Friday, March 29, AD 2024 2:35am

Stephanie Neiman

Stephanie Neiman

The power of life and death is permitted to certain civil magistrates because theirs is the responsibility under law to punish the guilty and protect the innocent. Far from being guilty of breaking this commandment [Thou shall not kill], such an execution of justice is precisely an act of obedience to it. For the purpose of the law is to protect and foster human life. This purpose is fulfilled when the legitimate authority of the State is exercised by taking the guilty lives of those who have taken innocent lives.

Catechism of the Council of Trent

 

 

Stephanie Neiman was murdered just shy of 15 years ago.  She had just graduated from high school.  She was an only child, beloved of her parents.  By all accounts she was hard working and fearless.  She was a Vacation Bible School volunteer so I assume she was religious.  This is how she died:

 

 

Stephanie Neiman was proud of her shiny new Chevy truck with the Tasmanian Devil sticker on it and a matching “Tazz” license plate.

Her parents had taught the teenager to stand up for “what was her right and for what she believed in.”

Neiman was dropping off a friend at a Perry residence on June 3, 1999, the same evening Clayton Lockett and two accomplices decided to pull a home invasion robbery there. Neiman fought Lockett when he tried to take the keys to her truck.

The men beat her and used duct tape to bind her hands and cover her mouth. Even after being kidnapped and driven to a dusty country road, Neiman didn’t back down when Lockett asked if she planned to contact police.

The men had also beaten and kidnapped Neiman’s friend along with Bobby Bornt, who lived in the residence, and Bornt’s 9-month-old baby.

“Right is right and wrong is wrong. Maybe that’s what Clayton was so scared of, because Stephanie did stand up for her rights,” her parents later wrote to jurors in an impact statement. “She did not blink an eye at him. We raised her to work hard for what she got.”

Steve and Susie Neiman asked jurors to give Lockett the death penalty for taking the life of their only child, who had graduated from Perry High School two weeks before her death.

Lockett later told police “he decided to kill Stephanie because she would not agree to keep quiet,” court records state.

Neiman was forced to watch as Lockett’s accomplice, Shawn Mathis, spent 20 minutes digging a shallow grave in a ditch beside the road. Her friends saw Neiman standing in the ditch and heard a single shot.

Lockett returned to the truck because the gun had jammed. He later said he could hear Neiman pleading, “Oh God, please, please” as he fixed the shotgun.

The men could be heard “laughing about how tough Stephanie was” before Lockett shot Neiman a second time.

“He ordered Mathis to bury her, despite the fact that Mathis informed him Stephanie was still alive.”

Go here to read the rest.   It is entirely possible you have never heard of Neiman, but you have probably heard of the botched execution of her murderer Clayton Lockett who happily died of a heart attack during the process.  My only regret is that Mr. Lockett had only one life to take for his crimes.

THE STATEMENT OF SUSIE AND STEVE NEIMAN

God blessed us with our precious daughter, Stephanie for 19 years. Stephanie loved children.

She worked in Vacation Bible School and always helped with our Church nativity scenes. She was the joy of our life. We are thankful this day has finally arrived and justice will finally be served.

Susie and Steve Neiman, 4-29-14

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Ernst Schreiber
Ernst Schreiber
Wednesday, April 30, AD 2014 9:49pm

Thank you for putting l’outrage du jour in context Donald.

the Old Adam
Wednesday, April 30, AD 2014 11:22pm

God can forgive them, if He so chooses.

We must put these murderers to death. And much quicker than we do now.

Jay Anderson
Thursday, May 1, AD 2014 5:41am

I have come to oppose the death penalty, but my opposition is for one reason, and one reason only: I believe that we should oppose the death penalty as part of an overall culture of life – to create a culture where NO life is unworthy of living and worth taking, even the life of the most hardened criminal.

(Actually, I would add a second reason: the real possibility of executing an innocent person, alone, is reason enough to abolish the death penalty.)

HOWEVER,

I do NOT believe that the death penalty is cruel and unusual.

I do NOT believe that the death penalty is immoral.

I do NOT believe that one MUST oppose the death penalty to be a good Catholic, and I utterly reject the spewings of certain neo-ultramontanist arbiters of all things “Catholic” (ahem, Mark Shea) who insist otherwise.

And, finally, whenever these discussions come up, I like to remind folks to be mindful of and merciful toward the sufferings of the murderer’s victims and their families, and to temper their outrage over the death penalty accordingly. Somewhere, someone is still grieving over the loss of a loved one or loved ones, and is wondering why people seem more outraged over the death of their loved one’s murderer than they are over the suffering inflicted by that murderer.

Mary De Voe
Thursday, May 1, AD 2014 6:27am

As a culture of life, we must execute those who take life.

Stephen E Dalton
Thursday, May 1, AD 2014 6:39am

I’m appalled that some people are more concerned about Lockett’s execution and it’s botching than they are about the brutal murder of this young girl. To me, people like Mark Shea are totally heartless toward the victims and their loved ones. A commentator over at Shea’s site called him out on it, and what was his reply? “I have a cousin who came within seconds of being murdered by Ted Bundy. Take your mind reading elsewhere.”

Jay Anderson
Thursday, May 1, AD 2014 8:44am

“I have a cousin who came within seconds of being murdered by Ted Bundy.”

Sufficient murder victim empathy. Check.

I suppose? What does his comment even mean? Is that anything like Beaver punching Larry Mondello in the stomach “right where [he] almost had [his] operation”?

Nate Winchester
Nate Winchester
Thursday, May 1, AD 2014 8:53am

My only regret is that Mr. Lockett had only one life to take for his crimes.

Hmmm… now there’s a story idea. One where a society has a killer executed for each person they’ve killed by resuscitation after the execution. So if you’ve killed 3 people, they’ll execute you once by some method, then revive you to do it again, then once more. Wonder what I could do with that…

“I have a cousin who came within seconds of being murdered by Ted Bundy. Take your mind reading elsewhere.”

If I was a far less charitable man, I’d ask Shea how he’d feel if the adorable Lucy had been Lockett’s victim.

trackback
Thursday, May 1, AD 2014 12:44pm

[…] The Papyrus that ‘Proved’ Jesus Had a Wife? It’s a Fake – Mat. Archbold Stephanie Neiman & the Botched Execution of Her Murderer – TACatholic Cardinal Arinze on Pro-Abortion Politicians: No Holy Communion – Fr. Z […]

bill bannon
bill bannon
Thursday, May 1, AD 2014 3:36pm

St. Pope John Paul II calling the death penalty “cruel” in 1999 in St. Louis was the leader of 1.2 billion Catholics calling something cruel which Cardinal Dulles noted God mandated over 34 times in the Bible. It’s the drift away from scripture in this case by Popes. It was first done also on wifely obedience which is absent in Vatican II and in the catechism though 6 times referenced in the NT. Next was the death penalty. Subconsciously Rome needed two bones to throw to non religious elites in Europe and Manhattan in order for them to listen to us on abortion. They took the bones and gave nothing in return.
Romans 13:4 is never mentioned in Evangelium Vitae…at all…and it was pivotal for Aquinas and requires that states be ministers to God’s wrath not ours with the sword, the machaira, which same machaira is used in Acts 12:2 when Herod executes James by it. Romans 13:4 was written in the context of the Roman empire which had inescapable life sentences ad metalla…in the mines…so the current claim that inescapable life sentences are spanking new and change things are ludicrous apologetics at work. Between 1796 and 1865, six Popes executed 516 criminals in the then large papal states via this papal executioner:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giovanni_Battista_Bugatti

What? They couldn’t find locked rooms for life for them for life. St. Pope John Paul II used in Evangelium Vitae the case of Cain being protected by God from revenge by others as iconic for us. But that same God mandates a bit later ( unmentioned in Evangelium Vitae) the death penalty for murder in Gen.9:6 when that same God is about to bring about the first government by Nimrod in Gen.10:8. Sorry folks. Our Popes don’t memorize scripture like Aquinas did. God then protected Cain from vigilantes in the abscence of government but then that same God instituted executions once He brought about government. Gen.9:6 is addressed to Jews and Gentiles and then is reechoed in Romans 13:4 at the end of the Bible.
Christ referred to Gen.9:6’s death penalty when Pilate said he had power of life and death over Christ….to which Christ replied, ” You would have no power over me at all had it not been given you from above.”
Drugs work against deterrence. Execution should be painful like a firing squad. For great deterrence studies, see link below….our new policy will get human victims killed every year if this lady at the Michigan Law Review is correct:

http://www.michiganlawreview.org/assets/pdfs/104/2/Shepherd.pdf

Mark Harden
Mark Harden
Thursday, May 1, AD 2014 3:46pm

Ezekiel 18:23 “Do I find pleasure in the death of the wicked—oracle of the Lord GOD? Do I not rejoice when they turn from their evil way and live?”

bill bannon
bill bannon
Thursday, May 1, AD 2014 4:00pm

Mark Harden,
Ezekiel 20:38
“And I will purge out from among you the rebels, and them that transgress against me”. God had the earth swallow Dathan and Abiram, God killed Uzzah for touching the ark, God killed the sons of Heli for misusing the priesthood, God killed 72 descendants of Jeconiah for not greeting the ark….the list is long and extends into God killing Herod in Acts 12 and Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5.
Aquinas called such passages as Ezekiel 18:23 the antecedent willing of God as opposed to his consequent willing. You can see His consequent willing when He kills through the Romans kills 1.1 million people ( Josephus) in Jerusalem in 70 AD….after Christ noted that it would happen because Jerusalem had not known the hour of its visitation. Christ gave instructions how to escape that herem and He gave those instructions 37 years to circulate in Jerusalem.

Micha Elyi
Micha Elyi
Thursday, May 1, AD 2014 4:40pm

It is entirely possible you have never heard of (Stephanie) Neiman, but you have probably heard of the botched execution of her murderer Clayton Lockett…
–Donald R. McClarey

I haven’t heard of Miss Neiman in any of the soundbites from bishops who threw a pity-party for her murderer. And in this case I am willing to believe the omission is not due to the media massaging, snipping, and twisting what our bishops said.

LWC
LWC
Thursday, May 1, AD 2014 8:21pm

No devout Catholic can endorse the death penalty.

Mark Harden
Mark Harden
Thursday, May 1, AD 2014 8:35pm

“What man among you having a hundred sheep and losing one of them would not leave the ninety-nine in the desert and go after the lost oned until he finds it?
And when he does find it, he sets it on his shoulders with great joy
and, upon his arrival home, he calls together his friends and neighbors and says to them, ‘Rejoice with me because I have found my lost sheep.’
I tell you, in just the same way there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who have no need of repentance.”

When we execute one of those lost sheep, do you think Jesus is pleased to find him…dead?

bill bannon
bill bannon
Thursday, May 1, AD 2014 8:42pm

Mark Harden,
You’re using one part of scripture against another part of scripture and that itself is a sin since Dei Verbum in Vatican II noted that ” both testaments with all their parts have God as their Author”. So for you to use a parable about sinners (NOT CRIMINALS) against Romans 13:4 ( about criminals) is non rational and Benedict at Regensburg said faith and rationality travel together.

Dante alighieri
Reply to  LWC
Thursday, May 1, AD 2014 8:49pm

LWC: Wrong. And I say that as as someone who does not support the death penalty. It is simple ignorance to imply being Catholic necessitates opposition to the death penalty.

LWC
LWC
Thursday, May 1, AD 2014 9:11pm

And Paul, you are correct. The Catechism of the Catholic Church indeed ‘acknowledges’ the legitimate right and duty of public authority to impose the death penalty in cases of extreme gravity. However, If bloodless means are sufficient to defend human lives against an aggressor and to protect public order and the safety of persons, public authority must 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. (2266)

If such person is incarcerated they have addressed and neutralized the danger, thus negating the need for execution.

As an aside, do you therefore consider Christ to have been executed or murdered?

LWC
LWC
Thursday, May 1, AD 2014 9:20pm

And Paul, one more thing. Christ himself was quoted as saying in John 8:7, “Let he who is without sin, cast the first stone.” How much further clarification do you need?

Nate Winchester
Nate Winchester
Thursday, May 1, AD 2014 9:26pm

LWC: is that why Christ permitted the two thieves to get down off their crosses and serve lifetime sentences? Oh wait…

LWC
LWC
Thursday, May 1, AD 2014 9:27pm

Nate, no more than he pulled himself off the cross.

Nate Winchester
Nate Winchester
Thursday, May 1, AD 2014 9:35pm

Because He was there as a sacrifice, the other two could have been spared. You asked “what more clarification” Paul needed – well how about a legion or two of angels stopping a just execution?

bill bannon
bill bannon
Thursday, May 1, AD 2014 9:50pm

LWC,
The catechism writer never thought of deterrence …lol. The catechism article only concerns protection from a murderer you have caught. It never even adverts to deterring other murderers. God gave over 34 death penalties partly to deter people from doing the act He was proscribing. Article 2267 drops all interest in God’s wrath of Rom.13:4 and switches to protecting us but ONLY from caught murderers which vary wildly within countries; and in the US is about 2/3 of murderers but in Guatemala is 1/20th of murderers who have killed.
The catechism via life sentences has the country protecting you from caught murderers only. In Catholic Guatemala, the arrest rate for murder is c.5%. That means the catechism application in Catholic Guatemala is protecting you from 5% of murderers. 95% of murderers there feel that odds are they can kill you and not get caught. Their murder rate is 38 per 100,000 which puts them in the top 25 worst countries where six other Catholic countries are. We are almost a third of the worst countries on earth and only one of those has an death penalty (that is not used). The others are prison only and your family is multiples safer in Shinto Japan.
…multiples.
The two largest Catholic populations are non death penalty Mexico and Brazil and the Mexican prisons are 60% controlled by the cartels according to one of their Justice officials…cartels who in one case left the prison…did a murder and returned to the prison. Go to youtube and enter Mexican prison murder and you’ll see cartel people in another case, enter a prison, murder inmates and leave. Both countries have murder rates 50 times higher than death penalty China which also has many poor people. The catechism article is describing Euro safe country prisons with very middleclass dominant populations….irrelevant to the two largest Catholic populations on earth which are crime basket cases. Two Decembers ago, 1200 Brazilian prisoners left prison on Christmas leave and never returned. Brazil had a man rape a woman on a bus as he pointed a pistol at other passengers. Whoever wrote the catechism article was trying to please St. Pope John Paul II who was not great at protecting anyone from criminals….even after he was informed about them. He just wasn’t.

LWC
LWC
Thursday, May 1, AD 2014 10:01pm

Having made such compelling arguments in favor of the State’s right to execute, could any of you bring yourself to participate in an execution?

LWC
LWC
Thursday, May 1, AD 2014 10:05pm

And likewise what compounded this execution (beyond the horrendous competence of the phlebotomist) is that an actual physician is described as having participated–in direct contravention of his oath as physician (let alone if he was Catholic).

Ernst Schreiber
Ernst Schreiber
Thursday, May 1, AD 2014 10:07pm

If such person is incarcerated they have addressed and neutralized the danger, thus negating the need for execution.

.
I suggest you Google/Bing “Ron Johnson and Eric Robert” and then Google/Bing “Lynette Johsnon.”

bill bannon
bill bannon
Friday, May 2, AD 2014 5:00am

LWC,
Participate in an execution? I sleep next to a tactical shotgun because a thug from the ghetto area broke in two years ago in a mixed income town on the NY harbor and I beat him in a fight to within an inch of his life but he promised to return with a pistol for me. The house is now wired for soun by me. A security company rang my bell shortly after and tried to sell me their monthly plan. I responded, “If he returns, he’s dead.”. They both smiled and continued their sales talk….”you could get arrested if you kill him”. I responded, ” I know N.J.’s legal protocol on killing him after one verbal warning….he’s dead.” “But with our plan…” “He’s dead”, I interjected. They both left laughing.
I pray for the man monthly as to God predestinating him and saving him from darkness as God did me long ago when I was dangerous myself…but I will kill him if he ignores one verbal warning or if he already is moving a pistol up horizontal. Survival from his pistol shots is around 80%…survival from a 3″ shotgun shell at close range is much lower. He may not return even after prison because he knows I’m at home in fighting and very quick on tactical decisions.

Mary De Voe
Friday, May 2, AD 2014 5:20am

“Do unto others as you would be done unto.” Lockett ought to have been raped, shot twice and buried alive. It is an education into what his actions have done to an innocent person. Sheep are innocent, murderers, even when incarcerated for life are a constant threat to the warden, guards, doctors and other inmates in the prison. (rogue animals are put to death) It is double jeopardy of life inflicted by the state when the murderer is allowed to live. The first jeopardy occurred when the murderer committed his first homicide, the second jeopardy occurs when the murderer is not put to death. From The Preamble, the purpose of the state and our written Constitution, the state is constituted to “secure the Blessing of Liberty to ourselves and our (constitutional) posterity” (all future generations) who will not be brought into our world if their ancestors are victims of homicide.
.
Every condemned murderer ought to have done unto him/her as they have done to their innocent victim. Six feet under with rigor mortis is not better than life in prison. The murderer has deprived his victim of his civil rights to relate to God in thought, word and deed, freedom to peaceably assemble. Why ought a condemned murderer be allowed to live, when the death penalty might be the only venue he has for conversion? A condemned murderer expires with grief over his crime. A living murderer, retaining his life, is proof of his impenitence.
.
Yes, Jesus Christ suffered capital one punishment for blasphemy as Israel is a theocracy. “Let the innocent man cast the first stone.” God is the final judge of blasphemy. Every man who has hated his neighbor dies when a capital one murderer is put to death. Only cowards and liars refuse their just punishments. All mankind deserves to die as Jesus died…if we are lucky.
.
“My kingdom is not of this world.” Priests promise to pray constantly and minister to the Word of God. Priests’ lives belong to God in a consecrated way and priests must busy themselves praying for the souls of both victims and perpetrators. Priests can ask for leniency for condemned murderers. The state does not have to respond in an affirmative way. Obviously, the priests failed to save the victim’s life. Therefore, the state must do its duty to deliver Justice, bringing the murderer to Justice. If the murderer does not get his just deserts here on earth, he will in eternity. Here, there is still time for repentance before capital punishment. The murderer does not get to call the shots to the state. The state calls the shots to the murderer. “…and may almighty God have mercy on your immortal soul.”
Atheists need not apply.

Dante alighieri
Admin
Friday, May 2, AD 2014 6:22am

And Paul, one more thing. Christ himself was quoted as saying in John 8:7, “Let he who is without sin, cast the first stone.” How much further clarification do you need?

Others have already adequately explained why your catechical understanding is defective, but I had to chuckle at this comment. Based on your “logic” not only is the death penalty wrong, but basically so is all imprisonment.

LWC
LWC
Friday, May 2, AD 2014 6:28am

Well Paul, please enlighten me with your superior intellect and clarify my flawed logic as to how imprisonment exceeds the confines of 2266. And though my playground is generally in the realm of cardiac physiology and yours theology, please charitably attend to an obviously poorly catechized Catholic.

bill bannon
bill bannon
Friday, May 2, AD 2014 7:14am

LWC,
The original death penalty for adultery was mandated to the Jews by the three Persons of the Trinity…including the Son.
Leviticus 20:1 ” The Lord spoke to Moses saying….verse 10….If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.”

Christ’s ” let him who is without sin, cast the first stone” was not a comment on the law which Christ mandated as Son. It was a comment on how these particular men were oblivious to their own sinfulness and thus were seeing the woman as wholly other than themselves. It is very possible that Christ who was writing in the dirt in the incident was writing their own sins in the dirt with their names in a coded private manner because they leave one by one in perfect order of descending age….” they began to go out one by one, beginning with the older ones”.
Jeremiah may have partly predicted this moment in Jer.17:13….” they that depart from thee, shall be written in the earth.”
Christ brought those private sin death penalties to an end by bringing grace and by reducing the power of satan for all men. But prior to Christ men needed great physical threats from God just to avoid adultery.

Dale Price
Dale Price
Friday, May 2, AD 2014 8:23am

[br] I see LWC’s “Proclamation of Righteousness Tour” has reached it’s next stop. [br]

It would be nice, LWC, if for once you *didn’t* open with your usual posture of belligerent denunciation of arguments you don’t like. Just a thought.

LWC
LWC
Friday, May 2, AD 2014 8:39am

Dale, I’ll give it consideration. Thank you.

LWC
LWC
Friday, May 2, AD 2014 8:44am

And beyond finding whatever rationale allows you to sleep a night, I’d consider a reasonable test would be if you could, yourself, participate in an execution.

LWC
LWC
Friday, May 2, AD 2014 8:44am

Because your prevailing logic would suggest participation in an execution would be no different than jury duty or serving in public office.

Phillip
Phillip
Friday, May 2, AD 2014 8:54am

I would sleep perhaps uneasily. But so I would if I shot someone in self-defence or in a just war. And the next morning I would go to Communion because I would not have committed a sin. This, because the Church has always taught that self-defense is licit. It continues to do so in the Catechism in regards to the death penalty – the Church teaches it is licit for defense.

That is, in the second edition of the Catechism. In the first edition there was the traditional teaching that others refer to. Has the Church declared definitively that the older arguments are invalid (a development of doctrine.) Of this I am not sure. But what I am sure of is that, at least in regards to the matter of the defence of the community, the death penalty is licit under proper circumstances. So I could participate in it.

This relates immediately to the principle of double effect. I won’t go through it now but you can find good summaries of it on any internet search.

Ernst Schreiber
Ernst Schreiber
Friday, May 2, AD 2014 1:05pm

Execution should be safeswift, legal and rare.

As to participation, I could bust out my St. Augustine, but why bother?

T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Friday, May 2, AD 2014 2:44pm

Wherein a James Woods “tweet” remembers the murder victim amid faux furor over a botched execution in OK.

“Beaten with a shotgun, shot twice, then buried alive. Her name was Stephanie Neiman. Remember HER.”

Not the two-legged rat (filthy animal) that vilely killed her 15 years ago.

Genesis, “Who spills amn’s blood by man shal his blood be spilt. For man is made in God’s image.

All you saintly people looking down your sanctimonious noses on me can . . .

LWC: I’d particpate in the rat’s extermination. Only condition: let me use my K-Bar knife.

Ernst Schreiber
Ernst Schreiber
Friday, May 2, AD 2014 3:08pm

Thank you to whomever cleaned up by sloppy HTML tags.

LWC
LWC
Friday, May 2, AD 2014 3:22pm

Provided I can maintain plausible deniability, I’m cool with it.

LWC
LWC
Friday, May 2, AD 2014 3:26pm

To be more polite:

T. Shaw, Provided I can maintain plausible deniability, I’m cool with it.

Greg Mockeridge
Greg Mockeridge
Friday, May 2, AD 2014 5:23pm

It wasn’t a botched execution if the guy died in the process. He may not have gone off into that good night according to plan, but the execution was successful.

Jay, I am glad to hear that you do not ascribe lack of orthodoxy to those of us who support the death penalty, ala Mark Shea et al. I also understand your reason for opposing it, (i.e.the building of a culture of life). While that is a laudable sentiment, it does not square with the facts on the ground when you consider that the overwhelming majority of the anti-death penalty movement is rabidly pro-abortion and the striking correlation between the embrace of the Culture of Death vz abortion and euthanasia and the reluctance to administer capital punishment on the part of civil authorities western countries.

Donald, if you are saying or implying that opposition to the death penalty stands contrary to the teaching of the pre VCII Church, that is not true. Church teaching has always allowed for opposition to the death penalty as much as it allowed support for it. The quote you cite from Pius XII is from a medical allocution he gave regarding research on issues dealing with the nervous system. http://www.ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/P12PSYCH.HTM

If you read it in its entirety, it is clear that he is not attempting any magisterial pronouncement on the issue of capital punishment, but mentions it in passing as means to distinguish between unjust killing even for scientific purposes and the death penalty. I think those on our side of the death penalty issue make a mistake in citing that quote in that they make too much of it. After Pius XII himself unsuccessfully pleaded for clemency on behalf of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.

Although I support the death penalty, I do not think we should relish the idea of it. I support it because I think it is needed to protect the common good. I have the same sentiments regarding the waging of war.

Seeing as how complaining about Pope Francis is the rage du jour here at TAC ever since he gave that first interview to Civileta Cattolica, I think it would be apropo to point out the thing I found most problematic (the only thing I really found problematic in that interview) . And has direct bearing on the subject at hand:

“The pope comments: “St. Vincent of Lerins makes a comparison between the biological development of man and the transmission from one era to another of the deposit of faith, which grows and is strengthened with time. Here, human self-understanding changes with time and so also human consciousness deepens. Let us think of when slavery was accepted or the death penalty was allowed without any problem. So we grow in the understanding of the truth. ”

Thing is, out of all the bitching and moaning about this interview and Pope Francis in general, I can’t find anyone who has said anything about this line, which is by far the most problematic thing he said that we know of. It leads me to believe that those who complain about Pope Francis are no more concerned about the truth than those who mindlessly shill for him are. But they are more about stirring the pot for its own sake than anything else.

Mary De Voe
Friday, May 2, AD 2014 6:19pm

LWC: “And beyond finding whatever rationale allows you to sleep a night, I’d consider a reasonable test would be if you could, yourself, participate in an execution.”
.
The executioner in any capital punishment execution operates “in power of attorney of the condemned criminal” who is to be executed by the Justice the criminal rejected.
.
Some have ten executioners and no one really knows who shoots the criminal to death.
.
The innocent children, raped, strangled and buried alive cry out to God for vengeance. Polly Klass, Megan Kanka, Divina Genao, Amanda Wengert, 19 of John Wayne Gacy’s victims…
.
How do you sleep at night?

Mary De Voe
Friday, May 2, AD 2014 8:05pm

“The Catholic magisterium in recent years has become increasingly vocal in opposing the practice of capital punishment. Pope John Paul II in Evangelium Vitae declared that “as a result of steady improvements in the organization of the penal system,” cases in which the execution of the offender would be absolutely necessary “are very rare, if not practically nonexistent.” Again at St. Louis in January 1999 the Pope appealed for a consensus to end the death penalty on the ground that it was “both cruel and unnecessary.” The bishops of many countries have spoken to the same effect.”
.
from First Things and Avery Cardinal Dulles. “both cruel and unnecessary” emasculates capital punishment. The victim is dead.
.
Both St. John Paul II and Cardinal Dulles cannot live another person’s life for them, nor can they run surety for a capital one murderer and guarantee safety for society. Therefore, both St. John Paul II and Cardinal Dulles cannot remove the protection guaranteed by capital punishment. The duplicity in their argument is not from God.

StephenS
StephenS
Monday, May 5, AD 2014 8:17am

UPDATED to correct typo in first line
This article leaves out many of the details.
After the trial was completed in August 2000, the Associated Press reported that “Lockett was found guilty of conspiracy, first-degree burglary, three counts of assault with a dangerous weapon, three counts of forcible oral sodomy, four counts of first-degree rape, four counts of kidnapping and two counts of robbery by force and fear. The charges were after former convictions of two or more felonies, according to the court clerk’s office.”
For those of you wimps who still feel sorry for this vermin, if you run into someone silar, do not look for me to help you.
Help yourself. – See more at: https://the-american-catholic.com/2014/04/30/stephanie-neiman/#sthash.5dJDeIMl.dpuf

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