I am not completely sure that President Joe Biden is cognizant enough to have pardoned so many death row criminals in federal prisons. But it is what it is.
What drives me crazy about progressives is the lack of logic they possess when it comes to the respect for human life. The Democrat party is a prime and horrible example as it promotes the death penalty for unwanted children in the womb of their mother right up to birth but cries crocodile tears for convicted murderous felons on death row. It make no sense.
If you are going to be pro-life be it consistently! It is a graver evil to give the innocent unborn the death penalty than it is to give the death penalty to those guilty of murderous crimes.
Both Saint Pope John Paul II and our current Pope Francis were/are opposed to the death penalty in almost all cases. However, the Catechism of the Catholic Church still allows for the death penalty in order to protect society. St. John Paul II thought that modern prisons and life sentences were sufficient to protect society. I disagree. Today with social media, criminals in prison, especially those of political ideologies or mafia, can still order death and chaos through social media devices while in prison.
The danger of what President Joe Biden's pardon of death row criminals and with the encouragement of Pope Francis, is that it comes across to family members of those murdered as showing more mercy and kindness to the criminal than to them.
This is a particularly dangerous situation for the Catholic Church in light of the clergy sex abuse scandal where bishops were more concerned about accused priests than their victims and protecting the image or reputation of the institutional Church.
I am conflicted when it comes to the death penalty as I know it is important to have a consistent pro-life position. I had a parishioner on death row for 13 years executed when I was his pastor and I offered his requiem Mass. The man executed was not the same person who committed three murders 13 years earlier and even family members of the victims were ambivalent about his execution.
Offering mercy and pardon to convicted killers without warning the victims' families is not the way to go and adds injury to injury.
If the Church supports this kind of thing it confirms to many Catholics the Church is more concerned about criminals rather than their victims and the victims' families.
At any rate, these criminals while taken off death row still will spend the rest of their lives in prison. Justice is still being carried out but in a less severe way or is it?
5 comments:
I support the president's decision.
The death penalty does not reduce capital crimes. Countries that have not had the death penalty for decades have lower rates of capital crime.
The death penalty is racially biased. People of color are more likely to be prosecuted for capital murder, sentenced to death, and executed, especially if the victim in the case is white.
Innocent people have been condemned to death and executed. Since 1973, 200 condemned persons have been exonerated. One in Eight persons on death row has been exonerated.
The death penalty is economically biased. The death penalty is mostly imposed on poor people who cannot afford to hire an effective lawyer. Inadequate defense lawyers contribute to wrongful convictions and death sentences, and by failing to object at trial, they make it harder to correct errors on appeal. After that first appeal, there’s no right to counsel. That leaves people sentenced to death with little hope for relief in postconviction proceedings, where they have to present new evidence and navigate complicated procedural rules.
The death penalty is a direct rejection of the value of human life. In his encyclical "Evangelium Vitae" (The Gospel of Life) issued March 25, 1995 after four years of consultations with the world's Roman Catholic bishops, John Paul II wrote that execution is only appropriate "in cases of absolute necessity, in other words, when it would not be possible otherwise to defend society. Today, however, as a result of steady improvement in the organization of the penal system, such cases are very rare, if not practically nonexistent."
No, Biden does not protect innocent life in the womb. That does not diminish the righteousness of his act in commuting the sentences of 37 people on federal death row.
Funny how modern liberals get all teary eyed for hardened criminals and ignore the innocent unborn.
Merry Christmas!
Merry Christmas to you, TJM, and to those you love.
Father McDonald said..."Both Saint Pope John Paul II and our current Pope Francis were/are opposed to the death penalty..."
Let us not forget that holy Pope Benedict XVI taught against the death penalty.
Examples:
Pope Benedict XVI, 2011 A.D: "Together with the Synod members, I draw the attention of society's leaders to the need to make every effort to eliminate the death penalty and to reform the penal system in a way that ensures respect for the prisoners' human dignity."
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POST-SYNODAL APOSTOLIC EXHORTATION, ECCLESIA IN MEDIO ORIENTE,
OF HIS HOLINESS POPE BENEDICT XVI:
"God wants life, not death. He forbids all killing, even of those who kill (cf. Gen 4:15-16; 9:5-6; Ex 20:13)."
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Pax.
Mark Thomas
Father K,
Do you support the President Biden’s war on the innocent unborn?
I pray you find the Catholic Faith in the New Year and abandon the Party of Intrinsic Evils!
Merry Christmas
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