I like Verna St Rose Greaves. She has guts. She is not afraid. She answers to a higher call.
The debate on how to reclasify murder so that the death penalty could be better handed down goes on in Trinidad. But out of that debate two voices from the governing party make their say.
Minister of Trade, Steven Cadiz, says he is against the death penalty but had a responibility to his political party. Well, I understand what he is saying. Many of us are/were in jobs where we did something that the boss wanted us to do that would not be considered good practise or christian. We will pray for you Mr Cadiz that you may act as your God desires you to. We know you are a good man.
The other voice was that of Verna St Rose- Greaves. I knew another St Rose once. Mr St Rose was the principal of the Diego MArtin Boys Roman Catholic Primary School many many years ago when I was a student there... but i digress. Verna, says outright that she is against the death penalty. NO NO NO. .... No death penalty..... and she would not be supporting any legislation that encourages or supports it.
Well, God bless you Verna. You are what new politics are about.
The new death penalty position is not de fide nor infallible. It is the ordinary papal magisterium which can err (see Introduction to Ott's Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma...intro free online). Cardinal Newman said false developments within Catholicism are possible and are abrupt. Development on a biblical issue when it is real is not abrupt but this area is typified by abrupt development....to whit...two Popes...Cardinal Bernadine...and Mother Teresa (God bless her for other things). That the last two Popes have called the death penalty "cruel" in lower venues (a 1999 USA speech and two letters) contradicts theologically even their faulty CCC #2267 which injects a prudential judgement into a catechism that modern penology is working just fine with life sentences only. Is Mexico proof that no death penalty protects? How about El Salvador: no death penalty, 79% Catholic and according to wiki, it is the number one worst murder rate country on earth; Honduras is #2 worst and is 97% Catholic and has no death penalty; Venezuela is #4 worst and is 96% Catholic (no death penalty); Colombia. is 7th worst, 90% Catholic (no dp).
ReplyDeleteHow did two Popes convince the world media that Catholicism is against the death penalty? They are surrounded by hierarchy and lower clergy and career Catholic writers who need their jobs and will not defend the sane understanding of Genesis 9:6 and Romans 13:4....ie....that the death penalty can't be "cruel" if God commanded it.....and as Avery Dulles has written, God commanded it over 36 times in scripture.
Hi Bill,
ReplyDeleteI have noticed your name in many other websites discussing theology and history. You are well read.... and you have made quite the rounds of the bloggersphere.
Your reference to Roman 13:6 is relevant. And a good argument. In Trinidad, today, we stand against the death penalty. Even as the death penalty is currently enforced. It is law. The issue is that we in Trinidad want to redefine murder so that more people could face the death penalty.
But what does Jesus think.... Well, he was drawing in the sand one day when he says to a woman condemned by jewish law to die "neither do I condemn you." ... and Jesus fulfilled the law, didn't he?
And what about Matthew 9:13 "I desire mercy..." Yes, even that line is important.
Sean
ReplyDeleteJesus as God gave the death penalty for adultery in the Old Testament as Son of God in the Trinity. The Son gave those death penalties.
In John He rescinds those same death penalties that were given to the Jews only and given for private sins. God was there ending the death penalties for private sins amongst the Jews because A. Jesus now brings sanctifying grace Jn.1:17 and B. Jesus now reduces the power of the devil for all men. Death threats are no longer necessary for ordinary men to avoid adultery, witchcraft, bestiality etc.
All that has zero to do with the death penalty for murder commanded by God of both Jews and Gentiles
in Genesis 9:5-6. The reason God gives for the death penalty for murder is that the victim is made in the image of God.
By the way, to find the reason Jesus writes in the dirt the second time, read the passage again in that
part... again and again....the answer is within the passage and involves how the men leave and in what order. Good luck.
Tried long enough? Christ was writing the name of each man with another word that brought their memory back to a hidden sin of theirs. The others would not understand the second word but only each sinner would each clue from Christ. Remember....they saw the woman as the sinner and themselves as judges. Christ writing in the dirt reminded each one he was a sinner. Christ started with the eldest...thus they left in descending age order ...and one by one ...tells you Christ was confronting each in the dirt writing otherwise they would have left two or three at a time. Douay Rheims Catholic Bible I'll use here because the new NAB used sense for sense translating and thus missed the earth-dirt connection to John. Jeremiah 17:13. " they that depart from thee, shall be written in the earth".... a tiny side prediction of Christ writing in
ReplyDeletethe earth- dirt here in John. These men had departed from God into pride and therefore Christ mercifully
wrote them ...their name...in the dirt with a sin from each and thus He helped them return to God by
becoming humble when they saw their old sin.
I'll bet you they showed up later after Pentecost and joined the Church....having been humbled by Christ in that incident. The finger of God appears also in Daniel 5 where it also writes....that passage involves why Christ wrote the first time in the dirt in my little opinion.
The best translation of Scriptures could be found in the Jerusalem Bible. The following is from the online version:
ReplyDelete13 Yahweh, hope of Israel, all who abandon you will be put to shame, those who turn from you will be registered in the underworld, since they have abandoned Yahweh, the fountain of living water.
I see where you would say what you did. Have you ever considered that your translation could be misunderstood. Still, It is a very interesting concept.
Getting back to the original issue. Is it that you are saying that it is God's law to kill a murderer? If that is so, I wish to disagree with you. That WAS Gods law under the old covenant. The new covenant does not allow for divorce, sacrifice and the death penalty.
"Love your Neighbour as yourself"
The Douay Rheims is based on the Vulgate which is the official Bible of the Catholic Church. One can translate word for word.....or one can translate sense for sense. The trouble with sense for sense is that you may be wrong. The Jerusalem Bible (which I keep in my car) is not the official Bible of the Church....the Vulgate is and Douay Rheims follows it.
ReplyDeleteThe old and new covenants have nothing to do with the death penalty for murder in Genesis 9:5-6 which is the Noachic covenant which in the instance of the death penalty for murder gives not a transient Noachic reason but a reason which John Paul cited repeatedly in Evangelium Vitae where he quotes Gn.9:5-6 but never shows the reader the death penalty part. He did the same "hiding" so to speak when he wrote about wifely obedience by only citing Ephesians and not showing the reader 5 other passages that rgued against his position. So we know that the Pope took Genesis 9:5-6 as permanent in the new covenant but we also know he left out an integral part of the passage...." he who sheds the blood of man, by man will his blood be shed". Pilate reminds Christ that Pilate has the power of life and death over Him. Christ referring to Gn.9:5-6 says..." you would have no power over me at all were it not given you from above"...ie in Gn.9:5-6 which God gave only when He knew the first kingdom under Nimrod would appear in the next chapter...ten.
Gn.9:5-6 is outside the Jewish covenant and was addressed to Jews (Shem) and Gentiles (Japheth and Ham). Pilate therefore received the death penalty power by way of Japheth and outside the covenants and that death penlty is repeated in the new covenant in Romans 13:4.
You write that the new covenant does not allow for the death penalty. Yet all Popes from 1253 AD on used it. Google "papal executioner Bugatti". The papal states executed 516 people in the first half of the 19th century. Adios. No one changes quickly except St. Paul...lol.