tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post8332649721311166145..comments2024-03-19T02:00:34.750-07:00Comments on Edward Feser: Pope Francis and capital punishmentEdward Feserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13643921537838616224noreply@blogger.comBlogger282125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-56414284636136852752018-08-14T08:15:44.175-07:002018-08-14T08:15:44.175-07:00What about all the people who are harmed to keep m...What about all the people who are harmed to keep millions of criminals who commited serious crimes and have to struggle to support them in jail? Because you know, the money comes from our pockets, it could have been used for us to pay our medical bills, where is the dignity in stealing from people who have many struggles to support murderers in jail? Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14389327995824386334noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-65105637902642736202018-08-13T08:41:52.376-07:002018-08-13T08:41:52.376-07:00How can one be in full communion with a publicly h...How can one be in full communion with a publicly heretical pope and be a Catholic? The teaching of the Catholic faith is that a public heretic is outside the Church, if you are in full communion with him you are outside the Church.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14389327995824386334noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-20736398425783643742018-08-12T20:48:07.574-07:002018-08-12T20:48:07.574-07:00A public heretic is outside the Church, what is th...A public heretic is outside the Church, what is the difficulty? This is the only honest way to understand what is happening, all of this religious indifferentism, that all religions are praiseworthy. That there is no hell. These teachings are not Catholic, and they exist since VII culminating in Bergoglio. “That false opinion which considers all religions to be more or less good and praiseworthy, since they all in different ways manifest and signify that sense which is inborn in us all, and by which we are led to God and to the obedient acknowledgment of His rule. Not only are those who hold this opinion in error and deceived, but also in distorting the idea of true religion they reject it, and little by little. turn aside to naturalism and atheism, as it is called; from which it clearly follows that one who supports those who hold these theories and attempt to realize them, is altogether abandoning the divinely revealed religion.” (Pope Pius XI MORTALIUM ANIMOS 2), contradicts directly the Magisterium. There are many sedevacantists Churches growing, for example St Gertrude the Great, the Society of Saint Pius V, and others just in the US. Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14389327995824386334noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-38463509795971238002018-08-12T17:55:43.071-07:002018-08-12T17:55:43.071-07:00He's a public heretic outside the Church, how ...He's a public heretic outside the Church, how long will it take for you all to understand? Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14389327995824386334noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-76315198861569421522018-08-12T17:50:03.594-07:002018-08-12T17:50:03.594-07:00Perhaps they are, and the Pope is *ex officio* a “...Perhaps they are, and the Pope is *ex officio* a “Revelator” - despite the denial of Pastor Aeternus that Popes were this, or could be this. Sometimes it feels as though the CC is turning into the Church of England...James https://www.blogger.com/profile/10778088696977639132noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-4293310890311495332018-08-12T17:22:57.167-07:002018-08-12T17:22:57.167-07:00How does teaching that “the death penalty is inadm...How does teaching that “the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability of the person”, not lend itself to a future condemnation of all punishment ? Corporal punishment was widely and long used by the Church - another error, it seems. Even though Scripture & Tradition countenance it. <br /><br />I have omitted the words “and dignity”, that in the English follow “inviolability”, because they have no support in the Italian.James https://www.blogger.com/profile/10778088696977639132noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-5840293330806017202018-08-12T16:51:36.158-07:002018-08-12T16:51:36.158-07:00“It is therefore possible for the Catechism to be ...“It is therefore possible for the Catechism to be in error on nuances points, although extremely rare (to the point of making international head lines whenever there is even the appearance of error).”<br /><br />If the bishops are such blitheringly incompetent buffoons:<br /><br />1) they need to resign ASAP;<br /><br />2) they are false teachers, and need to be condemned as false teachers, by name;<br /><br />3) then the assistance (supposedly) provided by the Holy Spirit is not working, which prompts the question “Why not ?”. Or is the assistance provided by the Holy Spirit compatible with teaching false doctrine ? If so, why does it matter two hoots whether the Pope, or the bishops in union with him, or the Faithful, are infallible in teaching or believing ? <br /><br />4) How is it morally tolerable to require the Faithful, and future bishops, to believe, & teach, doctrines that may be false ? How can people have a duty before God to give internal assent to what is not true ? <br /><br />The Catechism, if it contains errors, is a “poisoned pasture” - as Leo XII called Protestant Bible Societies. So much for the CCC’s being a “sure norm for teaching the Faith”. <br /><br />Error in Christian doctrine is a very great evil regardless of how slight it may seem. The error of Arius consisted of a single letter - but it caused untold damage. Bishops who tolerate errors are the accomplices of those who teach the errors.James https://www.blogger.com/profile/10778088696977639132noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-57719172644591711562018-08-10T14:40:17.137-07:002018-08-10T14:40:17.137-07:00It is pretty simple to understand.
The Commandmen...It is pretty simple to understand.<br /><br />The Commandment is "Thou shalt not kill." The natural law teaches us: "Do not kill when killing is not necessary."<br /><br />Pope Francis is simply recognizing that we do not need to kill any more (we can keep the person safely and securely in prison) and that the double effect reasoning that justified the death penalty in the past no longer applies.<br /><br />He states this in such a way as to make it clear that this is both a rule that one must use in death penalty cases, and to tell us that we have the moral obligation to create safe and secure prisons.<br /><br />I really don't get the fooforah about this. This development is in line with what our previous two Popes have said on the subject.meme1961https://www.blogger.com/profile/03473680377790936688noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-31877916163062349952018-08-09T09:28:45.940-07:002018-08-09T09:28:45.940-07:00Thank you. Encountering a kind person ended my fu...Thank you. Encountering a kind person ended my funk and I did my evening prayers yesterday with you.<br /><br />Great advice. Many Saints have persevered through worse.<br /><br />I'd do my part, primarily prayer. God bless you and others taking this head on.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-69436802648529795282018-08-08T16:06:30.050-07:002018-08-08T16:06:30.050-07:00Anon, the Prof is right, that things have been fa...Anon, the Prof is right, that things have been far worse than this.<br /><br />On Good Friday, it is arguable, that the Church consisted of little more than The Mother of God, and The Apostle John. The Apostles had fled, and even Peter had denied Christ three times.<br /><br />Remember, you always have your Rosary. It never fails. Pray it everyday.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-60183482317125366332018-08-08T14:45:28.227-07:002018-08-08T14:45:28.227-07:00Anon, I understand that, like others, you are in p...Anon, I understand that, like others, you are in pain right now, and for good reason. But don't let yourself get discouraged. This kind of thing can happen and has happened in the past. It's awful but it is consistent with what the Church says about the range of possible error. Consider how bad things have been in the past, hopeless seeming even, before turning around (the Arian crisis, Cadaver Synod, Great Western Schism, etc.). Keep the big picture in mind and focus on the sacraments and on doing what you can do to be a good Catholic, and let God take care of the rest. God bless.Edward Feserhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13643921537838616224noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-76509801871796219312018-08-08T14:08:40.689-07:002018-08-08T14:08:40.689-07:00No one has made any claim concerning which cases d...No one has made any claim concerning which cases deserve capital punishment, except that it is a prudential judgement and the decision is up to the relevant authorities. It is neither incoherence nor hypocrisy, but a straightforward adherence to 2,000 years of the Church’s teaching. It ill behoves you to lie about our words in a place where everybody can read exactly what was actually said.Tom Simonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16067031472666752839noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-73928242008697891522018-08-08T12:25:47.153-07:002018-08-08T12:25:47.153-07:00I did not want to read the First Things article as...I did not want to read the First Things article as I knew what EF would say. After reading I went to daily Mass as is my custom, but I could not take communion. With the Magesterium gone, the Catholic Faith is no longer in accord with reason for me.<br /><br />I won't say the Pope is wrong, but I can no longer follow him as opposed to any protestant, LDS, or Jehovah's witness prophet who claims to know the truth today.<br /><br />He had already pretty much told me I'm a fool for following the teaching of all prior Popes and that of Jesus in Mark 10 by remaining chaste after my civil divorce eight years ago. Thomas More had been my inspiration for how could I complain about my unfulfilled desires when More gave his head for his faith. I guess More was a fool like me.<br /><br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-79501414754178384492018-08-08T10:43:23.387-07:002018-08-08T10:43:23.387-07:00OK. So cp defenders forgive debt, or at least do n...OK. So cp defenders forgive debt, or at least do not require that cp be applied, to those who owe more but do not forgive debt and require that cp be applied to those who owe less? It is looks like incoerence or hypocrisy(cf. Matthew 18:21-35)leox35bhttp://leox35b.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-48751903093006132692018-08-08T10:17:46.021-07:002018-08-08T10:17:46.021-07:00If someone wants to argue that the CCC now teaches...If someone wants to argue that the CCC now teaches that capital punishment is intrinsically evil, they might want to think about the “more effective systems” rationale.<br /><br />Am I supposed to believe that the Church teaches we need to avoid evil only when we have “effective systems”? Does the Church speak that way – can anyone logically speak that way – about intrinsic evil? No abortion, because more effective systems of child care have been developed. No divorce, because more effective systems of marriage counseling have been developed. No theft, because more effective systems of goods distribution have been developed.<br /><br />S. JamesAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-6036183931631179522018-08-08T10:02:36.723-07:002018-08-08T10:02:36.723-07:00This guy is no Gregory the Great, that's for s...This guy is no Gregory the Great, that's for sure. He yammers on about pastoral care but talks like an angry schoolmarm juked-up on Marx and Jaspers.<br /><br />OK. Let Francis pay for the jails. Maybe the murderers can live in and wreck the Papal residence as Francis virtue signals from his condo.<br /><br />Actually, I wouldn't put it past this petulant Peronista to sell off the patrimony of the church as a way of punishing "the first world" if he became frustrated enough with the blow back he gets from those hetero-normative Anglo-Saxon types.DNWnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-4756844563597138512018-08-08T09:50:11.500-07:002018-08-08T09:50:11.500-07:00What a man wants to do and what he does are two di...What a man wants to do and what he does are two different things.<br /><br />S. JamesAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-7891676603119477952018-08-08T09:11:33.406-07:002018-08-08T09:11:33.406-07:00Don't worry, prof. Feser's book on motives...Don't worry, prof. Feser's book on motives of credibility for faith is coming soonJaimehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15636155049496953832noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-89149094038861307162018-08-08T08:58:50.712-07:002018-08-08T08:58:50.712-07:00Who here is committed to the proposition that All ...Who here is committed to the proposition that All murderers have or need to be killed or that Capital punishment have or need to be applied always?Jaimehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15636155049496953832noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-18875724341270054892018-08-08T07:00:55.124-07:002018-08-08T07:00:55.124-07:00I’ve given you the words of a Pope on this questio...I’ve given you the words of a Pope on this question. If you are a Catholic, you accept that the words of the Pope end the debate. If you are not a Catholic, you think you can argue with the Pope. <br /><br />The only way out of this obligation of submission to the Roman Pontiff, is if the person claiming to be the Roman Pontiff is a heretic. <br /><br />The tradition of legitimate criticism of the hierarchy, taught by Saint Thomas Aquinas, amongst others, does not apply, when the Pope is speaking in his capacity, as Pope, to the universal Church, which Francis is, in this instance, because ‘no one can judge the Pope’. He is the highest theological authority.<br /><br />Please read the words of Pope Benedict XV again, and please read any Pope on the same subject, and you will get the idea. Faith is the intellectual accent of the will to the truths of The Catholic Faith, the doctrine of the papacy, as Benedict XV and other Popes have described it, is a part of that intellectual accent, as indeed, is the Catholic teaching on the death penalty, which Francis has contradicted, but you cannot become a heretic, by abandoning the Catholic teaching on the papacy, to combat a heresy, about the death penalty, that is just illogical and insane. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-32205838946427468642018-08-08T05:21:02.551-07:002018-08-08T05:21:02.551-07:00By referencing ‘The Gospel’, even without any corr...By referencing ‘The Gospel’, even without any corroboration or explanation for how, it supposedly, supports his statement, when it actually, it says the opposite, Francis is saying that ‘God says this’. <br /><br />As Saint Thomas Aquinas, and indeed the entire Magisterium, says: God cannot contradict Himself, therefore The Church of God, cannot contradict herself. Therefore no legitimate so-called development of doctrine can lead to a contradiction of the doctrine. This would be absurd and insane or as the post above states, relativising Gid’s Commands to the prudential judgements of human beings. This is effectively, apostasy, because believing in God, is not just saying ‘I believe in God’ and using God talk as an aid to meditation, it means obeying God’s commands, being subject to them or treating them as such. If you make God subject to man in this manner you have no relationship with God. You are just dressing up your own judgements in ‘God talk’, which is not the same thing. <br /><br />As far as the issue at hand is concerned, I think it was Pope Innocent III, actually, made acceptance of the Catholic teaching on the death penalty, part of the profession of faith he required from the <br />Waldensians. <br /><br />You cannot maintain this Catholic doctrine by saying that something is inadmissible, and Francis is not relativising it, he is effectively, presenting what he is saying, as some kind of new revelation, which is also impossible, but leaving that aside, if you say, something is inadmissible, it means it cannot be admitted, at all, and that it is logically indistinguishable from saying that something is wrong in principle, because only, something that is wrong, in principle, can be inadmissible. <br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-38456092777355212002018-08-07T17:35:27.736-07:002018-08-07T17:35:27.736-07:00"Then the same case can be made against the t..."Then the same case can be made against the teachings on slavery as they imply non-chattel slavery is intrinsically evil . . ."<br /><br />I must disagree -- I do not see the language of the Catechism either stating or implying that non-chattel slavery is intrinsically evil. The Catechism does not condemn the imposition of labor (servitude) on convicted criminals as a part of their sentences. And while slavery is tolerated in Holy Scripture, it is regulated and restricted, and chattel slavery or the slave trade does not receive approbation even in the Law of Moses. The Scriptures do not accord slavery the sort of moral approval that they accord to the use of death penalty. Your comparison of the Church's developed doctrine on slavery to Pope Francis' novel claim that capital punishment is and has always been morally reprehensible simply does not work.<br /><br />"It seems if the Church can ban slavery across the board"<br /><br />It appears the Church has not done that, and probably cannot do that.<br /><br />". . . then why not the DP?"<br /><br />Well, James, come back and ask me that when the Church has banned all slavery across the board, and when Pope Francis issues a ban on the death penalty that draws the necessary distinctions between appropriate use and unjust abuse of the death penalty. I'll probably have an answer then.<br /><br />It's just as well that you didn't bring up the opinions of post-Temple Orthodox Jewish rabbis, since the Catholic Church does not adhere to Orthodox Judaism. It's things like the unanimous consent of the Fathers we should look to, not the varying opinions of the rabbis.<br /><br />As for the Church's alleged authority to suppress her rites, I disagree that the Church may do that -- but I also don't see how the Church's regulation of her own liturgical Rites would establish that the Church has the authority to pronounce something to have been always intrinsically evil after nearly 2,000 years of say it's not intrinsically evil. And what's in dispute here is whether or not that's what Pope Francis has done. You says he hasn't done so, but I see and hear him saying things, given their natural meaning, so that he has done so.<br /><br />Lastly, the temporal power of the Pope does not, I will say again, extend to redefining or ignoring the natural and divine laws, which recognise the state's God-given authority to execute grave offenders.<br /><br />Yes, no one is required to be executed for a capital crime even if he is guilty, and mercy triumphs over justice. That is not in dispute here. What we face is a prima facie contradiction of the Church's perennial doctrine. Is the death penalty "per se" contrary to the Gospel, as Pope Francis claims, or not?Confiteborhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17951083063448447552noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-35013580406514756932018-08-07T16:59:12.778-07:002018-08-07T16:59:12.778-07:00So Pope Fred's Catechism said "P" an...So Pope Fred's Catechism said "P" and now Pope Wally amends the Catechism to say "not P". <br /><br />Now we're bound to die for "not P" whereas yesterday we ought to have died for "P"? <br /><br />Perhaps the Mormons are right, after all? Hughhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14542174219024027419noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-10050576279477256772018-08-07T16:50:42.214-07:002018-08-07T16:50:42.214-07:00The debate seems no longer to be available, not ev...The debate seems no longer to be available, not even on Youtube. Jameshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02432033696871518417noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-32117931526225371992018-08-07T16:32:48.560-07:002018-08-07T16:32:48.560-07:00‘Well it won’t happen in the Catholic Church becau...‘Well it won’t happen in the Catholic Church because its teaching on abortion hasn’t been debated throughout history.’<br /><br />This is factually false. The teaching was debated a long time ago, and a conclusion was reached based on the evidence then available; further evidence from the biological sciences has only strengthened the basis of the argument.Tom Simonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16067031472666752839noreply@blogger.com