural law. And to say, as the pope does, that “the light of the Gospel” rules out capital punishment insinuates that it is intrinsically contrary to Christian morality.

To say either of these things is precisely to contradict past teaching. Nor does the letter from the CDF explain how the new teaching can be made consistent with the teaching of scripture, the Fathers and Doctors of the Church, and previous popes. Merely asserting that the new language “develops” rather than “contradicts” past teaching does not make it so.

The CDF is not Orwell’s Ministry of Truth, and a pope is not Humpty Dumpty, able by fiat to make words mean whatever he wants them to. Slapping the label “development” onto a contradiction doesn’t transform it into a non-contradiction.

An irony is that John Paul’s Catechism was issued to clarify matters of doctrine, and finally put a halt to post–Vatican II speculation that Catholic teaching was open to endless revision. Yet now we have had two revisions to the Catechism’s own teaching on capital punishment — one in 1997, under John Paul himself, and another under Francis.

Nor is the problem confined to capital punishment. This latest development is part of a by-now familiar pattern. [Predator wolf's head inside the doctrinal tent, intending to occupy it all sooner or later!]
- Pope Francis has made statements that appear to contradict traditional Catholic teaching on contraception, on marriage and divorce, grace, conscience, and Holy Communion, and other matters. - - He has also persistently refused to clarify his problematic statements, even when clarification has been formally and respectfully requested by eminent theologians and members of the hierarchy.

The effect is to embolden those who want to reverse other traditional teachings of the Church, and to demoralize those who want to uphold those teachings.
- If capital punishment is wrong in principle, then the Church has for two millennia consistently taught grave moral error and badly misinterpreted scripture.
- And if the Church has been so wrong for so long about something so serious, then there is no teaching that might not be reversed, with the reversal justified by the stipulation that it be called a “development” rather than a contradiction.

A reversal on capital punishment is the thin end of a wedge that, if pushed through, could sunder Catholic doctrine from its past — and thus give the lie to the claim that the Church has preserved the Deposit of Faith whole and undefiled.

Not only does this reversal undermine the credibility of every previous pope, it undermines the credibility of Pope Francis himself. For if Pope St. Innocent I, Pope Innocent III, Pope St. Pius V, Pope St. Pius X, Pope Pius XII, Pope St. John Paul II, and many other popes could all get things so badly wrong, why should we believe that Pope Francis has somehow finally gotten things right?

One does not need to support capital punishment to worry that Pope Francis may have gone too far. Cardinal Avery Dulles, who was personally opposed to the practical use of capital punishment, still insisted that “the reversal of a doctrine as well established as the legitimacy of capital punishment would raise serious problems regarding the credibility of the magisterium.” Archbishop Charles Chaput, who is likewise opposed to applying the death penalty in practice, has nevertheless acknowledged:
The death penalty is not intrinsically evil. Both Scripture and long Christian tradition acknowledge the legitimacy of capital punishment under certain circumstances. The Church cannot repudiate that without repudiating her own identity.
[Jesus himself accepted the legitimate imposition of the death penalty on him, which in this case, was the practical means to the end for which God came down to earth as a human.]

If Pope Francis really is claiming that capital punishment is intrinsically evil, then either scripture, the Fathers and Doctors of the Church, and all previous popes were wrong — or Pope Francis is. There is no third alternative. Nor is there any doubt about who would be wrong in that case.
- The Church has always acknowledged that popes can make doctrinal errors when not speaking ex cathedra — Pope Honorius I and Pope John XXII being the best-known examples of popes who actually did so.
- The Church also explicitly teaches that the faithful may, and sometimes should, openly and respectfully criticize popes when they do teach error.
- The 1990 CDF document Donum Veritatis sets out norms governing the legitimate criticism of magisterial documents that exhibit “deficiencies.”

It would seem that Catholic theologians are now in a situation that calls for application of these norms. [DO NOT FORGET THE CARDINALS AND BISHOPS WHO EACH HAVE PLEDGED A VOW TO DEFEND THE CHURCH - STARTING WITH THE INTEGRITY OF THE FAITH - WITH THEIR BLOOD IF NEED BE! SHAME AND ANATHEMA ON THEM WHO OUGHT TO WEAR COWARDS' YELLOW INSTEAD OF MARTYRS' RED!!!


Pope Francis on capital punishment:
Doctrine built on shifting sands
By Phil Lawler

August 3, 2018

How can a fixed moral principle be dependent on a contingent practical judgment? How can a doctrine be based on shifting circumstances?

The Pope can say — indeed Pope John Paul II did say — that it is always wrong, in every case, deliberately to take the life of an innocent human being. But if he values logical consistency, he cannot say that it is always wrong to take an innocent life under current political conditions. Because political conditions change.

Yet in the language that he has inserted into the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis appears to teach that the death penalty is always unjust — “inadmissible” — because of certain political and social developments. We’ll take a closer look at that argument below. (I have already made a few comments on the explanatory paragraph, in a column posted yesterday.)

Cardinal José Gomez of Los Angeles, in a Twitter comment on the Pope’s announcement, offered his own version of the case for change:
The Church has come to understand that from a practical standpoint, governments now have the ability to protect society and punish criminals without executing violent offenders. Expressed in those terms, the change in teaching prompts a number of questions:
• If a doctrine is based on a “practical” judgment, who should make that judgment? If it is primarily a political judgment, should it not be made by political leaders?
• Do all governments have the ability to protect innocent civilians effectively? If not, how can capital punishment be “inadmissible” in all cases?
• Who should decide what constitutes adequate protection for civilians? Again, is that not clearly a political judgment?
• What would happen if, “from a practical standpoint,” governments lost the ability to protect civilians? Would the Church teaching on capital punishment be changed again?

Archbishop Gomez, in a series of Twitter comments, observed that the Church “has always recognized that governments and civil authorities have the right to carry out executions in order to protect their citizens’ lives and punish those guilty of the gravest crimes against human life and the stability of the social order.”

He appears to believe that Pope Francis has left that time-honored teaching intact; in fact the archbishop acknowledges that “many good people will continue to believe that our society needs the death penalty…” But is that an accurate reading of the new section in the Catechism?

Section 2266 of the Catechism, which was revised by Pope John Paul II in 1997, originally said that “the traditional teaching of the Church has acknowledged as well-founded the right and duty of legitimate public authority to punish malefactors by means of penalties commensurate with the gravity of the crime, not excluding, in cases of extreme gravity, the death penalty.” Can we conclude, then, that in some circumstances, despite the new language, capital punishment might be admissible?

The language of the amended 2267 seems to foreclose that possibility: “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…” Notice the use of the past tense: execution was considered justifiable. So has the traditional teaching been changed?

Recall that in 1997, St. John Paul II amended the Catechism to say that while capital punishment might in theory be justifiable, the circumstances that might allow for execution “are very rare, if not practically nonexistent.” That is the section of the Catechism that Pope Francis has now replaced.

Is it possible to accept the teaching of Pope John Paul II, to oppose the use of capital punishment in most current circumstances, and yet to believe that Pope Francis has taken the argument a dangerous step beyond the reach of appropriate Church teaching? I certainly hope that position is legitimate, because that is exactly the position I myself would take.

Writing in First Things, Edward Feser defends that stand: “One does not need to support capital punishment to worry that Pope Francis may have gone too far.” Feser cites the late Cardinal Avery Dulles and Archbishop Charles Chaput as examples of Catholic leaders who oppose the use of the death penalty in current conditions, while recognizing that it could be justifiable under other circumstances.

If Pope Francis had intended only to encourage opposition to the death penalty, he had no need to alter the language of the Catechism. The language of Pope John Paul already provided ample support for that cause. But whereas Pope John Paul had left open the possibility that some circumstances — “very rare, if not practically nonexistent” — might justify execution, Pope Francis wants to slam that door.

And why did the Pontiff make that change? Again, the language of section 2267 itself provides three explanations*:
1. Today, however, there is an increasing awareness that the dignity of the person is not lost even after the commission of very serious crimes.
2. In addition, a new understanding has emerged of the significance of penal sanctions imposed by the state.
3. 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.

The first sentence seems to suggest that our society has gained a keener appreciation of human dignity than obtained in previous generations. The overwhelming preponderance of evidence — along with the teaching of several Popes, including Francis — weighs heavily in the opposite direction, showing that our society has become increasingly callous in its disregard for human dignity.

In fact it is for that very reason that I would generally oppose the use of the death penalty, in the hope that by allowing a depraved criminal to live, society might bear witness against the growing tendency to eliminate inconvenient human life. [???? Lawler loses me here! How does sparing the lives of the Adolf Eichmanns and Ted Bundys of the world increase our respect for human dignity, if the persons sentenced to death had absolutely none at all for those they killed? And isn't the broadbased worldwide crusade against abortion the best way whereby responsible human beings are demonstrating against the tendency to do away with inconvenient human life? Were the lives of people like Eichmann and Bundy 'convenient' at all for anybody but themselves?]

In an excellent National Review article, Kevin Williamson explains:
Mercy does not consist of forbearing to impose the ultimate sanction on those who do not deserve it — that is simply the avoidance of active injustice — but rather in forbearing to impose the ultimate sanction on those who do deserve it.
[But if they deserve the sanction, why be forbearing at all? Does not 'mercy' in this case totally ignore justice in favor of false charity?]

The second sentence of the new Catechism text is, frankly, opaque. I have no idea what, if anything, it means. What is this new understanding? What is the (new?) significance of penal sanctions?

The third sentence, however, makes the critical judgment that “more effective systems of detention” allow for the elimination of the death penalty. In what countries are these wonderful new penal systems in force? In China, Iraq, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia? Obviously not. So the circumstances that explain the Pope’s change in Church teaching do not occur in the countries which account for at least 98% of all the world’s state-sponsored executions!

All arguments against Bergoglio's first arrogation of the very act of 'changing the Catechism' by his personal fiat are ultimately superfluous and unavailing in the face of the simple fact that this pope- who has demonstrated far more than any other pope since Alexander Borgia, who at least did not presume to change Church teaching even if he violated many of the Ten Commandments, how absolutely and miserably 'human' a pope can be in his failings and shortcomings, and how absolutely Luciferian he is in his hubris - is presuming to say he alone knows best what is right against 2000 years of Catholic teaching upheld by the most brilliant minds in the Church.


Changing the Catechism and
the pope's lack of prudence
Translated from

August 4, 2018

It was easily predictable that the pope’s changes to the text of the Catechism about the death penalty would launch a fullscale worldwide ‘debate’ on the issue. [Conveniently turning fickle public attention away from McCarrickism and its reverberations – which doubtless was the primary propaganda motivation for springing the not-quite-surprise.] The discussion is on at least two fronts: the question of the death penalty in itself; and the question of Catholic doctrine and how it could possibly be ‘modified’ in response to changes in the world.

On the first front, since I have no wish to hide my opinions on it, I have written about my personal opposition to the death penalty – based simply on the Fifth Commandment ‘Thou shalt not kill’. It is true that as the Catechism underlines (Par 2261), Seripture introduces an important qualification when it reminds us that the sense of the prohibition is “not to kill the innocent and the just” (Ez 23,7), and equally true that 2000 years of Christian thinking and doctrine (e.g., Augustine and Aquinas, to name just two) have upheld the legitimacy of the death penalty in some circumstances as the extrema ratio against an unjust aggressor who cannot otherwise be neutralized (which is the reason why Catholic Magisterium has never called for the unconditional abolition of the death penalty).

Nonetheless, I hold (and in this, I cite theologian Gino Concetti) that the death penalty, like abortion and euthanasia, is a violation of the right to life, by the intolerable imposition of might over weak persons. God says that the human life, any life, is always sacred and inviolable. Life is a divine gift which is not at the disposition of man. Only God can do that. Moreover, since human justice can never be perfect and free of errors in judgement, there is always the risk that the death penalty could be inflicted on an innocent person or on someone who does not deserve it. Since death is irreversible, the risk is too great for anyone to take it. [I would repeat to Valli my argument that even Jesus acknowledged the right of the state to execute him - it became the human means that made it possible for God to consummate the sacrifice he had come down to earth for.]

But the other question has to do with the reason used by Bergoglio to ‘explain’ why the death penalty is ‘inadmissible’. Indeed, he did not cite the patrimony of the faith and the doctrine handed down and transmitted by the Church but only what is happening in the world. He writes of 3 instances of change: the “increasing awareness” today of the dignity of the human being, a “new understanding of the significance of penal sanctions on the part of the State”, and finally, “more effective systems of detention”.

None of that has to do with Scriptures, the teaching of the Church nor the Magisterium. Which opens up a huge problem because, with this move, whatever doctrinal point can now be changed, drawing inspiration from new sensibilities in the world and from new techniques that the world itself, in various forms, is able to promote and apply.

It is not accidental that the so-called LGBTQ community has already expressed its satisfaction at the pope’s decision. Because if, in fact, the prerequisites for changing doctrine would be “an increasing awareness” of a specific phenomenon or condition and the ‘new understanding’ that the world has of that phenomenon or condition, then obviously the entire doctrinal apparatus of the Church could be changed at will and eventually discarded.

The instrument – I was going to say ‘picklock’ – that seems to be most available for operating such a willful disregard for [stable] doctrine is the concept of ‘dignity’. In the name of such undefined ‘dignity’, everything can be allowed. So it is significant that this pope invokes ‘dignity’ to justify his attack on the Catechism. It would have been different if he had invoked the inviolability of human life. But ‘dignity’ is a more indeterminate word which lends itself to other perspectives (‘starting processes’, as this pope loves to call it), especially to block any attempt at exercising moral judgment.

And this is the reason why I say that this pope, in thus justifying his ‘change’ of the Catechism’s canon No. 2267, failed to make use of the first of the cardinal virtues, which is prudence, called the auriga virtutum, the chariot that drives all the other virtues. For him not to exercise prudence is very serious indeed, because it is the virtue of the rational soul which can recognize whether there is true good in every circumstance and is thereby guided in the exercise of moral principles under different situations. [Which makes it all the more ironic that those who justify Bergoglio's arrogance insist he is not changing doctirne but only exercising his (un)-prudential judgment on it!]

Some commentators have said that this is only the beginning and that there will be other changes introduced generically motivated by new sensibilities that become widespread in the world.I do not have prophetic gifts and so I limit myself to saying: GOD FORBID!


Pandora's box of evils is open with
Bergoglio's first change to the Catechism
by Steve Skojec

August 3, 2018

The debate over the pope’s recently announced changes to the Catechism on the subject of capital punishment are being hotly debated in every corner of the Catholic world. Some are saying this change is a mere “development of doctrine.” Some think it’s not a change in doctrine at all, but an adjustment to practical application.

On The World Over with Raymond Arroyo, Robert Royal characterized it as a “break” with tradition; Fr. Gerald Murray called it an “overthrow.” (Their discussion is worthwhile if you have time for it.) Others – like me – take it a step farther, believing that this represents a flat-out contradiction of dogma and, as such, a material heresy.

As is always the case with this pontificate, confusion and division reign. And we all know whose calling cards those are.

But there is more to this change than immediately meets the eye. As with other Francis initiatives, this stands as an affront to the sensus catholicus on its own, but also as an entrée to a larger program. I want to address both of these aspects here.

But first, I want to address a misconception: Catholics who are up in arms over this issue are upset not because they’re worried fewer people will go to the gallows; there are good reasons for reservations over how and when the death penalty should be applied, and that should be open for debate.

What we are upset about is the stunning hubris on display here, taking an infallible teaching and tossing it upside-down. That sets the stage for the entirety of Catholic teaching to be thrown into question.

I sought to establish yesterday that the moral liceity of the death penalty is a matter of divine revelation, affirmed by popes and doctors of the Church, and thus, dogmatic and infallible... Suffice it to say that this is a matter of faith or morals set forth specifically as a divinely revealed truth and thus not changeable. Pope Innocent makes this clear:
“It must be remembered that power was granted by God [to the magistrates], and to avenge crime by the sword was permitted. He who carries out this vengeance is God’s minister (Rm 13:1-4). Why should we condemn a practice that all hold to be permitted by God? We uphold, therefore, what has been observed until now, in order not to alter the discipline and so that we may not appear to act contrary to God’s authority.” – Pope Innocent I, Epist. 6, C. 3. 8, ad Exsuperium, Episcopum Tolosanum, 20 February 405, PL 20,495.

Edward Feser, one of the most knowledgeable and well-read Catholics on this topic, explains the pedigree of this teaching in his piece at First Things:
There has always been disagreement among Catholics about whether capital punishment is, in practice, the morally best way to uphold justice and social order.

However, the Church has always taught, clearly and consistently, that the death penalty is in principle consistent with both natural law and the Gospel...
[Feser's article is at the top of this post.]

The death penalty is often mischaracterized by modern opponents as unnecessary because, allegedly, advances in technology and systematization have made it possible for criminals to be properly and indefinitely detained.

It should be noted that historically, the mind of the Church was not only focused in this matter on the practical question of whether prisoners could be kept from harming others – a standard not yet realized in even the prisons of the First World – but also the realities of retributive justice (a punishment that fits the crime) and expiation (a punishment that, accepted willingly, remits temporal consequences of the sin committed).

Christ embraced death on the cross for precisely these reasons: that the punishment fit the crime (“The wages of sin are death” – Rom. 6:23), and it accomplished the expiation of our sins. He did not deny the authority of Pilate to condemn him. Rather, he said this power came “from above” (Jn 19:11).

The move away from this understanding toward a utilitarian view of effective detainment had already made its way into the previous version of the Catechism, which read (p. 2,267):
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 aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and more in conformity to the dignity of the human person.

Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an offense incapable of doing harm – without definitely taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself – the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity “are very rare, if not practically nonexistent.

The new language instituted by Francis takes this a good deal further:
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.

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.

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.

We see here an expression that the death penalty is “inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person,” but this is apparently conditional upon “an increasing awareness” of this dignity and “a new understanding” of penal sanction and “more effective systems of detention.”

This language is nonsensical. Either a thing is inadmissible – meaning no exceptions, because it is a moral evil – or it is not. Morally admissible things do not become morally inadmissible because circumstances change. Either the death penalty always violated the dignity of the person or it did not. Pope John Paul II explains the moral principles involved in Veritatis Splendor 67:
In the case of the positive moral precepts, prudence always has the task of verifying that they apply in a specific situation, for example, in view of other duties which may be more important or urgent. But the negative moral precepts, those prohibiting certain concrete actions or kinds of behaviour as intrinsically evil, do not allow for any legitimate exception. They do not leave room, in any morally acceptable way, for the “creativity” of any contrary determination whatsoever. Once the moral species of an action prohibited by a universal rule is concretely recognized, the only morally good act is that of obeying the moral law and of refraining from the action which it forbids.

In other words, applied to the present issue, as a positive moral precept, the moral permissibility of the death penalty is subject to prudential judgment in application. Catholics who admit this divinely revealed permissibility can nevertheless, as John Paul II did, argue that the circumstances in which the death penalty might properly be utilized are extremely limited.

But Francis has turned the question into a negative moral precept. He has attempted to exclude the possibility of utilizing capital punishment by calling it “inadmissible” and an “attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person.” This means that he is seeking to establish his own understanding that capital punishment is “intrinsically evil, do not allow for any legitimate exception” – in direct contradiction to his predecessors, like Pope Innocent I. [Ah, but Bergoglio/Ladaria cunningly avoid saying so literally, that it is 'intrinsically evil', only that it is 'inadmissible' which can admit of various interpretations and does not open up Bergoglio directly to any charge of material heresy - i.e., in court, he would get off any accusation of heresy on a technicality. The same dodge he used in Amoris laetitia to stay just within the line separating heterodoxy from outright heresy.]

Whereas Innocent sought not to “appear to act contrary to God’s authority,” Francis doesn’t seem to care.This is not a thing that can simply be explained away.

It is always alarming to see what a Rorschach test these papal novelties prove to be. People see in them what they want, and consequently, many – perhaps even most – find a way to justify them. What is astonishing is how many faithful people deny that this represents a manifest rupture with the Church’s perennial teaching.

Many contest the assertion that this is a truth divinely revealed and constantly upheld by the Magisterium on a matter of faith and morals and, as such, is dogmatic and infallible. These include Catholic clergy who at least appear to be committed to doctrinal orthodoxy.

Or perhaps some do believe this teaching is divinely revealed but that nevertheless, it is subject to evolution.

What is happening, in either case, is a perfect example of the very Modernism Pope St. Pius X explicitly condemned in Pascendi Dominici Gregis. He wrote of the way being pried open for “the intrinsic evolution of dogma” through a chipping away at absolute truth. “An immense collection of sophisms this, that ruins and destroys all religion. Dogma is not only able, but ought to evolve and to be changed. This is strongly affirmed by the Modernists, and as clearly flows from their principles.”

And yet, for this to happen at the hands of a pope is catastrophically self-defeating; it undermines the very foundations upon which papal authority is erected. As Cardinal Avery Dulles – who was himself an opponent of the use of the death penalty – said in 2002:
If the Pope were to deny that the death penalty could be an exercise of retributive justice, he would be overthrowing the tradition of two millennia of Catholic thought, denying the teaching of several previous popes, and contradicting the teaching of Scripture (notably in Genesis 9:5-6 and Romans 13:1-4).

I doubt whether the tradition is reversible at all, but even if it were, the reversal could hardly be accomplished by an incidental section in a long encyclical focused primarily on the defense of innocent human life. If the pope were contradicting the tradition, one could legitimately question whether his statement outweighed the established teaching of so many past centuries.

Via Feser, Dulles states elsewhere:
The death penalty is not intrinsically evil. Both Scripture and long Christian tradition acknowledge the legitimacy of capital punishment under certain circumstances. The Church cannot repudiate that without repudiating her own identity.
Repudiating her own identity. Undermining her own authority. If this long held and infallible teaching can simply be overturned by papal fiat, which other teachings are subject to change? Every single one.

Astute observers began speculating shortly after the news broke of the latest change to the Catechism that this argumentation would be used to batter down the prohibitions against sexual immorality. In record time, they were proven correct.

Today, in a blog post at New Ways Ministry – an advocacy group for “justice and equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) Catholics” – we see clearly that the floodgate has opened:
It’s important for Catholic advocates for LGBT equality to take note of this change because for decades Catholic opponents of LGBT equality argued that it is impossible to change church teaching. They often pointed to the fact that condemnations of same-sex relationships were inscribed in the Catechism, and so were not open for discussion or change. Yet, the teaching on the death penalty is in the Catechism, too, and, in fact, to make this change in teaching, it was the text of the Catechism that Francis changed.

Ironically, unlike faithful Catholics who are currently bending themselves into knots trying to demonstrate that this change represents no big deal, the people at New Ways Ministry call a spade a spade:

So, the change is not a contradiction, even though it is the opposite of what came before it? Hmmmm.

What does this death penalty news mean for Catholic advocates for LGBT equality? … we now have a clear, explicit contemporary example of church teaching changing, and also a look into how it can be done: with a papal change to the Catechism.

The lid has been blown off Pandora’s box, and Rome lit the fuse. We had best be prepared for what comes out.

St. Alphonsus, Holy Doctor of the Faith

August 2, 2018

Inasmuch as Pope Francis chose August 2, the traditional memorial of St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori, bishop and confessor, Doctor of the Church, to make public his attempt to chuck down the Memory Hole the irreformable truth that "the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty," it is only fitting that the faithful recall what this eminent Doctor of Truth had to say on this subject.

From St. Alphonsus' Theologia Moralis, courtesy of the Lex Christianorum weblog:
"Question II:
Whether it is lawful for proper authority to kill a criminal?

Response: Other than the case of necessary defense, of which more below, no one except public authority may lawfully do so, and then only if the order of the law has been observed, as is made clear in Exodus 22 and Romans 13.. . . . The public authority is given the power to kill wrongdoers, and that not unjustly, since it is necessary for the defense of the commonwealth. (Killing may not be done outside of the criminal’s territory, neither is it presumed that another prince has this right.) They also sin who kill not out of the zeal of justice, but out of hate, or private vengeance. Laym

Similarly, a prince or magistrate sins (normally speaking) who orders a wrongdoer to be put to death without being properly cited, or heard, or adjudged (by public trial), even it if he has personal knowledge of that person’s guilt, because as a matter of natural law, a public act ought to be derived from public knowledge and authority. There is an exception to this rule if: (1) the crime is notorious, or (2) if there is a danger of sedition, or the King’s disgrace, if the cause proceeds juridically."

In his teaching here, St. Alphonsus follows the unvarying and infallible doctrine of the Church regarding capital punishment, as witnessed in Holy Scripture, in the doctrine of Our Lord and the Holy Apostles, in the unanimous consent of the Fathers, and Holy Church's Magisterium. God forbid that any other Catholic should do less!
O God, who through the burning zeal for the salvation of souls of Blessed Alphonsus Maria, Thy confessor and bishop, didst enrich Thy Church with fresh offspring, grant, we beseech Thee, that, imbued with his wholesome doctrine, and strengthened by his example, we may, by Thy grace, come happily unto Thee. Through Our Lord Jesus Christ, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, world without end. Amen.
- Collect for the traditional Proper Mass of St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 05/08/2018 04:10]