Posted on 08/02/2018 7:25:10 AM PDT by fwdude
Depending on what you mean by "steer the Church" this can either be essentially true or very false.
The Pope can't negate something that has been infallibly taught. If he announced tomorrow that Jesus wasn't really God in the flesh, he would cease to be Pope because he would cease to be a Catholic.
If we're talking in terms of administrative powers, he has a lot of freedom. He's supposed to follow canon law, but he also has the authority to change canon law.
Item #2 is actually a strong argument in FAVOR of the death penalty. A criminal facing imminent death may be far likely to be repentant than one who is not.
Calling something a “cult” immediately shuts down any sort of worthwhile dialogue.
That is silly. If they are sentenced to life and we find out 5 years later that they were innocent, they get freed and the effect of the mistake is minimized. If they are executed and we find 5 years later that they were innocent, there is nothing that can be done to minimize the mistake.
Most opposition to the death penalty is convenient cover for leniency against any criminals.
I will grant that much of the opposition is leniency toward criminals (not most) but that is the appeal to motive logical fallacy.
Hey I liked Jack Chick! :) Seriously, I loved his tracts on sodomites. He didn’t mince words (mince pictures? He didn’t mince?)
Perhaps this pope doesn’t know that if the Romans didn’t have the death penalty in 33 AD, there would be no Christianity today.
>>As long as you don’t bad mouth Jack Chick, we’re good.<<
LMAO! Now that there is hilarious!
What if a convicted felon dies in prison after a life sentence (many do.) How is that un-doable?
>> Emotions, however, are not an appropriate guide to sound policy.<<
In any truly civilized society those who maim, torture, or kill other people, and are without any doubt guilty of such a crime, should be tried, convicted, and publicly hanged within 10 days of the commission of their crime. No appeals and no exceptions.
A agree and apologize. “Cult” is more of a politically charged word, with a nebulous, disparaging meaning. If I could retract, I would.
I would use “sect” instead.
Bergoglio is a heretic and an apostate and, frankly, he only wants to outlaw the death penalty because he knows he deserves it himself.
>>His supporters were numerous, horrifyingly so.<<
I completely agree with every point you’ve made. See my post #29.
“Your hate is well-known, pal!”
Holding Bergoglio in contempt for pretending to be a Catholic is no different that holding Obama in contempt for pretending to be an American.
Please, fwdude, carry on.
Megan
The justice system is administered by humans. There is no other choice. Humans can make mistakes sometimes intentionally. I unlike you have faith in the justice system and certainly zero is hyperbole.
In the last 20 years with DNA, groups who do independent investigations of capital punishment case, liberal courts, and other technological improvements, executing an innocent person is very unlikely and becoming more so.
The question is what is the benefit to the death penalty if it is moral and we do our best job we will have some one innocent executed now and then.
What should be the penalty for someone doing life after a murder conviction who kills a guard or other inmate. Then can we execute them? Why can a police officer shoot a person who draws a weapon beefier they fire it. Shouldn’t they wait until there is a shot to make sure the person is intending to kill them? We give that power to the police because not is moral for the officer to live and the person drawing a weapon to die no matter what they are thinking or intending.
Do we not attack city in war knowing innocent civilians will die. Why because the benefit outweighs the negative. Life is too important to let people kill others and then maintain their own freedom of life.
beefier=before
TexasKamaAina,
The death penalty is the only way to make certain that monsters like Ted Bundy don’t kill again.
See, some people are so dangerous that killing them is necessary to prevent the further loss of innocent lives.
But I will concede that it should be used only in extraordinary circumstances and it should NEVER be used in any case in which circumstantial evidence is used to secure a conviction.
“Calling something a “cult” immediately shuts down any sort of worthwhile dialogue.”
What if the label fits?
http://andynaselli.com/sociological-characteristics-of-cults
Yep, can’t argue with the 0% recidivism rate.
>>I am a traditional Catholic, and I have long believed that the death penalty is impractical for any number of reasons.
The biggest one is that I have absolutely ZERO faith in the integrity of the U.S. justice system<<
Your zero faith in the justice system is completely irrelevant vis-vis the practicality of the death penalty itself!
The almost endless automatic appeals system in place gives convicted capital felons more than ample time to find exculpatory evidence to plead - many many years, if not decades.
Yes, capital felons can be very dangerous, to other less dangerous incarcerated felons serving out their sentences, and to the general public. I’m reminded constantly in these death penalty debates of Irving Officer Aubrey Hawkins who was brutally murdered by the “Texas 7,” escaped felons from a Huntsville maximum security prison.
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