Can A Catholic Explain The Abortion/Capital Punishment Issue?

[freesqueeze]

Why do Bishops refuse communion to politicians that support reproductive rights but never even mention capital punishment.

Are sins weighed in the Catholic Church? Is supporting reproductive rights somehow worse than supporting capital punishment. I thought all sins were equal in the eyes of God.

But, I'm not even a Christian.

Straighten me out.

[pk_du]

1. Not to mention support of war n/t

[beaconess]

2. Or failure to help the poor

[itcfish1]

3. The Church Also

opposes the Death Penalty

[Warpy]

4. Babies are cute, criminals aren't

and that's why a lot of Catholics yowl about abortion but support the DP.

Rome says they're both wrong.

[beaconess]

6. Also, in their minds, babies are pink and white, criminals black and brown

[mandomom]

5. "Can A Catholic Explain The Abortion/Capital Punishment Issue?"

Not with a straight face.

[damntexdem]

7. The church has amassed a long list of sins and ...

the ideology to go with them.

So it can always pick and choose what it wants to push.

It has decided to go after some sex-linked issues: abortion, homosexuality, and so on. It has basically ignored other things: capital punishment, just war theory, charity for the poor, workers' rights.

And it has in its own interests tried to avoid other issues, even if sex-linked: i.e., molestation of children by priests.

Rule number 1: don't expect consistency or logic.

Rule number 2: the Church has an elaborate hierarchy and their interests to protect, and it has always done so militantly.

Rule number 3: the Church has smelled opportunities, and allied itself with erstwhile competitors to exploit them, and in such a situation, moral issues will be used but morality never allowed to get in the way of opportunity.

Rule number 4: the leadership never has it exactly as it might wish. Thus, for example, the Catholic population has grown increasingly anti-death-penalty, following on a logic (not a strong one, mind) of being pro-life, and listening to Papal sermons against capital punishment.

The problem with the whole 'life' discussion is that the Church has some abstract, theological concept of life, with little contact with the reality of human life. Thus, it claims that human life is characterized by a supernatural soul, refuses to say when humans acquire said souls (although many Catholics claim it is at fertilization, the Church clearly states that no one can know when), but then turns around and prohibits abortion from fertilization on. But then it also prohibits birth control, so what can you say? What the Church never does is discuss logically what human life would be -- certainly not hold discussions with those, outside or within the Church, who disagree with what the hierarchy says about it. Basically, the Church claims the major commandment to be: thou shalt accept our ideology, no matter how twisted. So the Church never gets to reasoned discussions over: when does a human life begin; the rights of women to control their own bodies; separation of church and state, whereby the Church would not try to push its views onto the state; nor even the right of Catholic politicians, whatever they think about abortion personally, to not try to push Church rules onto the rest of us.

In short, the immoral, perverted, lying hierarchs in charge in many Catholic dioceses, and in the Vatican, will do anything to advance their agenda. Don't look for logic from them.

Personal note: I was raised Catholic and remained in the church until I was 23. I am now a Unitarian-Universalist and an agnostic.

[mikeiddy]

8. View from the dark side

Here are some answers to your question posted by freepers. I can't quite wrap my head around the logic though . . . I'm not a Catholic either.



"It seems to me that if one takes a position that human life is sacred in situations like Terri's or where abortion is concerned, one must logically also take the position that even a murderer's life is sacred, since even a murderer can find salvation (so long as still alive, anyway)."

Bulls**t! The Catholic Church's traditional support of capital punishment and opposition to abortion is completely and eminently sensible, not contradictory, if you open your eyes to the validity of the concept of human free will and personal responsibility. Murderers are guilty of intentionally heinous acts; the unborn, or physically and mentally infirm are innocent of any intentional crimes. Every Catholic used to know this. The fact that they don't today is another example of the abject failure of the American Catholic Church to perform its primary teaching function of the Magisterium. They don't teach traditional doctrine any more because it runs counter to the Marxist fetishism of the liberal elites, which are the only circles that today's Bishops really aim to please.

. . . .

"Logically, if this is a question determined by free will, does not execution deprive the true criminal of any chance of exercise of free will by repenting and being saved?"

According to traditional Catholic doctrine, the purpose of execution is expiation (murder being an affront to God), not conversion. If the guilty party repents before he is excuted, then so much the better. He may yet save his soul THEN.

"What about the prisoner convicted in error - is it not better to "err on the side of life" for these cases?"

In a word, NO. What you mean is that the occasional incidence of error (statistically small) should be used as an excuse to absolve all proveably guilty persons for answering for their crimes. This would be an even greater injustice to the many more innocent victims of violent murder in the community.

. . . .

"Logically, if this is a question determined by free will, does not execution deprive the true criminal of any chance of exercise of free will by repenting and being saved? What about the prisoner convicted in error - is it not better to "err on the side of life" for these cases?"

Actually this is the way the reasoning works: The supreme law of the Church is the salvation of souls, not preserving all life (even the guilty) at all cost, not ending all suffering. The sentence of death to a convicted unrepentant criminal forces that person to contemplate the Four Last Things, death, judgment, heaven, hell. Being forced to contemplate these thing may bring about repentance and at least imperfect contrition. Then, in accepting their fate, they can offer up any suffering in union with Our Lord's as reparation for the damage they have caused by their sin.

In the mind of the church there is a worse fate than being put to death, and that is going to going to hell. That a sentence of death can bring about repentance and penance is a good and just thing. It is purely humanistic thinking, that places this life as the supreme good, and this is the thinking behind those opposed to the death penalty in all cases. That is not Catholic.


http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1368225/posts?page=28#28

[tjwmason]

9. A distinction is officiaLLy drawn between innocent and guiLty Life

Under this view, a criminaL has chosen to devaLue his own Life to the extent that it may LicitLy be taken in punishment for his crimes. CLearLy the same couLd not be said of that which is unborn.

The Church traditionaLLy accepted capitaL punishment, but more recentLy those within the Church have spoken against it - but this opposition is practicaL rather than dogmatic.

As for a variety of sins, the Church has aLways tought a heirarchy of sins - hence the 7 deadLy sin are far worse than the others.

[catbert836]

10. It's American Catholicism

Here, it seems, the bishops care much more about the size of their flock then overall purity of the message. They think that capital punishment is an issue that's okay to shove aside in order to hold on to the few evangelical Republicans who thus far have remained Catholic.

[tucoramirez2005]

11. Sins are definitely weighted in the Catholic Church.

According to the Church, the execution of a murderer is viewed on a different level than a murder of an innocent child.

I believe the Catholic Church would feel very strongly about it if the executed prisoner was NOT a murderer. I don't think any state in the US executes people for anything else, though.