Friday, March 29, AD 2024 5:46am

A Disgrace

 

 

As my co-blogger Paul notes here, National Catholic Register, the Jesuit rag America, National Catholic Distorter Reporter, and Our Sunday Visitor have a joint editorial calling on the Supreme Court to decree by judicial fiat, in precisely the same manner that it legalized abortion, the abolition of the death penalty.  Well, lets look at these four publications.

No surprise from America and National Catholic Reporter.  They are leftist propaganda organs and have precisely the same respect for the traditional teaching of the Church as they do for the Constitution:  bupkis.

Our Sunday Visitor has always been a fairly lickspittle publication that has usually blown to and fro with the changing winds from the Vatican.  Their theme song might as well be Company Way:

 

That brings us to National Catholic Register.  They should know better.  They should especially know better than to try to defend their blatant betrayal of principle with the following cheesy editorial:

From the time of the publication of his 1995 encyclical Evangelium Vitae (The Gospel of Life), Pope St. John Paul II urged Catholics to re-examine the use of the death penalty — teaching that its use today should be “very rare if not practically nonexistent.” His successors Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis consistently have taught the same.  

We’ve taken that teaching to heart. We’ve prayerfully pondered it, and we accept it. Our reporting over the years has reflected this teaching. And, while we recognize that the Church has allowed for the legitimate use of the death penalty for society’s self-defense, we find that it’s harder and harder to argue that a particular act of capital punishment is circumstantially necessary today in contemporary America. We believe the right path is to seek its abolition, and we’ve taken the opportunity, along with other members of the Catholic press, to encourage our readers to consider this stance as a part of comprehensively embracing the gospel of life. 

Today, we face ever-increasing assaults on the sanctity of human life. Unity among Catholics in defense of life can send a powerful message. Euthanasia, abortion, war and capital punishment differ in moral weight, but they all threaten human dignity, and we must work to end them. While we look forward to the day we can stand in unity with the other Catholic publications on each of these life issues, we stand today on the death penalty, strengthened by the teaching of John Paul II, Benedict XVI and Francis, and say, Capital punishment must end.”

 

Let’s take this apart piece by piece, shall we?

1.  Prior to 1995 the Church had absolutely no problem with the death penalty.  John Paul II’s stance was at odds with the consistent teaching of the Church since the time of Christ.

2.  Even John Paul II did not call for the complete abolition of the death penalty, because that would have been a flat reversal of the prior teaching of the Church, which is what this editorial calls for.

3.  Capital punishment not necessary in contemporary America?  I will assume that no one on the editorial board of the National Catholic Register has loved ones who work in prisons.  Murders by individuals serving life sentences are not uncommon of both guards and fellow inmates.  Of course the issue is additionally complicated by the fact that Pope Francis has come out against life sentences.  This would indicate under 2267 that the death penalty is licit since contrary to the assertion in that section of the Catechism, we have no way of assuring that a convicted murderer cannot kill again, especially if we follow the Pope’s lead and no longer have life sentences for murderers.

4.  The Gospel of Life-The idea that the death penalty is antithetical to the protection of innocent life is so looney that it could only have been developed during a period when society, and a great many clergy and laity within the Church, had badly lost their moral compasses.  Equating convicted murderers with unborn children is simply obscene.  I can understand people who have prudential concerns about the death penalty.  For 33 years I have seen up close what an imperfect instrument law is.  If the people of a state or a nation wish to abolish the death penalty, it is not a hot button issue for me.  However, such prudential concerns are a far cry from the assertion that being for the death penalty is in any way in opposition to the Gospel.

5.  While we look forward to the day we can stand in unity with the other Catholic publications on each of these life issues,

That is the most hilarious section of the editorial.  America and National Catholic Reporter do not give a damn about abortion or euthanasia. When they are not giving space to people who think abortion and euthanasia are civil rights, they are carrying water for the party of abortion and euthanasia.

6.  The most disheartening aspect of this editorial is how adamantly determined it is to pretend that Catholic teaching on the death penalty began in 1995.  Of all the heresies that beset the Church today, perhaps the most perfidious one is presentism, the idea that all that matters in the Church is what current Popes and other ecclesiastics say and do rather than the broad teaching of the Church.  That is not how the Church operated for almost all of her history, and that is not how our greatest Saints viewed the teaching of the Church.

The powers that be at National Catholic Register should be ashamed of being used by anti-death penalty activists to give their prestige to this misbegotten effort to have the Supreme Court unconstitutionally strike down the death penalty.  In doing this they are poor Catholics and poor Americans.

 

0 0 votes
Article Rating
56 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Michael Paterson-Seymour
Michael Paterson-Seymour
Friday, March 6, AD 2015 4:36am

“Murders by individuals serving life sentences are not uncommon of both guards and fellow inmates “
Such violence could be very easily eliminated by following the Scandinavian example of allowing the compulsory medication of prisoners. Since the development of chlordiazepoxide HCI and later benzodiazepine compounds, prisoners’ behaviour can be effectively controlled, without long-term damage to their health. Pioneering work has been going on in Sweden since the 1960s, with excellent results.
In Scotland, one can contrast the violence in prisons, where routine compulsory medication of prisoners is not allowed, with the success of the State Hospital at Carstairs, which houses some of the most dangerous mental patients in the country and where such medication is standard.
Indeed, one would have thought prisons provided a useful resource for the development of psychotropic drugs and other forms of behavioural modification. In this way, evil can be tackled at its roots, in the brain itself.

Phillip
Phillip
Friday, March 6, AD 2015 4:46am

As EWTN is the owner of the Register, it seems in keeping with the docile clericalism they have demonstrated since Mother Angelica had her run in with Cardinal Mahoney.

But it has made my decision about renewing my subscription to the Register easy.

Art Deco
Art Deco
Friday, March 6, AD 2015 5:50am

Such violence could be very easily eliminated by following the Scandinavian example of allowing the compulsory medication of prisoners. Since the development of chlordiazepoxide HCI and later benzodiazepine compounds, prisoners’ behaviour can be effectively controlled, without long-term damage to their health. Pioneering work has been going on in Sweden since the 1960s, with excellent results.

Let’s subcontract prison administration to N.I.C.E.

Phillip
Phillip
Friday, March 6, AD 2015 6:59am

“If Mother Angelica were not incapacitated I think she would have something tart to say about this.”

I have no doubt about what she might say. Unfortunately, after the run-in with Mahoney and then Bishop Foley of Alabama, she gave over control of EWTN to a lay board. They’ve been the passive clericalists.

Mary De Voe
Friday, March 6, AD 2015 8:27am

To abolish the death penalty is to diminish the sacrifice of Jesus Christ and His crucifixion, the cross. Forgiveness cannot be done without the temporal punishment for capital one homicide. Mercy cannot be accomplished without the death penalty. Justice for the victim cannot be done.
The latest effort to ban capital punishment inflicts double jeopardy of life on all people. The first jeopardy happened at the homicide. A living capital one murderer, deserving the death penalty and being brought to Justice is not being treated with Justice and cannot be treated with mercy.
Capital Punishment for capital one homicide is the exercise of Justice and a matter of duty for the state. The state brings the capital one murderer to Justice. The punishment must fit the crime. The murderer has not expired with grief over his crime. The murderer must not be allowed to enjoy the murder, not one second. The Catholic Church may not prohibit capital one punishment, the death penalty, except by preventing capital one homicide. The Church cannot deny innocent persons the security of having capital one murderers join their victims.
.
The Catholic Church and her priests are promised to serve God. The state is constituted to serve the governed, bringing the capital one murdered to Justice.

Dante alighieri
Admin
Friday, March 6, AD 2015 8:45am

Prior to 1995 the Church had absolutely no problem with the death penalty. John Paul II’s stance was at odds with the consistent teaching of the Church since the time of Christ.

Only a cafeteria Catholic could possibly believe that Church teaching extended beyond the period of one’s own lifetime.

Michael Paterson-Seymour
Michael Paterson-Seymour
Friday, March 6, AD 2015 9:30am

The reasoning of Evangelium Vitae is similar to the argument advanced to the Constituent Assembly on 30 May 1791 by Maximilien Robespierre

“Outside of civil society, let an inveterate enemy attempt to take my life, or, twenty times repulsed, let him again return to devastate the field my hands have cultivated. Inasmuch as I can only oppose my individual strength to his, I must perish or I must kill him, and the law of natural defence justifies and approves me. But in society, when the strength of all is armed against one single individual, what principle of justice can authorize it to put him to death? What necessity can there be to absolve it? A conqueror who causes the death of his captive enemies is called a barbarian! A man who causes a child that he can disarm and punish, to be strangled, appears to us a monster! A prisoner that society convicts is at the utmost to that society but a vanquished, powerless, and harmless enemy. He is before it weaker than a child before a full-grown man.”

Of course, even Robespierre did not deny that capital punishment might be necessary in exceptional circumstances or in troubled times. Thus, of Louis XVI, on 3 December 1792, he said, “But a dethroned king in the bosom of a revolution which is anything but cemented by laws, a king whose name suffices to draw the scourge of war on the agitated nation, neither prison nor exile can render his existence immaterial to the public welfare: and this cruel exception to ordinary laws which justice approves can be imputed only to the nature of his crimes.”

Steve D.
Steve D.
Friday, March 6, AD 2015 9:53am

EWTN / NCRegister have been flirting with neoCatholicism for some time now, and this lame editorial is the final nail in that coffin. At least they can’t hide it anymore.

Brian English
Brian English
Friday, March 6, AD 2015 10:17am

I can understand JPII’s general aversion to the death penalty based on him seeing it applied by the Nazis and Communists to people based on their religious or political views, but how an otherwise extremely intelligent man, and those who follow his view, are incapable of distinguishing between those situations and say, the execution of a savage who rapes and murders a five-year old girl, is beyond my powers of explanation.

And spare me lectures about the inherent dignity of every human being. Countries like Holland and Belgium were at the forefront of abolishing the death penalty, but now are at the forefront of euthanizing disabled infants.

The fact is, respect for human dignity and the value of life requires imposition of the death penalty under certain circumstances. Catholics used to realize this. In supposedly one of Pope Francis’ favorite books, Lord of the World, the first thing the pope does when he is given control of Rome is reinstate the death penalty. Robert Hugh Benson properly saw abolition of the death penalty as part of the agenda of secular leftism, where society refuses to execute the guilty for heinous crimes, but stand ready to kill innocent people who don’t feel like living anymore or who are no longer “useful” to society.

Brian English
Brian English
Friday, March 6, AD 2015 10:20am

“EWTN / NCRegister have been flirting with neoCatholicism for some time now, and this lame editorial is the final nail in that coffin. At least they can’t hide it anymore.”
And I see in the blurbs at New Advent that, of course, the Catholic Blog at Patheos is all in on this exercise in stupidity.

Foxfier
Admin
Friday, March 6, AD 2015 10:31am

Equating convicted murderers with unborn children is simply obscene.

Well said.

Foxfier
Admin
Friday, March 6, AD 2015 10:33am

Oh, heck… I just realized, isn’t this editorial against Catholic teachings, about rendering unto Ceasar?
They’re promoting violating a system, and it’s not even for an inherent evil.

D Black
D Black
Friday, March 6, AD 2015 10:46am

That National Catholic Register would have anything to do with National Catholic Reporter should tell anyone that the great dream of orthodox Mother Angelica to proclaim authentic church teachings to the masses is all but dead. Remember the great lady fondly for her vision of EWTN is “gone with the wind”. Sad, but true.

Dale Price
Dale Price
Friday, March 6, AD 2015 10:53am

“Such violence could be very easily eliminated by following the Scandinavian example of allowing the compulsory medication of prisoners.”

Go ahead and run that past your local ACLU attorney and give us his assessment.

Dale Price
Dale Price
Friday, March 6, AD 2015 10:59am

Linking hands with, and thereby legitimizing, the Reporter is probably the foulest part of this bit of activism.

The notion that the lefties will ever reciprocate on abortion, euthanasia or marriage is worthy of a contemptuous snort.

When you support progs, they thank you for it and return to undermining you five minutes after the ink dries. Next, prog Catholics will be demanding the end of life sentences, citing the current Pontiff. What will the Register and OSV do then?

Papal positivism does for the Catholic life of the mind what gamma radiation does for cellular growth.

Dan Carter
Dan Carter
Friday, March 6, AD 2015 11:07am

With the current Pope’s statement that even life without parole is a no-no, doesnt that obliterate the argument that we dont need cap pun but need life without parole because we can keep the bad guy in a secure slammer and that’s the reason to stop capital punishment? The anti death penalty folks will have us be able only to slap a wrist once after their playing with centuries of Catholic teaching.

Stephen E Dalton
Stephen E Dalton
Friday, March 6, AD 2015 11:18am

This idea of doping sane, but violent inmates with psychotropic drugs sounds like what the Soviet Union used to do with their sane dissidents. Sorry, but unless the inmate has an actual mental illness, I’m opposed to this crackpot idea. Besides, if the inmate gets out on parole, there’s no guarantee he will stay on the meds. We have this problem with mental patients going off their meds all the time, and the consequences can be quite deadly, as any mental health worker or policeman can tell you.

stilbelieve
stilbelieve
Friday, March 6, AD 2015 1:06pm

:
“‘From the time of the publication of his 1995 encyclical Evangelium Vitae (The Gospel of Life), Pope St. John Paul II urged Catholics to re-examine the use of the death penalty — teaching that its use today should be “very rare if not practically nonexistent.’ His successors Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis consistently have taught the same.”

What is so disturbing about this new “teaching” started by JPII is that it is based solely on his own OPINION. No evidence was ever presented to support his OPINION. Nor am I aware of anyone other than me asking the bishops to show evidence that CP is no longer necessary for the protection of the innocent public because of the high technology in prison systems today. (Of course this excludes 3rd world countries from having to comply, don’t you know, they don’t have the money or the technology to conform. So, their killing of capital offenders is OK based on the new opinion of Church teaching)

Well, as it so happens on Sunday April 29, 2001 an article on page “News 24” of The Orange County Register blows to pieces this new Catholic opinion-based teaching; or it should have, but the California Catholic Conference decided to dismiss the article I sent to them by way of Diocese of Orange representative who attend a discussion of the bishops support for a ballot measure to end CP in CA. The article headline was “Murder from the inside out” and dealt with a 3 year, $5,000,000, local, state and federal investigation of the newest high tech prison in California which resulted in federal prosecutors saying “…hundreds of murders (have been orchestrated) from inside maximum-security prisons. The Corrections Department says there is little it can do to stop the killings ordered by inmates who have nothing to lose and nothing but time (on their hands). A “25-count indictment of a total of 12 men and 1 woman on federal charges of murder, robbery, conspiracy and drug-related crimes” Eight of the 12 men were serving in a “prison within a prison.” They “live alone in antiseptic cells that are painted white with a glass wall so that guards can always see inside. Meals are brought to the cells and they are allowed outside only one hour a day, alone, to exercise in small concrete yard.” In other words, these are prisoners housed in solitary confinement in the highest tech modern prison in CA, from which they orchestrated “murders, robbery, and conspiracy and drug-related crimes.”

So much for the Church’s attempt to be “holier than thou” in order to be consistent with Cardinal Bernardin’s “consistent ethic of life” which killed the real and original pro-life movement’s efforts to get a Right-to-Life Constitutional Amendment passed to save the unborn. It is getting difficult to defend the Catholic Church as the “one, true, Church” when She is tying Herself up in knots over ending CP being “pro-life,” something She is doing in order for Catholics to justify their remaining in the pro-abortion Democratic Party whose “consistent ethic of life” stretches back to the days of slavery passing threw Jim Crow Laws and the KKK, and don’t forget their Congress Members opposing the 1964 Civil Rights Act, and the 1965 Voting Rights Act in a higher percentage than the other party. And to that we can now add the party of same-sex marriage. Yeah, let’s all come together in the Catholic consistent ethic of life…that’s the ticket. See how many Catholics still endorse the pro-abortion party, and that includes the clergy, with their names and support? Half of them after 42s of Roe v Wade. I’ll support the effort to end CP when the Pope and bishops find a way to exonerate the mortal sins of all those who have been murdered all these years with no chance of making a perfect confession. Only 3% of convicted capital offenders receive the death penalty, and nothing causes one to repent, if you are going to, better than knowing the date and time you’re going to die. And those who administer the death sentence from the prosecutors, jurors and judge to those pulling the lever or administering the drugs will never commit a sin in carrying out their duty. They never have committed a sin and never will in doing so. It is a crying shame what the Church leaders have done to try to appease those Catholics that love being Democrats; being Catholic is not enough for them.

Margaret
Friday, March 6, AD 2015 1:12pm

These are great distractions from the real issue at hand. None of these determines whether the faith is practiced or not. However the rise of gay and group marriages throughout Europe and the Americas means that force of law can drive churches UNDER for failing to comply with the state when 2000 years of history and teaching make it impossible for our churches to do so. So bicker along on non-essentials while the state and the gay agenda get ready to STRIKE where it hurts the most.

cthemfly25
cthemfly25
Friday, March 6, AD 2015 1:17pm

One may argue over the public policy, pro or con, of the death penalty. However, these “editorials” and frankly many of the USCCB and Bishop pronouncements indelicately suggest that there is a moral imperative to the eradication of the death penalty and that is where they cross the line.

The observation finding its way in the Catechism regarding the lack of necessity in ‘modern’ times is not properly a factor in the moral predicates for an important aspect of retributive justice. In fact, it is not even empirically sound….just look at the murder rates throughout Latin America both in and out of prison.

Brian English I think raises a good point, namely, that the underlying “moral equivalence” argument found hidden in these and other pronouncements actually insults the notion of innocence and the need to value and protect the innocent loss of life. By saying that the death penalty is per se never to be used in our haughty version of a civil society, we have expressed a cultural view that innocent life is indistinguishable; we have undermined the entire aspect of justice having to do with retribution (not to be confused with vengeance); we have taken a dim view that the only life which matters both for the murderer and the victim is the life here on earth, and not everlasting life. We are offering the sentimentality of “forgiveness” without the substance of mercy and judgment. While it is for the individual to forgive, that is not for the state in its role to ensure order. This is a surrender to the culture, to the post moderns.

JackRyan
JackRyan
Friday, March 6, AD 2015 1:58pm

This is how arrogant the Catholic press has become: they believe that they have a kind of teaching authority. Wow, all four of them! This must be Catholic teaching. Pope Mark Shea I must be celebrating.

Please. The commenter who notes all the murders orchestrated from inside prison, as well as murders committed within prison by death row inmates, vindicates the need for CP as the Church has always taught.

Penguins Fan
Penguins Fan
Friday, March 6, AD 2015 4:09pm

There was a time when I watched a lot of EWTN and listened to it on the radio and the computer. Sadly, I don’t watch it much anymore, as much of the programming is reruns of things from years ago. The lay leaders are likely afraid of running afoul of the USCCB.

Brian
Brian
Friday, March 6, AD 2015 4:46pm

“…… Of all the heresies that beset the Church today, perhaps the most perfidious one is presentism, the idea that all that matters in the Church is what current Popes and other ecclesiastics say and do rather than the broad teaching of the Church.”

THAT is the key to understanding the disease striking at the heart of our blessed Church. Thank you.

I have always believed that the Church was not only connected to all previous eras of the Church Triumphant, but before Christ, in the very beginning days of our Church Fathers, we were connected in a real way to the Prophets, Priests and Kings of the Law and the Holy Temple in which God resided with His people waiting for His Advent.

The key to our Faith is CONNECTION. We are not alone. We are not making stuff up as we go for modern times and modern problems. We are GUARDIANS, responsible to all those Saints watching us from beyond the veil, Old and New Testament characters together. We are ONE faith. The Faith is not a tool; a plaything. It is our sacred duty to keep it in our times for a spiritually illiterate generation, pure as it is given to us from Heaven.

Thank you,
Brian

Philip
Philip
Friday, March 6, AD 2015 4:59pm

When the nation has pardoned 25 to 30 million murderer’s of innocent lives since 1973 and even funds in the death of more innocent lives, future Americans, and then we speak of death penalty abolishment? Seriously?

Look about you.

Your surrounded by killers.

What does a murderer look like?

Thank God for reconciliation.

Anzlyne
Anzlyne
Friday, March 6, AD 2015 5:19pm

The move is to mercy without judgment. It is an abdication of authority and of responsibility. Also no punishment- we can reasonably hope that there is no hell.

Anzlyne
Anzlyne
Friday, March 6, AD 2015 5:22pm

Point made by Brian English is a great one: ” ….iCountries like Holland and Belgium were at the forefront of abolishing the death penalty, but now are at the forefront of euthanizing disabled infants.”

Mary De Voe
Friday, March 6, AD 2015 7:13pm

Stephen E Dalton: Double Jeopardy of life for all persons is unconstitutional.
.
Michael Paterson-Seymour: “The reasoning of Evangelium Vitae is similar to the argument advanced to the Constituent Assembly on 30 May 1791 by Maximilien Robespierre”
.
To put it bluntly, Robespierre was an idiot. Perhaps it is the translation, but Robespierre referred to a man as a ”that” not a “who” pointing to an uninformed mind and a total lack of respect for the dignity of the human being as an immortal soul. It is the duty of the state to align itself against every form of tyranny over the mind of man, especially and including the murdered man…the duty…the duty. The king and queen might have been exiled, stripped of their royalty and sent away, never to return but that never occurred to the man of no imagination. P.S. America did it to King George.
.
Anzlyne: “The move is to mercy without judgment. It is an abdication of authority and of responsibility. Also no punishment- we can reasonably hope that there is no hell.”
.
Thank you Anzlyne. You are very close to the truth. It is the principle that all men are created equal. The evil one, the great liar insists that man clothes himself in mercy killing, compassionate defection from his duty, generous slandering of the human worth of the victim. This creates inequality among men. The human worth of the victim is his immortal soul, his character, his eternity, his life denied to him. God forgave Lucifer and his minions even as they refused to acknowledge God. Lucifer was too proud to accept God’s forgiveness. It was Lucifer’s pride that drove him out of heaven. “Who is like unto God” in forgiveness? It is God’s burning mercy and love for Lucifer that flames hell. If the victim forgave his murderer there still is the matter of Justice binding upon the state. There is the soul of the people created in equality. There is self-defense. The truth is that the victim has not been destroyed or vanquished or exterminated. The victim is an immortal soul who is represented by the state in capital one murder cases. The banning of capital punishment is done so that the immortal soul does not have to be acknowledged and God’s mercy does not have to be invoked by the state’s court. Atheism imposed by the state.
.
There have been capital punishment bans and the murder rate went so high, that it had to be brought back. Serial murderers, John Wayne Gacy 29 victims and counting, Jeffery Dahmer, cannibal, Jesse Timmendaquas in solitary confinement, baby killer, Conrad Jefferies, more baby killers. How dare the church come out against innocent victims? And the Christ? Every one of those baby-raping murderers ought to be housed with Pope Francis in the hotel Marta.

As Obama creates a diversion when people realize that Obama is imposing a tax and a penalty upon the people who refuse to buy Obamacare, because they do not want to buy Obamacare, the Vatican is creating a diversion to cover the Rosica embarrassment.

Michael Paterson-Seymour
Michael Paterson-Seymour
Saturday, March 7, AD 2015 2:56am

Stephen E Dalton wrote, “Besides, if the inmate gets out on parole, there’s no guarantee he will stay on the meds…”
In the Scandinavian model, they would remain wards of the state, living in sheltered accommodation.
One hopes that further research will lead to long-term implants or surgical interventions that remove the need for the constant administration of pharmaceuticals.
One of the problems with life sentences is that they fail to take account of such possible future developments. A more realistic sentence would be the familiar British one of detention “during Her Majesty’s pleasure.” It is open-ended and leaves the person, even if released, subject to recall.

Michael Paterson-Seymour
Michael Paterson-Seymour
Saturday, March 7, AD 2015 2:58am

Stillbelieve
And yet, the countries with the lowest murder rate in the world do not have capital punishment – French Polynesia, Hong Kong, Iceland, Monaco, Norway, Pilau…

Art Deco
Art Deco
Saturday, March 7, AD 2015 7:36am

And yet, the countries with the lowest murder rate in the world do not have capital punishment – French Polynesia, Hong Kong, Iceland, Monaco, Norway, Pilau…
==
I gather legal training in Britain does not cover the statistician’s concept of ‘reverse causation’.
==
Monaco is a gilded enclave with about 24,000 people in it. In New York City, Manhattan’s Community District 8, which comprehends the Upper East Side and some adjacent areas, is a handsome area with a population of 220,000 and streets not very distant from the slum districts in Harlem and on the Lower East Side. The number of homicides in Community District 8 in 2014 = 0. The wealthy and well to do have their vices; a penchant for violent crime is seldom one.
==
French Polynesia , Palau, and Iceland are insular states which are predominantly rural and small town and wherein the only cities are strictly 4th tier, with maybe 100,000 residents (and Palau has no cities at all). There are places in this world which fit that description with a serious violent crime problem, but they are all dominated by the descendants of plantation slaves.

Rural and small town homicide rates in New York clock in there at 1.14 per 100,000. Oneida County, New York (like Tahiti) has a mix of small city populations, small towns, and countryside. Oneida County has also been suffering an industrial depression for several decades and has had quite a bit of demographic churn from immigration (along with a mafia presence). The homicide rate in Oneida County, N.Y. is 2.4 per 100,000. That in Cyprus is 2.0 per 100,000.

We also have an ample population of Scandinavians in Minnesota. The homicide rate in Minnesota is 1.7 per 100,000, just what it is in Finland, in spite of the presence of a national-class city therein larger than Stockholm.

Art Deco
Art Deco
Saturday, March 7, AD 2015 7:38am

In the Scandinavian model, they would remain wards of the state, living in sheltered accommodation.
==
That’s the whole problem.

Michael Paterson-Seymour
Michael Paterson-Seymour
Saturday, March 7, AD 2015 8:19am

Art Deco wrote, “The homicide rate in Minnesota is 1.7 per 100,000, just what it is in Finland, in spite of the presence of a national-class city therein larger than Stockholm.”
Norway’s is 0.6.
Hong Kong, one of the most densely populated places on earth, has a homicide rate of 0.4

Mary De Voe
Saturday, March 7, AD 2015 8:42am

The Court is duty bound to deliver equal Justice. The judges are to be the personification of the virtue of perfect Justice and their identity is called out as “JUSTICE”.
.
On the principle that ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL, it is the job, duty and privilege of the Supreme Court and the International Court of the United Nations to bring forth EQUAL JUSTICE for every human being ever created, living, dead and to be born.
.
This would be equal Justice for the gay agenda as equal marriage is not in the power of the Court, any Court to invent, to confer as Knighthood (prohibited by the Constitution, am looking up citation to be continued.) or a degree of sanctity as in Sainthood.

Mary De Voe
Saturday, March 7, AD 2015 8:53am

Mt lady friend from China with asylum in the U.S because of Tiannenmen (sp) Square said that there is no major crime in China because the government will not put up with it. (She is an atheist and we agreed about everything except the existence of the Supreme Sovereign Being. Yichin Shen teaches at the university in southern California.)
.
Removing capital punishment for the taking of innocent human life will remove any power the government has over the commission of every crime.) Kill the witness to rape, theft, usury, adultery. Why not? Eh, it s a free crime.

Paul W Primavera
Saturday, March 7, AD 2015 9:05am

Europeans like MPS will change their attitude about the death penalty when they see in their own countries Islamic fanatics burning alive little children and beheading Christian men and women. By that time it will be too late. And the suggestion to use psychotropic drugs to control the violent beasts in prison is amazing in its hubris. Were I a criminal, I would rather be executed that to be forever dazed into a fog of non-sentience.

Foxfier
Admin
Saturday, March 7, AD 2015 9:10am

Before you compare homicide rates, you’ve first got to figure out if they’re measuring the same thing.
For example, the UK version of the department of justice has a really nice quote about how their method of measuring murders is superior, because a murder isn’t counted until they have a murderer and that guy has run out of appeals. Less idealistically, there’s that scandal where they caught police reporting deadly assault as a lesser crime if the person could be said to have died in the hospital.
I don’t know what Hong Kong’s rate was before the Chinese took over, but I do know it’s crazy to believe any statistics from the Chinese gov’t.

Foxfier
Admin
Saturday, March 7, AD 2015 9:18am

The US, on the other hand, can have a homicide recorded without even a body…..

Mary De Voe
Saturday, March 7, AD 2015 10:28am

Foxfier: The bible gives a good account of how and when an homicide may be counted as a homicide (no notations) The bible also states that a rapist must support his victim for her entire life. With that law in place, victims need not sue for their true rights. The victims of crimes are not compensated by the Victims’ Compensation Boards as settlement. Being found guilty of rape or murder and serving a sentence does not mean that one is no longer guilty and has paid his debt to society. It means that he is no longer incarcerated. He is guilty and liable forever… A lifetime of punishment does Justice.
.
I posted one half of my comment earlier. I had a paper copy of the Constitution (Thank you, Lord.) : and it reads:in Article I Section 8: “No title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the consent of Congress, accept any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince or foreign State. (This includes Hillary Clinton taking money from foreign countries without the express consent of Congress)
.
I stumbled over this Constitutional fact in Article I Section 5: Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings. punish its members for disorderly behavior, and, with the concurrence of two thirds, expel a Member.
.
It seems that our Congress, like Jonah, has been swallowed by a whale of a lie, malfeasance in office and violation of its true purpose, that is: representing its constituents.
.
Pope Francis prays for all members of the Catholic Church, the Saints in heaven, the people on earth and the suffering in purgatory. The people on earth need Pope Francis to remain steadfast in the dispensation of Truth, Who is Jesus Christ. Praying at Mass and then displaying a disregard for Justice in the public square by submitting to an earthly agenda renders Pope Francis’ face and words inequitable.

Michael Paterson-Seymour
Michael Paterson-Seymour
Saturday, March 7, AD 2015 10:30am

Foxfier wrote, “I don’t know what Hong Kong’s rate was before the Chinese took over, but I do know it’s crazy to believe any statistics from the Chinese gov’t.”
Much the same as when HMG abolished the death penalty there in 1993 and the end of British rule in 1997.

Donald R McClarey wrote, “it is interesting how these three Chinese polities are so close together on this index.” Very, especially as China and Taiwan have the death penalty and Hong Kong does not.

Hmmmmm
Hmmmmm
Saturday, March 7, AD 2015 10:32am

Michael Paterson-Seymour, and how long will it be before the use of these chemical solutions are expanded to care for the petty and the disagreeable? What will stop a state from administrating a pharmacological solution for any reason? If our modern age suggests a state can interfere with the biological integrity of its prisoners (as dependents,) what argument can prevent them from doing so to fetuses in the womb or lab? The whole exercise sounds like a repeat of our medical fashions- chemical castrations and lobotomies were en vogue once too, after all.

Mary De Voe
Saturday, March 7, AD 2015 10:44am

another note: In some countries there is an unwritten law of the vengeance of blood, wherein, the closest relative of the victim may pursue and kill the murderer within 24 hours and all is well. This is true also of adultery, caught in bed, no questions asked. It may be a citizen’s arrest and completion of Justice with a sovereign person’s human rights. It is called integrity.

Michael Paterson-Seymour
Michael Paterson-Seymour
Saturday, March 7, AD 2015 10:50am

Hmmmmm

Well, non-standard behaviour has to be controlled somehow and, surely, we should adopt the most humane means. Just as difficult children are now given Ritalin, rather than being beaten into submission, pharmaceuticals strike me as more humane than hanging or transportation for criminals, or strait-jackets and padded cells for the insane.

Lobotomies went out of fashion precisely because Largactil and Megaphen achieve the same purpose, without the associated costs and risks.

Art Deco
Art Deco
Saturday, March 7, AD 2015 11:12am

surely, we should adopt the most humane means.

The ‘most humane means’ incorporate treating people as autonomous agents who can choose between obeying the rules and taking the consequences.
Just as difficult children are now given Ritalin, rather than being beaten into submission


Uh, we’re all familiar with that.

, pharmaceuticals strike me as more humane than hanging or transportation for criminals,

It’s a solution fit only for Scandinavians, who have subcontracted their lives to state social workers and mental health tradesmen. We are still, at least residually, a free people in this country.

Stephen E Dalton
Stephen E Dalton
Saturday, March 7, AD 2015 11:30am

MPS, when I read your remarks about drugging sane criminals, why does Brave New World and 1984 bounce around in my mind?

Foxfier
Admin
Saturday, March 7, AD 2015 12:10pm

Much the same as when HMG abolished the death penalty there in 1993 and the end of British rule in 1997.

So they’re probably republishing the rate of success the Brits had in solving murders in HK. (Isn’t anybody else familiar with the running joke about proving one can foretell the future because you can predict what China’s published growth rate will be?)
.
. Just as difficult children are now given Ritalin, rather than being beaten into submission

False choice, not to mention being a great example of exactly why people object– the prescription has a few good uses; it’s now being prescribed to kids who are in any way inconvenient, and there are websites explaining how to get your child on it so they are ‘disabled’ and thus improve your gov’t based income.
.
If you’re going to aim to turn someone into a zombie, at least have the honesty to make sure they’re dead, first. When someone is in jail, there’s no way that people can lie to themselves about how much better they are from having their free will violated. When the free will is violated invisibly, it gets far, far easier for that violation to expand. You’re promoting a solution that is an expansion of chopping off a thief’s hand…as compassionate.
Same way that medical advances made abortion on demand for social life reasons a thing, while ultrasounds have made it much more objectionable– especially at stages where the kid has a recognizable profile.

Discover more from The American Catholic

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading

Scroll to Top