Capital Punishment and Roman Catholic Moral Tradition

Capital Punishment and Roman Catholic Moral Tradition
Author: Eugene Christian Brugger
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2014
Genre: Capital punishment
ISBN: 9780268022419

This book traces the doctrinal path the Church has taken to its present position as the world's largest and most outspoken opponent of capital punishment.

Capital Punishment and Roman Catholic Moral Tradition

Capital Punishment and Roman Catholic Moral Tradition
Author: Eugene Christian Brugger
Publisher:
Total Pages: 304
Release: 2003
Genre: Architecture
ISBN:

What is the Catholic Church's position on the death penalty? How and why has it changed through the ages? Tracing the history of this thorny moral issue, Brugger offers a detailed exegesis of the Church's account of its morality as formulated in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

By Man Shall His Blood Be Shed

By Man Shall His Blood Be Shed
Author: Edward Feser
Publisher: Ignatius Press
Total Pages: 426
Release: 2017-05-10
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1681497689

The Catholic Church has in recent decades been associated with political efforts to eliminate the death penalty. It was not always so. This timely work reviews and explains the Catholic Tradition regarding the death penalty, demonstrating that it is not inherently evil and that it can be reserved as a just form of punishment in certain cases. Drawing upon a wealth of philosophical, scriptural, theological, and social scientific arguments, the authors explain the perennial teaching of the Church that capital punishment can in principle be legitimate—not only to protect society from immediate physical danger, but also to administer retributive justice and to deter capital crimes. The authors also show how some recent statements of Church leaders in opposition to the death penalty are prudential judgments rather than dogma. They reaffirm that Catholics may, in good conscience, disagree about the application of the death penalty. Some arguments against the death penalty falsely suggest that there has been a rupture in the Church's traditional teaching and thereby inadvertently cast doubt on the reliability of the Magisterium. Yet, as the authors demonstrate, the Church's traditional teaching is a safeguard to society, because the just use of the death penalty can be used to protect the lives of the innocent, inculcate a horror of murder, and affirm the dignity of human beings as free and rational creatures who must be held responsible for their actions. By Man Shall His Blood Be Shed challenges contemporary Catholics to engage with Scripture, Tradition, natural law, and the actual social scientific evidence in order to undertake a thoughtful analysis of the current debate about the death penalty.

Capital Punishment and Roman Catholic Moral Tradition, Second Edition

Capital Punishment and Roman Catholic Moral Tradition, Second Edition
Author: E. Christian Brugger
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2024-11
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9780268209971

Why is the Catholic Church against the death penalty? This second edition of Brugger's classic work Capital Punishment and Roman Catholic Moral Tradition traces the doctrinal path the Church has taken over the centuries to its present position as the world's largest and most outspoken opponent of capital punishment. The pontificate of John Paul II marked a watershed in Catholic thinking. The pope taught that the death penalty is and can only be rightly assessed as a form of self-defense. But what does this mean? What are its implications for the Church's traditional retribution-based model of lethal punishment? How does it square with what the Church has historically taught? Brugger argues that the implications of this historic turn have yet to be fully understood. In his new preface, Brugger examines the contribution of the great Polish pope's closest collaborator and successor in the Chair of Peter, Pope Benedict XVI, to Catholic thinking on the death penalty. He argues that Pope Benedict maintained the doctrinal status quo of his predecessor's teaching on capital punishment as self-defense, with detectable points of reluctance to draw attention to nontraditional implications of that teaching.

Where Justice and Mercy Meet

Where Justice and Mercy Meet
Author: Vicki Schieber
Publisher: Liturgical Press
Total Pages: 305
Release: 2013-02-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0814635334

Where Justice and Mercy Meet: Catholic Opposition to the Death Penalty comprehensively explores the Catholic stance against capital punishment in new and important ways. The broad perspective of this book has been shaped in conversation with the Catholic Mobilizing Network to End the Use of the Death Penalty, as well as through the witness of family members of murder victims and the spiritual advisors of condemned inmates. The book offers the reader new insight into the debates about capital punishment; provides revealing, and sometimes surprising, information about methods of execution; and explores national and international trends and movements related to the death penalty. It also addresses how the death penalty has been intertwined with racism, the high percentage of the mentally disabled on death row, and how the death penalty disproportionately affects the poor. The foundation for the church's position on the death penalty is illuminated by discussion of the life and death of Jesus, Scripture, the Mass, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and the teachings of Pope John Paul II. Written for concerned Catholics and other interested readers, the book contains contemporary stories and examples, as well as discussion questions to engage groups in exploring complex issues.

The Gospel of Life

The Gospel of Life
Author: Pope John Paul II
Publisher: Random House Incorporated
Total Pages: 228
Release: 1995
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9780679758648

The Innocent Man

The Innocent Man
Author: John Grisham
Publisher: Anchor
Total Pages: 409
Release: 2010-03-16
Genre: True Crime
ISBN: 0307576019

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • LOOK FOR THE NETFLIX ORIGINAL DOCUMENTARY SERIES • “Both an American tragedy and [Grisham’s] strongest legal thriller yet, all the more gripping because it happens to be true.”—Entertainment Weekly John Grisham’s first work of nonfiction: a true crime masterpiece that tells the story of small town justice gone terribly awry. In the Major League draft of 1971, the first player chosen from the state of Oklahoma was Ron Williamson. When he signed with the Oakland A’s, he said goodbye to his hometown of Ada and left to pursue his dreams of big league glory. Six years later he was back, his dreams broken by a bad arm and bad habits. He began to show signs of mental illness. Unable to keep a job, he moved in with his mother and slept twenty hours a day on her sofa. In 1982, a twenty-one-year-old cocktail waitress in Ada named Debra Sue Carter was raped and murdered, and for five years the police could not solve the crime. For reasons that were never clear, they suspected Ron Williamson and his friend Dennis Fritz. The two were finally arrested in 1987 and charged with capital murder. With no physical evidence, the prosecution’s case was built on junk science and the testimony of jailhouse snitches and convicts. Dennis Fritz was found guilty and given a life sentence. Ron Williamson was sent to death row. If you believe that in America you are innocent until proven guilty, this book will shock you. If you believe in the death penalty, this book will disturb you. If you believe the criminal justice system is fair, this book will infuriate you. Don’t miss Framed, John Grisham’s first work of nonfiction since The Innocent Man, co-authored with Centurion Ministries founder Jim McCloskey.

The Death Penalty

The Death Penalty
Author: James J. Megivern
Publisher: Paulist Press
Total Pages: 642
Release: 1997
Genre: Capital punishment
ISBN: 1616437928

A comprehensive history of the death penalty in the West that provides more material on capital punishment in Western Christian history than is available in any other work in English.