"An attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person"

August 2, 2018 3:57 PM

Pope Francis has changed the Catechism on the death penalty, declaring it 'inadmissible' in all cases. This represents a change for the church where past popes presided over executions when they governed the Papal States. Today, much media coverage has focused on prominent Catholic politicians, religious leaders, and the Catholic public where their work and/or opinions support the death penalty in at least some cases. More than two-thirds of the countries in the world have abolished the practice.

Previously: The late Antonin Scalia on the law, Catholicism, and the death penalty

posted by mosst (23 comments total)

Huh. I was under the mistaken impression the Catholic church was 100% anti-death penalty. Good on Pope Francis for this. While there are crimes that merit the death penalty, the risk of executing an innocent person is too great in my opinion to take the chance.
posted by jzb at 4:06 PM on August 2, 2018 [8 favorites]

What's the Sedevacantist's stand? Trying to figure out if we should worry about Mel Gibson.
posted by rhizome at 5:05 PM on August 2, 2018 [1 favorite]

Mod note: Couple things removed; there's all kinds of problems with the Catholic Church but maybe let's aim for a more substantive engagement with this actual post content then "yeah but what about unrelated bad thing x".
posted by cortex (staff) at 5:44 PM on August 2, 2018 [14 favorites]

I really wish more news coverage focused on the theological reasonings and evolution of this change, rather than the fact that it happened and reactions. As it stands, I don’t fully understand the shift, and I’d like to.
posted by corb at 7:48 PM on August 2, 2018 [6 favorites]

Corb, according to the new catechism, the Church's position seems to be that death "definitively deprive[s] the guilty of the possibility of redemption", so it can only be justified to "ensure the due protection of citizens". Imprisonment now adequately protects citizens; therefore the death penalty cannot be justified. That looks like a very theologically robust argument to me; the only problem is explaining why the Church didn't adopt it fifty or a hundred years ago.
posted by Joe in Australia at 8:13 PM on August 2, 2018 [11 favorites]

Great. Now I have to edit my Mary Tudor fanfic.
posted by thivaia at 8:33 PM on August 2, 2018 [3 favorites]

a very theologically robust argument

I suppose ‘Thou shalt not kill’ was always too difficult to interpret correctly.
posted by Segundus at 9:09 PM on August 2, 2018 [19 favorites]

I was listening to a BBC podcast on torture and they briefly spoke to a doctor working against capital punishment who spoke about how the appearance of a peaceful death to observers meant little to the actual physical and psychological experience of pain by those dying, based on post-mortem records. It was interesting in that he said observers are split by their biases for or against capital punishment, and so it is difficult to objectively assess another's pain. They were also talking in the podcast about how the anticipation of pain and not having control over pain made it far more painful than the single experience of the pain alone, both from torture survivors and from experiments.

Capital punishment as self-defence by a community when there is no alternative of safe isolation - but that's a lie now. I think of it's just cheaper and more popular.

But to willingly give the state the right to kill its people terrifies me.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 9:13 PM on August 2, 2018 [5 favorites]

I think of it's just cheaper and more popular.

It’s not. It’s bloodlust plain and simple.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 9:20 PM on August 2, 2018 [11 favorites]

Well, with a whole lot of racism, too. Don’t forget the racism.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 9:21 PM on August 2, 2018 [13 favorites]

the Church's position seems to be that death "definitively deprive[s] the guilty of the possibility of redemption"

Thank you, that does make a lot of sense.
posted by corb at 9:38 PM on August 2, 2018 [1 favorite]

How does this relate to the “seamless garment”? I thought the idea was that the Church was against abortion and against the death penalty. I didn’t realize this was new.
posted by kerf at 10:23 PM on August 2, 2018

There's very little new here. The old teaching was against the death penalty, except if the sovereign was otherwise incapable of restraining a murderer from killing again, noting that such circumstances are "practically nonexistent".
posted by save alive nothing that breatheth at 11:27 PM on August 2, 2018 [2 favorites]

Where I live, we have one of the world's highest death penalty rates and a very low appeals system, and it's all ridiculously efficient. I would guess China the other countries which rely on death penalty don't have the same expensive and very long legal system that the U.S. has that makes death penalty cases so expensive compared to life imprisonment. Economics is an argument used here.

Bloodlust popularity I agree absolutely.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 3:23 AM on August 3, 2018

And yet ironically, if it weren't for the death penalty the Catholic Church wouldn't exist.
posted by Faint of Butt at 4:05 AM on August 3, 2018 [11 favorites]

You’re right: “On the third appeal, He was exonerated” doesn’t have the same ring to it.
posted by Barack Spinoza at 6:25 AM on August 3, 2018 [1 favorite]

So when are the excommunications of bloodthirsty Catholic politicians going to start? Pro-death Catholic shitheels like Marco Rubio and Paul Ryan should have been publicly hounded out of the faith years ago.
posted by zombieflanders at 6:45 AM on August 3, 2018 [2 favorites]

I would guess that go hand in hand with excommunication of pro-choice Catholic politicians, so I would prefer not to pursue that path.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:56 AM on August 3, 2018 [5 favorites]

So when are the excommunications of bloodthirsty Catholic politicians going to start?

That would require a change in canon law (longer read here). Which could happen, but it would be a significant shift.
posted by BWA at 8:09 AM on August 3, 2018 [1 favorite]

Pro-choice senators have been refused holy communion in the past. I wonder it also applies to death penalty support.
posted by giraffe at 12:03 PM on August 3, 2018

53% of American Catholics support the death penalty, so...wow.

Also enjoy these articles and op-eds from a site whose tagline is "the #1 pro-life news website":

• ‘Doctrinal error’: Catholics react to Pope Francis’ new teaching against death penalty
• Pope's change to catechism is not just a prudential judgement, but a rejection of dogma
• Pope’s change to Catechism on death penalty is distressingly ambiguous
• Death penalty: Pope Francis moves from religion to politics

I didn't just choose the most critical articles from the website. If I'm not mistaken, that's all of the articles reacting to the change.

Is this really what conservative catholics think, or is that site just some weird anomaly? Seriously, what?
posted by mosst at 1:02 PM on August 3, 2018 [1 favorite]

Yeah, for conservative thoughtful Catholic news I personally try the National Catholic Register, which has more thorough coverage.
posted by corb at 3:57 PM on August 3, 2018

Metafilter: a very theologically robust argument.
posted by riverlife at 8:51 PM on August 3, 2018 [1 favorite]