A highly recommended book that sheds
the patient, clear light of reason on the issue of capital punishment. Every U.S. bishop should read it…
In recent years, position statements
and lobbying efforts of the USCCB have ranged across a wide variety of
prudential issues, from global warming and tax policy to immigration and the
death penalty.
There are many policy approaches to
such issues that might conform to the precepts of legitimate Catholic social
teaching, so Lumen
Gentium, the Dogmatic Constitution on the
Catholic Church, requires that action on in this area be left to the laity.
However, leaders and bureaucrats at the USCCB routinely violate that magisterial teaching, and pretend that theirs is the only permissible “Catholic” position when they choose a particular agenda item to champion.
Over the years, this bad habit has
put the faithful in a position of delicacy, patiently and charitably reminding
the bishops that they are trespassing in the realm that is the property of the
laity…
Feser and Bessette’s monumental work
is so welcome in so many ways. It offers
a model for the thorough, careful, and charitable approach that the faithful
must embrace to address the myriad of issues that lie in the realm of the laity…
Regarding capital punishment, the
bishops’ strenuous advocacy is well-known…
Yes, Popes St. John Paul II and
Benedict have called for its abolition; they stressed that their opinions were
not magisterial, but that rational voice has faded. So today it falls to the laity to explain the
principles underlying the issues of crime and punishment, laying out the
arguments to explain the principles in the light of the rich tradition of
Catholic thought. After all, the laity
has a fundamental right to the truth, including when it comes to capital
punishment.
And the truth is exactly what Feser
and Bessette offer in their impressive study. Since popular arguments against the death
penalty are often based on sentiment, they take great care in presenting a
clear and rational discussion to shed the patient, clear light of reason on the
issue. The authors do a masterful job,
addressing the issue of capital punishment from the point of view of the
Natural Law, Church teaching, and theological and philosophical anthropology…
Yes, busy bishops must often assign
to their staffs, lawyers, and advisers the detailed studies that inform the
positions they take publicly. Well, it’s
time for a change: Simply put, every bishop should read this book.
Can he deal with its rational
analysis shorn of sentiment and opinion? The authors have written so clearly and
cogently that the reader who supports abolishing the death penalty can at least
say that he has honestly considered the best possible arguments against his own
position. In fact, the authors make the
bishops’ arguments better than they make them themselves! …
This beautifully researched and
clearly written work will now become the standard Catholic work on capital
punishment.
I don't know if you could have asked for a better book review!
ReplyDeleteHello Dr. Feser. How do I access a complete list of your archived blog posts, by month/year. I can't seem to find any link here on the main blog site. I could keep clicking "older posts"...but that will take forever, nor will they be archived in a easy to access format. Am I missing something obvious. Thanks advance, and God Bless.
ReplyDeleteIf any other contributor might provide some help and guidance on this question, that would be much appreciated, also.
DeleteOn the full site version (not the mobile version), it should be on the right-hand side of the page. But the mobile version doesn't have it, at least that I've ever seen.
DeleteScroll down the right side of this page. At the bottom is the Blog Archive going back to 2008.
ReplyDeleteThe latest from Dr. Fastiggi over on this blog (https://catholicmoraltheology.com/the-death-penalty-and-the-development-of-doctrine-part-ii/):
ReplyDeleteI don’t believe it’s necessary to condemn the death penalty as intrinsically evil (even though such a condemnation is theoretically possible). It suffices, I think, for the Pope to use his ordinary magisterium to condemn the death penalty as gravely wrong when applied to a person who no longer poses a threat and whose crime was in the past. This already is the teaching of the ordinary papal magisterium because Pope Francis’s 2015 Letter is in the A.A.S. Moreover, Pope Francis, in Amoris laetitia, 83, teaches that the Church “firmly rejects the death penalty.” While certain specifications might still need to be developed, I think the teaching of the Church against the death penalty is now quite clear. Catholics should give religious assent to what Pope Francis teaches, viz., the death penalty is inadmissable when carried out on a person who is no longer free, who no longer poses a threat, and whose crime was in the past.
His comments can be found under the article. It seems to be his opinion that Pope Francis has taken us beyond Pope Bendict's 2004 memo that Catholics can legitimately disagree with the Pope on application of the death penalty.
These is going to be a key theses of the anti-DP crowd. Namely: Even if the DP is not intrinsically immoral, Catholics are not permitted to support the practice in our modern time. They must submit with mind and will to the modern Popes.
What should be our answer to this sentiment?
"They must submit with mind and will to the modern Popes."
ReplyDeleteI think the answer to that sort of sentiment should be something along the lines of what Nietzsche would say: "As soon as a religion comes to dominate it has as its opponents all those who would have been its first disciples."
And I repeat that as a Catholic myself
"Catholics should give religious assent to what Pope Francis teaches, viz., the death penalty is inadmissable when carried out on a person who is no longer free, who no longer poses a threat, and whose crime was in the past."
ReplyDeleteAs a Catholic, I cannot give religious assent to a teaching of the ordinary magisterium that directly contradicts previous magisterial teaching.
Also, I would point out that Fastiggi has not responded to Dr. Feser's reply to him, which was devastating. Yet Fastiggi still maintains that a papal condemnation of the death penalty as intrinsically evil is "theoretically possible."
What is he smoking? In multiple instances in the Old Testament, God positively commands that the death penalty be enforced. How can God command something that is intrinsically evil?
I would just like to point out, also, that the anti-intellectualism fostered by this Pope and his defenders is unprecedented. He and they consistently refuse to engage their critics in any meaningful way. They reply to argument with rhetoric, and when that rhetoric is exposed as rhetoric, they respond with either silence or force.
ReplyDeleteIt is indeed a travesty.