WASHINGTON (CNS) — Archbishop Timothy M. Broglio of the Archdiocese for the Military Services said he opposes capital punishment for Army Maj. Nidal Hasan, who was sentenced to death Aug. 28 following his conviction of the shootings in the 2009 massacre at Fort Hood, Texas.
“The church teaches that unjustified killing is wrong in all circumstances. That includes the death penalty,” Archbishop Broglio said in an Aug. 29 statement.
“Maj. Hasan and his victims are all entitled to justice,” the archbishop added. “Maj. Hasan, at least, now has recourse to a scrupulous appeals process. Would that his victims have received as much fairness.”
The jury at a military court-martial convicted Hasan of 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted murder in connection with the massacre, which a U.S. Senate report later called “the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil since Sept. 11, 2001.”
Hasan was himself wounded in a gun battle with Army civilian police when he followed a wounded victim outside. Hasan was shot in the spine and has had to use a wheelchair ever since.
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According to documents obtained and published by the New York Times, Hasan told medical health experts in 2010 that he “would still be a martyr” even if he was convicted and executed.
Hasan, who received permission to act as his own attorney, questioned only three of the witnesses called during the court-martial, introduced no defense witnesses and gave no closing argument. At the penalty phase of the trial, he cross-examined none of the 24 witnesses called. In addition to the death sentence, the jury recommended that Hasan also be stripped of his pay and dismissed from the Army.
When the trial started Aug. 6, Hasan said in his opening statement that he was the gunman, adding the evidence would show he was the shooter. He also told the hearing that he had “switched sides” and considered himself a “mujahideen” waging “jihad” against the United States.
He had last year offered twice to plead guilty to the charges, but Army rules forbid the entry of a guilty plea in a death-penalty case.
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Peter is the only person here who actually quotes the official teaching of our Faith – the Catechism of the Catholic Church – and that includes, with all due respect, Archbishop Broglio.
CCC – 2267 “Assuming that the guilty party’s identity and responsibility have been fully determined, the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.”
Theoretically, and therefore possibly in practice, the Church recognizes that the State (which is temporal) could have the moral right to execute. The ONLY point to argue in this case is whether or not, in this case of Hasan, “this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.” Peter opines that this is the case in this circumstance. You and I do not have to agree with Peter, but we cannot disagree with the Church’s teaching on the matter.
Let’s also remember, what’s MOST important – the eternal souls at stake – both the victims’ and Hasan’s.
CCC 2267 HEREAFTER, THE CATECHISM HAS SOME PROBLEMS
Always and everywhere there is the prescribed sanction of “For your lifeblood I will surely require a reckoning…. “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed.”, which, is confirmed in the Council of Trent, that execution represents paramount obedience to that commandment.
Paramount obedience.
What we have today, in 2267, is the Church making every possible effort to avoid such paramount obedience to eternal teachings and to replace that with a human reliance on prison systems.
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. “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.’ [John Paul II, Evangelium Vitae 56.]
The problem, here, is that no such previous teachings exist.
“The most reasonable conclusion to draw from this discussion is that, once again, the Catechism is simply wrong from an historical point of view. Traditional Catholic teaching did not contain the restriction enunciated by Pope John Paul II” .” (7)
“The realm of human affairs is a messy one, full of at least apparent inconsistency and incoherence, and the recent teaching of the Catholic Church on capital punishment—vitiated, as I intend to show, by errors of historical fact and interpretation—is no exception.”(7)
The fact that such teachings does not exist is a real problem for the Church and this radical change, which appears to have sprung out of very thin air.
7) “Capital Punishment and the Law”, Ave Maria Law Review, 2007 (30 pp), by Kevin L. Flannery S.J., Consultor of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (since 2002) and Ordinary Professor of Ancient Philosophy at the Pontifical Gregorian University (Rome); and Mary Ann Remick Senior Visiting Fellow at the Notre Dame Center for Ethics andCulture (University of Notre Dame)
Brian:
This much revised teaching is a prudential judgement abd, as such, any good Catholic, with reflection, may disagree with the Church on this new teachings, which is very flawed, in many regards.
“The new edition of the Catechism revises the section on capital punishment. This was not a development of doctrine. It was, however, problematic for placing a prudential judgment in a catechetical text, more problematically so than in an encyclical like Evangelium Vitae. Paragraph 2266 of the Catechism names the primary consideration of retribution, but No. 2267 ignores it.” “There are times when the state needs capital punishment in order to save society.” “This is Christian doctrine.” “The cogency of Catholic apologetics crumbles when reason is abandoned for sentimentality in consequence of philosophical idealism and subjectivism.”“Absolute rejection of capital punishment weakens the cogency of pro-life apologetics.” “As the Church’s teaching on contraception cannot “develop” in a way that would declare its intrinsic evil to be good, so the right of a state to execute criminals cannot “develop” so that its intrinsic good becomes evil. “ “The pastoral commentary of the Church guides moral method, but the prudential calculus, in punishment as in the declaration of war, rests in the civil government whose authority pertains to natural law and is not granted by the Church. To propose otherwise under the guise of doctrinal development would be a species of clerical triumphalism that post-Enlightenment humanists claimed to abhor.”“On Capital Punishment”, Fr. George Rutler, National Catholic Register, March 24-31, 2002
John, I strongly suggest you read Genesis 9:5-6. In that passage, God orders humanity to execute murderers because murder is the ultimate desecration of the divine image in humanity. Let’s not forget what St. Paul said: “The wages of sin is death.”
This “prudential judgement” of Pope John Paul II has hardened into de facto teaching that contradicts centuries of previous teaching from Scripture and Tradition.
The execution of capital punishment is temporal punishment for capital one homicide
“Based upon both justice and protection of individuals and the state, the execution of the terrorist Hasan can be viewed as proper.”
Care to elaborate on that?
I’m not acquainted with any “justice” that declares that we have the authority to execute someone merely because we believe his actions evil. And, I’m not aware that protection of anyone requires his death. We DO have high security prisons for a reason, you know.
Executing the man might be “proper” under the law of the United States, but I can’t see how it’s “necessary”.
John:
It depends on whether or not you find justice to be required.
Saint (& Pope) Pius V, “The just use of (executions), far from involving the crime of murder, is an act of paramount obedience to this (Fifth) Commandment which prohibits murder.” “The Roman Catechism of the Council of Trent” (1566).
Pope Pius XII: “When it is a question of the execution of a man condemned to death it is then reserved to the public power to deprive the condemned of the benefit of life, in expiation of his fault, when already, by his fault, he has dispossessed himself of the right to live.” 9/14/52.
2267 Assuming that the guilty party’s identity and responsibility have been fully determined, the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.
If, however, non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people’s safety from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and more in conformity to the dignity of the human person.
Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an offense incapable of doing harm – without definitely taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself – the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity “are very rare, if not practically nonexistent.”68 OPINION: THIS IS ONE OF THE EXCEPTIONS BECAUSE MAJOR HASAN WOULD CONTINUE TO “EXECUTE INFIDELS” TONO LIMIT IF IT WERE POSSIBLE. IT IS ALSO NECESSARY BECAUSE, I BELIEVE, THAT MAJOR HASAN, IF SENTENCED TO LIFE IMPRISIONMENT, WOULD BE RELEASED AT AN OLDER AGE; AND STILL BEING A PATHOLOGICAL RABID MUSLIM EXTREMIST—WOULD GO ON KILLING IF HE HAD THE MEANS.
Archbishop Broglio is entitles to his own opinion but not his own facts.
The Catholic Church’s recent teachings on the death penalty are confused at best and historically wrong at the worst.
Based upon a wrongheaded prudential judgement, which appears neither prudential not produced with good judgement, it is based upon penal security and not justice and any good Catholic can disagree with the Church’s recent (mis) interpretation, soley because it is a rpudential judgement.
Based upon both justice and protection of individuals and the state, the execution of the terrorist Hasan can be viewed as proper.
Well, I certainly HOPE Arbp Broglio would oppose the death penalty for the Maj. I hope he would oppose the death penalty for pretty much anyone. If we’re to be genuinely pro-life Catholics, I should think we’d be advocating for life an almost any circumstance.
I don’t believe that exacting the death penalty will accomplish anything of virtue.
Exactly.
Justice is a virtue and that fact is what supports 2000 years of Catholic pro death penalty teachings.
The Death Penalty: Mercy, Expiation, Redemption & Salvation
http://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2013/06/the-death-penalty-mercy-expiation.html
Jesus and the Death Penalty
http://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2013/06/jesus-and-death-penalty.html
The Catechism and the Death Penalty
http://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2013/06/the-catechism-death-penalty.html
Saint (& Pope) Pius V, “The just use of (executions), far from involving the crime of murder, is an act of paramount obedience to this (Fifth) Commandment which prohibits murder.” “The Roman Catechism of the Council of Trent” (1566).
Pope Pius XII: “When it is a question of the execution of a man condemned to death it is then reserved to the public power to deprive the condemned of the benefit of life, in expiation of his fault, when already, by his fault, he has dispossessed himself of the right to live.” 9/14/52.
“Moral/ethical Death Penalty Support: Modern Catholic Scholars”
http://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2009/07/death-penalty-support-modern-catholic.html