Before the XX century, and even now in Muslim countries, religion was to a great extent what informed the public conscience. Together, Christianity and the public conscience informed British legislation of a social kind, such as Catholic Emancipation, the abolition of slavery, and the Factory Acts.
The process is now largely reversed. Laws passed have changed the public conscience about matters like the death penalty, abortion, and sexual deviation. After a decent period of reflection (or weathercock-gazing) religious leaders, Catholic Bishops amngst them, also change their consciences.
Last Wednesday, Pope Benedict, catching up with secular fashions in morality, asked that countries work towards abolition of the death penalty where it still persists.
His rather more robust predecessors in the Papal States maintained the death penalty until Pius IX, one of my favourite Popes, unfortunately abolished it in 1869, and retired the last executioner Battista Bugatti on a pension. Among the methods in use up to the 1860s were hanging, beheading, and the mazatello , a long-handled pole-axe with which the condemned was first stunned before having his throat cut. Charles Dickens witnessed and disapprovingly described an execution by Bugatti.
There is an appealing moral symmetry about the death penalty when applied to murderers. Kill and be killed. Its use prevents further murderous activity by the party executed, and to an extent repairs or restores the injured honour of both those closest to the person murdered and society at large. It also enrages post-freudian twerps who cannot distinguish between cruelty and sadism.
Opposition to capital punishment in principle is founded upon either religious, but not Catholic, morality, or upon mere squeamishness. A society which accepts abortion but cringes from execution is not prepared to kill the guilty who are visible, but quite sanguine over killing the invisible innocent child in the womb. Sentimental hypocrisy.
Opposition on practical grounds - the risk of wrongful conviction - is another matter, but not one that Benedict seems to have mentioned. He seems less concerned about more than a thousand years of practical Catholic wisdom, than conforming the Church to the fickle spirit of the age: hitching the Barque of Peter to the liberal handcart.
And when clergy, be they never so high, adopt secular morality, dissent may well be a duty, and one which I heartily embrace.
Or have I missed something?
Out Of Don Milani’s Pig’s Mouth, Or: Defence of The “Marginalised” Is The
Best Indication Of Sexual Perversion.
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The lurid translations of that big, fat, lurid pig called Don Milani are
here. I have read the Italian version and can assure you the translations
are actu...
14 hours ago
11 comments:
Left footer on this we must disagree.
IF the Church is to be PRO-LIFE, it must be so for all, not just the unborn, but also those who may deserve to forfeit their lives.
The death of any one person is always in the hands of God, or should be.
It is not for me a liberal point of view, it is one that makes common sense to me.
I live in a country where not too long ago, when the death penalty was sanctioned in Canada, an by an upright and austere judge sentenced a 14 year old boy to "hang by the neck until you are dead." It was the sentence approved for the crime with which the boy was accused, and found guilty; the rape and murder of a 12 year old school mate; on the flimsiest of evidence.
Being only 14 they commuted his sentence to life in prison.
Decades later his conviction was overturned. And subsequently found not guilty.
If this could happen even once. it is too much. that is why my country got rid of the death penalty
I think you might have missed something. The Holy See abolished capital punishment long before anybody else did, but even now, the Church doesn't say that it's never justified, only that it's hard to set hard and fast conditions in which it's justified.
FWIW, I'd say getting rid of the Ceausescus after due process was an unfortunate but just necessity if Romania was to avoid civil war. I'd say that getting rid of the Nazi leaders at the first Nuremburg trial was a way of formally trying to rid the world of something diabolic (even if Uncle Joe and pals were missing), but maybe the idea that capital punishment is a distasteful necessity when men have become diabolic, but usually otherwise avoidable is a lesson for us.
I think you missed controversy about the death penalty when the(full, universal, but not exactly new) catecism first came out some 20odd years ago , lots of it , which the media possibly started and most certainly used bias , smear and outright lies to inflame.
Then Cardinal Ratzinger, got most of the stick. He gave many extensive interviews, which barely preinternet were harder to find verbatim , you needed a public library. His own , well thought out and justified position , was not in favour of the death penalty, his defence of its nonexclusion from the catechism was utterly calm and reasoned also.His personal history may make him wary of any use of power by Ceasar. You may disagree with him- I suspect a public library might help, not everythings on internet even yet- but it's no weathervane question at all in the Holy Father's case. I've missed somthing myself: I havent seen the news you're referring to.
Puff - as I wrote, "Opposition on practical grounds - the risk of wrongful conviction - is another matter, but not one that Benedict seems to have mentioned."
I am reluctantly opposed to the death penalty, but only because of the risk of wrongful conviction. My post was not abour capital punishment per se, but about the Church conforming to public opinion rather than influencing or forming it.
Ttony - Russia was also without the death penalty for periods in the XIX century, but prisoners were often flogged to death.
However, the Holy Father has called for universal abolition. My gripe is not with this particular instance, but with every instance where an moral attitude which started with quakers, or non-conformists, or agnostics, or whoever, is picked up, much later by the Church, which then reverses its previous stance on the matter and conforms.
I expect that kind of behaviour from the more doltish among the Bishops, but not from the Holy Father.
As to the Germans hanged after the War, I applaud their execution, as I would that of any murderer of the innocent. In the case of Hans Frank and co., there was no doubt about their guilt.
Miscarriages of justice are not so infrequent, however, as to make me support the death penalty, other than in principle.
Mike - You are right - I missed most of the controversy about this 20 years ago.
As I said earlier, my unease is due to the fact that the Church, or the Papacy, or the Papal States, until 150 years ago, practised a fairly brutal form of capital punishment, and now seem to be conforming to opinions which have their origin in secular society, other ecclesial bodies, and dubious M.P.s.
When I was about 14, the Vicar of our country parish stopped the once-a-year use of the B.C.P Commination Service ("Accursed be he who..."). When I asked him why, he said that people didn't like it.
So it had to go!
I expected a bit more muscle from the Catholic Church.
From the Holy Father down, brownie points with the trendies may weigh all over in the church - it happens.
I have had brushes with antideathpenaltycumlove abortion catholics, particulary when the catechism was published, sometimes before.
On the same general point you might like a noncatholic(as far as I know) pithy writer:
http://www.steynonline.com/4655/sentenced-to-death
Thank you very much, Mike, for the link to steynonline. His piece is very well, indeed, perfectly argued.
God bless!
Hi Chris, it's Ros(shadowlands). My other blog got taken over by an american advertising website so I have started another one.
Just thought I would stop by and say Hello, on my return (so to speak).
Ros - Nice to see you back! How on earth did they manage to hijack your blog? Can't you report them to Google? have you lost posts?
Hi Chris, well I attempted to change the name of the blog and left it 'unamed' for a day and when I looked at it on Google reader, this other blog kept showing up and redirecting me to some website or other. I couldn't be bothered with all the hassle so just started a new one. I think as long as I don't mess about trying to import and export, I should be OK this time.
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