C.S. Lewis and the death penalty...

[Michie]

This morning, in an unprecedented step four Catholic national publications have issued a joint editorial. National Catholic Register, National Catholic Reporter, America Magazine and Our Sunday Visitor have all called for an end to the death penalty. You can read the editorial here. In an excellent essay called The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment Lewis enters the capital punishment debate with a deeper discussion of the principles of punishment...

C.S. Lewis and the death penalty...

 

[Michie]

Read the full text of the joint editorial as it appears in the National Catholic Register...

 

[Michie]

US Catholic weeklies unite in joint editorial call to end capital punishment

Catholic World News - March 05, 2015
US Catholic weeklies unite in joint editorial call to end capital punishment : News Headlines - Catholic Culture

Four American Catholic publications, with widely diverging editorial perspectives, have joined in a call for abolition of the death penalty in the US.


The editors of the National Catholic Register, National Catholic Reporter, Our Sunday Visitor, and America have urged their readers “to stand with us and say, ‘Capital punishment must end.’” Their joint editorial statement appeared March 5 on the web sites of all four publications.


The editorial points to an evolution of Catholic thinking on the use of the death penalty, which reached a watershed point with the statement by Pope John Paul II, in his encyclical Evangelium Vitae, that the circumstances justifying execution are today “very rare, in not practically non-existent.” The statement notes that the Catechism of the Catholic Church was revised to reflect that view, and then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger wrote hopefully that “the death penalty may be permitted to disappear.” More recently Pope Francis called upon Catholics to work toward “the abolition of the death penalty.”


The US Supreme Court will hear arguments on the use of the death penalty in the Glossip v. Gross case, the editors observe. They remind readers that in several American states—including Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania—executions have been postponed or discontinued. They quote Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia: “But killing the guilty does not honor the dead nor does it ennoble the living. When we take a guilty person’s life we only add to the violence in an already violent culture and we demean our own dignity in the process.”


America is a weekly Jesuit magazine. The National Catholic Reporter is a weekly newspaper with a strong leftward bias, while the National Catholic Register and Our Sunday Visitor are weeklies with more moderate editorial outlooks.

Editorial: National Catholic journals unite: ‘Capital punishment must end’ (OSV)

 

[Michie]

What the Register gets wrong on the death penalty...

 

[eastcoast_bsc]

The big mistake the USCCB makes is that they they lay down with the Govt when they feel the need, but this is the same Govt that looks upon the church with disdain.

The current Administration stands against most principles of the Christian faith.
When you lay with dogs, you get fleas.

 

[Fish and Bread]

The big mistake the USCCB makes is that they they lay down with the Govt when they feel the need, but this is the same Govt that looks upon the church with disdain.

The current Administration stands against most principles of the Christian faith.
When you lay with dogs, you get fleas.

You mean the government that is run by a guy who attended St. Francis of Assisi Catholic School for a while as a youth and then turned down lucrative offers from major law firms so that he could instead do community service out of the parish hall basement of a Catholic Church after he graduated from law school, and who has spoken of Cardinal Bernardin as a major influence? I'm speaking of President Obama there, of course.

Vice President Biden is a devout man who sat in the situation room with the President and his cabinet praying the rosary with beads in his hands for hours when they were hunting Bin Laden.

Though only one of the two men is actually Catholic, they've worked for Catholic principles like universal health care and protection for the poor and the elderly. I think their views on use of force are fairly similar to just war doctrine. They don't agree with the Church on the "social" issues like abortion and homosexuality, but they agree with the Church when it comes to poverty and life issues that pertain to those already born.

At one point, Biden, who had been fingering a rosary, turned to Mullen, the Joint Chiefs chairman. “We should all go to Mass tonight,” he said.

Source for the bit in quotations:
Getting Bin Laden - The New Yorker

There were also pictures of Biden in the room with the rosary in the press at the time, but I can't find any at the moment.

 

[Fish and Bread]

What the Register gets wrong on the death penalty...

I responded to that article in the thread linked to below, for those interested:

http://www.christianforums.com/t7868964-2/#post67130216

I disagree with that blogger's disagreement with the editorial. That's the short version.

 

[MikeK]

The big mistake the USCCB makes is that they they lay down with the Govt when they feel the need, but this is the same Govt that looks upon the church with disdain.

The current Administration stands against most principles of the Christian faith.
When you lay with dogs, you get fleas.

If only our Bishops had the wisdom that the poster on this forum do!

 

[Michie]

This past Thursday, four leading Catholic publications — which are not always on the same page — issued a joint editorial calling for an end to the death penalty in the U.S. The editor of one of those publications, Gretchen Crowe, editor of OSV Newsweekly, talks about the process, the decision, and its importance.

How the joint editorial came about...