Thread by @disciple96

Almost a year before the Pope's announced revision of para. 2267 of the Catechism, @EWTN's @worldoverdc featured Profs. Edward #Feser & Joseph #Bessette discussing their book, By Man Shall His Blood Be Shed: A #Catholic Defense of #CapitalPunishment.

At about 9:08 (see above) @RaymondArroyo reads a letter about the death penalty, euthanasia, & abortion, and a discussion begins re guilt & innocence, prudential judgment, & teaching that must be adhered to. #DeathPenalty #Catholic

At about 11:46 (see OP) discussion begins about the Scriptural roots of the #Catholic teaching on #CapitalPunishment. #DeathPenalty

Re the 2nd tweet in this thread, they're talking about the Hierarchy of Life Issues. #DeathPenalty #Catholic

13:00: The Church has always taught Scripture can't teach moral error, & that where the Fathers of the Church (earliest theologians & bishops of the Church) agree on their interpretation of Scripture, no #Catholic is at liberty to disagree with that interpretation. #DeathPenalty

13:19: The Fathers of the Church are unanimous, even those opposed to #CapitalPunishment in practice agree, that its use is legitimate in principle, & that Scripture teaches this. #DeathPenalty #Catholic

13:38: Prof Feser: So that #CapitalPunishment is legitimate in principle is not something that is open to the Church to revise.

Well, well.

#DeathPenalty #Catholic

Let me back up a bit to Scriptural roots of the Catholic teaching. They are more, but these two they mentioned a few minutes ago. Gen 9:6 & Rom 13 (written during the Roman Empire's persecution of the Church). #DeathPenalty #Catholic

There are probably more passages cited in the book, but that's for another thread. And, yes, there will be one. :) #DeathPenalty #Catholic

13:46 Raymond reads brief words of Popes JPII & BXVI where they ask for the elimination of the #DeathPenalty. Then that Pope Francis has appointed a commission to study changing the Catechism. (Revision was done & announced almost exactly a year later.) #DeathPenalty #Catholic

About 14:20: Raymond relates that Pope Francis wants to outright forbid #CapitalPunishment & that the Pope says "Thou shalt not kill" has absolute value and applies to the innocent AND the guilty. (WHOA!) #DeathPenalty #Catholic

I had to stop the video right there for a moment. THAT was a break with well more than 2,000 years of Judeo-Christian teaching, was it not? The more I study this situation, the more I am STUNNED. #DeathPenalty #Catholic

Continuing the video now. 14:47: Prof Feser confirms what I have been thinking & what I thought just now again: that the Pope does not have the authority (& no ones does, btw) to reverse the teaching of Scripture, of all his predecessors, (cont'd)

#DeathPenalty #Catholic

And the teaching of Catholic Tradition in general. It’s not w/in the authority of a Pope to do that. If he were to do it, he’d be introducing a contradiction into the very system of Catholic theology, & undermining the authority of the Church & his own. #DeathPenalty #Catholic

(Thought I got my tweets out of order & had to delete one & re-post it. Sorry about that.😑)

Now they discuss that though Popes have called for the end of the USE of the #DeathPenalty in PRACTICE, they have NEVER said that it's immoral in PRINCIPLE & can never be used. That's the disconnect here. #Catholic

That's the end of the segment. Thanks for reading. Hope you'll watch the video. Comments & discussion are welcome. :)

Egad, an uncaught and uncorrected typo. Argh. There, not they. How annoying. 🤦🏻‍♀️

(I'll toss remarks here as I think of them.) I do wonder who the Pope appointed to be on that commission. Are the teachings of previous popes not studied by these commissions? Scripture? Tradition? Must they always re-invent the wheel? Badly? Good grief.

“[T]he Church will not climb out of this tumultuous period” w/out reversing the “practice since the 2nd Vatican Council onward not to police the doctrinal integrity” among bishops, priests & theologians.

Ain't THAT the truth! #DeathPenalty #Catholic

Source for the quote above is Fr. Chad Ripperger, PhD, in his book Magisterial Authority, quoted at @LifeSite.

lifesitenews.com/news/the-first…

Re-reading this I realized that one could see that tweet out of context & completely misunderstand what was said. 😦 #DeathPenalty

Given what this commission has done, or what the Pope has done (with or w/out their input, I D K yet, I've only begun to look into it), I shudder to think what could happen to #HumanaeVitae. Or anything else for that matter. Good. Grief.

Adding this to the thread. Can’t be shared too often, IMO. Letter from Cd Ratzinger CDF to the USCCB, 2004. Also appears at beginning of intro in the book. #DeathPenalty #Catholic