Posted on 01/16/2003 6:48:56 AM PST by Petronski
You're wrong, carlo3b. The rest is up to the Pope and the Vatican. Just telling these feckless and spineless politicians will accomplish just about nothing - unless the Pope starts to demand consequences - withholding of the Eucharist, and excommunication, as an example. The problem is, the Church leadership has always been so, oh so afraid, to really confront society (and itself) on its immoratlities. That's why the Church can't even talk about true Christian sexual morality anymore (and we have a couple of thousand homosexually molested teenage boys at the hands (and other parts) of PRIESTS), never mentions contraception, is allowing divorce for just about anything, has eased up on the sacrament of reconciliation, etc. etc. etc. Let's see the Pope put some muscle behind his constant declarations. I'm not holding my breath. Our Church is far, far too in bed (and often literally) with society.
BUT....As long as they are not excommunicated, they illegitimately trade on their Catholicism for votes......
The Vatican has a Duty to God just as its followers due, nay, even moreso, as 'The more one is given, the more that is expected' the Pope has the mantle of Catholic authority, and if Boxer,Daschle, Kennedy,McGreevy etc..Keep trying to Actively push the leftist (which is it's own Man Centered Reliogion) agenda on American Society, excommunication would go a long way toward setting things right,
Or...at the very least, Ordering the American heirarchy to begin teaching Moral Doctrine from the Pulpit. In this day and age the only Churches teaching Black And White Morality for the most art, are the ones offering Tridentine Mass. Most (Not All, But most) of the rest are staffed with avowed leftists, who turn a blind eye to abortion, and the denigration of marriage.
I couldn't disagree any any stronger. What do you care if these creeps receive their communion, they'll burn in Hell... soooo that works for me, but I have a more immediate problem. These hypocrite freaks are now dragging my world with smut and filth... the pope is a bit old to be punching them in the nose, and he can't really go door to door to vote these people out of office or man a phone bank...etc You get the picture... I'm not fighting with you, just offering a more immediate method.
Ok lets play that game... I'm the Pope and Bang the freaks are banished from the rail... so on Monday they are back in the congressional well passing the latest perversion of a HATE CRIME that forbids you from throwing up watching them goose each other in public...What exactly has that helped??
That's a tougher issue. The Church has always taught that the death penalty is justifiable in principle. The latest teaching from the pope (pretty much binding) qualifies the old teaching, saying that the death penalty is still justifiable in principle BUT in countries where it is now possible to imprison criminals for life without their being a threat to the public, then the death penalty is unneccessary and should be opposed for prudential reasons.
The document, called "Doctrinal Note on Some Questions Regarding the Participation of Catholics in Political Life," also turned the screws on Catholic publications, saying they could not put forward different views for the sake of pluralism.Here's a link to the document.
Not a word, that I've heard.
This raises the question of whether the parole boards and other political characters make this impossible.
Very good point.
That's the position that I would take. It's a public safety issue above all. In the Summa Theologica, Aquinas justifies killing in self-defense under the principal of double-effect. The primary purpose of the act of self-defense is a good (preservation of one's life) while the killing of the assailant would be a simultaneous evil effect.
Capital punishment extends this principle to society as a whole. The primary object of the State's act of executing a murderer is the defense of the lives of its citizens. The simultaneous evil is the killing of the murderer.
Here is a quote from the Catechism of the Catholic Church,
CCC 2267. "The traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude, presupposing full ascertainment of the identity and responsibility of the offender, recourse to the death penalty, when this is the only practicable way to defend the lives of human beings effectively against the aggressor.I have highlighted the parts of the teaching that are the most difficult to accept.'If, instead, bloodless means are sufficient to defend against the aggressor and to protect the safety of persons, public authority should limit itself to such means, because they better correspond to the concrete conditions of the common good and are more in conformity to the dignity of the human person.
'Today, in fact, given the means at the State's disposal to effectively repress crime by rendering inoffensive the one who has committed it, without depriving him definitively of the possibility of redeeming himself, cases of absolute necessity for suppression of the offender 'today ... are very rare, if not practically non-existent.' [Cf. Gen 4:10 .]"
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