BS: War & The Catholic Church

Subject: RE: BS: War & The Catholic Church
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 22 Oct 04 - 03:07 AM

As I wrote somewhere in another thread: Any community valuing the inviolabilty of human life highest cannot agree in taking life away. So it is only logic that capital punishment is banned in our constitution (Germany).

Subject: RE: BS: War & The Catholic Church
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 21 Oct 04 - 06:11 AM

People who support capital punishment are of course are lying when they lay claim to the label "pro-life". But that shouldn't be used as a reason to accuse people who oppose all forms of lagalised killing as hypocrites.

Subject: RE: BS: War & The Catholic Church
From: dianavan
Date: 20 Oct 04 - 11:10 PM

Joe - Thanks for clarifying that. I've always wondered what the pro-lifers thought of the death penalty.

Hypocracy at its finest!

Wonder how pro-lifers view the death and destruction in Iraq?

d

Subject: RE: BS: War & The Catholic Church
From: GUEST,Joe Offer at the University of Virginia
Date: 20 Oct 04 - 11:04 PM

McGrath, they say it's political suicide for a candidate in the U.S. to oppose the death penalty. I speak out against the death penalty, and the right-wing "pro-lifers" treat me like I'm some sort of evil, demonic ally of the criminals who have been sentenced to death.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: BS: War & The Catholic Church
From: Rapparee
Date: 20 Oct 04 - 07:01 PM

Oh, heavens no! If I had my way, hunters wouldn't have anything except single-shot weapons with non-telescopic sights. Semi-automatics would only be available to the police and the military; civilians would only be able to obtain revolvers which had to be loaded one cartridge at a time (the so-called "gate-loading" types).

No, that's inaccurate. If I had my way, civilians would only be allowed to purchase muzzle-loading firearms which utilized a flintlock or caplock ignition system and which had a barrel length of no less than 6 inches.

Subject: RE: BS: War & The Catholic Church
From: Amos
Date: 20 Oct 04 - 06:57 PM

As an aside I saw a report today claiming that internationally, arms sales are down for the third year in a row.

If I hadn'ta given up optimism for Lent I mighta thought this was a promising sign! :D


A

Subject: RE: BS: War & The Catholic Church
From: PoppaGator
Date: 20 Oct 04 - 06:50 PM

Rapaire, your response is eminently sane and reasonable, and I agree with you completely that to "bring the troops home NOW" is regrettably impossible now that they're in there, and also that neither "No Child Left Behind" nor any other government program will serve as a panacea for the many shortcomings of our educational culture.

However, I'm holding out on my assertion that our ridiculous overabundance of murders can very reasonably be blamed on the corporations and individuals who profit by the sale of ammunition. (Guns are only the delivery system -- the real money is in the consumables, just as for the toner in laser printers.)

Who do you think finances the NRA, and why? True, fairly large numbers of individual citizens are regularly stirred to political action, insisting upon their constitutional right of access to automatic assault weapons. Indeed, their voices are so loud and insistent that they bear influence 'way out of proporation to their (minority) numbers.

If find it hard to believe that all this enthusiasm for murder weapons is spontaneous; don't you suspect the influence of a well-financed orchestrating hand? I sure do. There's *plenty* of money in it, that's for sure, and no other plausible explanation. Do deer hunters really need Uzis and cop-killer bullets?

Subject: RE: BS: War & The Catholic Church
From: Rapparee
Date: 20 Oct 04 - 05:04 PM

If I've learned nothing else over the years, I've learned that nothing is as simple as you'd like it. To blame "the guns-and-ammo manufacturers' lobby" for the US murder rate is as simplistic a statement as to maintain that the "No Child Left Behind Act" will solve the problems in the educational system. To say, "bring the troops home NOW" shows a simplistic solution to a complex problem (correct thinking would have not only asked this question in the beginning, but would have prefaced it with "why send them in the first place?") -- to do so would cost more lives than would be saved on both the Iraqi and Coalition sides, as a retreat in haste always costs more lives than a planned withdrawal over time.

Another thing I've learned is to stop trying to find someone to blame and instead find a solution -- and to learn from the mistake that was made. Politicians don't ever seems to learn this.

Subject: RE: BS: War & The Catholic Church
From: PoppaGator
Date: 20 Oct 04 - 04:07 PM

I'm sure that the death penalty is much more widely supported in the US than in Europe among the population as a whole, and I *think* that this is as true among US Catholics as it is among other groups.

Hey, thanks to the guns-and-ammo manufacturers' lobby, we have much more murder here than in any other country on earth, and far too many simple folk (of all religions, including no religion) believe that the only solution is to maintain the threat of execution.

Subject: RE: BS: War & The Catholic Church
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 20 Oct 04 - 02:49 PM

In my experience most Catholics would go along with the Pope in opposing the death penalty, and my impression is that this is fairly general in Europe. It may perhaps be different in the USA.

When there was a referendum on the death penalty in Ireland a few years ago, people voted in favour of putting the ban on capital punishment into the Irish Constitution.

Subject: RE: BS: War & The Catholic Church
From: PoppaGator
Date: 20 Oct 04 - 02:27 PM

In and out of the Catholic Church (and other institutions as well), most people who oppose one kind of death-dealing violence seem to have a puzzling tolerance for some other form of killing.

Anti-abortion absolutists, for the most part, not only tolerate, but often strongly support, warmongering and/or capital punishment. And the converse is equally true: many pacifists and opponents of the death penalty support what's known as "a woman's right to choose."

I suppose we have our two-party system to thank for this phenomemon; people tend to take their cues for what to believe from those with whom they feel allied.

The Pope's official stance, opposing *all* these forms of killing, is very rarely held by individuals in the real world. The institutional church itself is certainly inconsistent, denying Communion to pro-choice Catholic politicians but showing no such compunction to discipline death-warrant signers and proponents of unilateral military action.

-PoppaGator, formerly Catholic peacenik

Subject: RE: BS: War & The Catholic Church
From: GUEST,Joe Offer in grey, rainy Virginia
Date: 20 Oct 04 - 10:11 AM

The Catholic Church, and particularly John Paul II, has shown a good amount of integrity in sticking to this policy, and to its stand against capital punishment. This is difficult for right-wing Catholics, who tend to think all other Catholics are liberal heretics, that the right-wingers are the only true Catholics. The right-wingers may call themselves "pro-life," but they're usually "pro-death" when it comes to issues like war and capital punishment. They tend to get nervous and babble when confronted with the Pope's position. Their uneasiness gives me great satisfaction.

-Joe Offer, liberal Catholic heretic-

Subject: RE: BS: War & The Catholic Church
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 20 Oct 04 - 09:36 AM

Well, the Pope did come out strongly against the war on Iraq.

Subject: RE: BS: War & The Catholic Church
From: Amos
Date: 20 Oct 04 - 09:32 AM

Good lip service, especially from a Choich.

A

Subject: BS: War & The Catholic Church
From: Rapparee
Date: 20 Oct 04 - 09:17 AM

Here's something to think about. It's from the official Catechism of the Catholic Church; the numbers are the paragraphs.

2309 The strict conditions for legitimate defense by military force require rigorous consideration. The gravity of such a decision makes it subject to rigorous conditions of moral legitimacy. At one and the same time:

- the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain;

- all other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective;

- there must be serious prospects of success;

- the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. The power of modem means of destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition.

These are the traditional elements enumerated in what is called the "just war" doctrine.

The evaluation of these conditions for moral legitimacy belongs to the prudential judgment of those who have responsibility for the common good.

2310 Public authorities, in this case, have the right and duty to impose on citizens the obligations necessary for national defense.

Those who are sworn to serve their country in the armed forces are servants of the security and freedom of nations. If they carry out their duty honorably, they truly contribute to the common good of the nation and the maintenance of peace.

2311 Public authorities should make equitable provision for those who for reasons of conscience refuse to bear arms; these are nonetheless obliged to serve the human community in some other way.

2312 The Church and human reason both assert the permanent validity of the moral law during armed conflict. "The mere fact that war has regrettably broken out does not mean that everything becomes licit between the warring parties."

2313 Non-combatants, wounded soldiers, and prisoners must be respected and treated humanely.

Actions deliberately contrary to the law of nations and to its universal principles are crimes, as are the orders that command such actions. Blind obedience does not suffice to excuse those who carry them out. Thus the extermination of a people, nation, or ethnic minority must be condemned as a mortal sin. One is morally bound to resist orders that command genocide.

2314 "Every act of war directed to the indiscriminate destruction of whole cities or vast areas with their inhabitants is a crime against God and man, which merits firm and unequivocal condemnation." A danger of modern warfare is that it provides the opportunity to those who possess modern scientific weapons especially atomic, biological, or chemical weapons - to commit such crimes.