@Estro Felino
CHURCH FATHERS: The Didache
The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles
There are two ways, one of life and one of death; but a great difference between the two ways.
If we choose the 'way of life' over against the culture of death, then we don't get to pick-and-choose which human beings are worthy of that inalienable right.
The European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) states in Article 2: '
Everyone’s right to life shall be protected by law'. Every applicant state that wishes to join the European Union must first have abolished the death penalty and become a signatory of the ECHR.
In 2018, Pope Francis ordered a
change in the
Catechism of the Catholic Church, the official compendium of church teaching, when he termed the death penalty “
inadmissible” under all circumstances. His latest encyclical
Fratelli Tutti (2020), correctly noted: “
From the earliest centuries of the Church, some were clearly opposed to capital punishment". In “Fratelli Tutti,” the pope grounds his opposition to capital punishment not only in mercy, perhaps his most characteristic pontifical refrain, but also in opposition to revenge. “
Fear and resentment can easily lead to viewing punishment in a vindictive and even cruel way, rather than as part of a process of healing and reintegration into society,” he writes.
There is nothing in the New Testament, nor for that matter the early apostolic tradition, which mandates - in
any sense - 'temporal' punishments such as the death penalty. This was recognised even in medieval times, that Christ had not given the church sanction for such things (thus they had to justify it on other grounds post-Nicaea as the church became the state religion of the Roman Empire!):
Christian societies, on the basis of our New Testament ethical principles and our Ante-Nicene Patristic tradition, should never have become 'persecuting societies' that sentenced other human beings to death. This was a gross aberration in our sacred tradition that Pope Francis has finally set aright doctrinally.
Around A.D. 177, the church father St. Athenagoras of Athens wrote a defense of Christianity in which he stated that Christians not only are forbidden to kill anyone for any reason but “
cannot endure even to see a man put to death, though justly. … We, deeming that to see a man put to death is much the same as killing him, have abjured such spectacles. How, then, when we do not even look on, lest we should contract guilt and pollution, can we put a man to death?” (Athenagoras Presbeia, A Plea for the Christians, ANF).
In the following century:
CHURCH FATHERS: Divine Institutes, Book VI (Lactantius)
“For he who reckons it a pleasure, that a man, though justly condemned, should be slain in his sight, pollutes his conscience as much as if he should become a spectator and a sharer of a homicide which is secretly committed … Therefore they do not spare even the innocent, but practice upon all that which they have learned in the slaughter of the wicked. It is not therefore befitting that those who strive to keep to the path of justice should be companions and sharers in this public homicide.
For when God forbids us to kill, He not only prohibits us from open violence, which is not even allowed by the public laws, but He warns us against the commission of those things which are esteemed lawful among men. Thus it will be neither lawful for a just man to engage in warfare, since his warfare is justice itself, not to accuse anyone of a capital charge, because it makes no difference whether you put a man to death by word, or rather by the sword, since it is the act of putting to death itself which is prohibited. Therefore, with regard to this precept of God, there ought to be no exception at all; but that it is always unlawful to put to death a man, whom God willed to be a sacred animal.”
(Lactantius (c. 250 – c. 325) (Divine Institutes, 6:20))
For a time, many of our bishops - including the Popes of Rome - protested against the use of capital punishment by temporal Christian rulers. In the fourth century, for example, a preacher named Priscillian had created a large movement in Spain which went against the established church and taught "heresy". Emperor Maximus decided to issue the death penalty against Priscillian and his disciples. Saint Ambrose of Milan, St. Martin of Tours and Pope Siricius
threatened to excommunicate the Emperor:
Priscillian - Wikipedia
Pope Siricius, Ambrose of Milan, and Martin of Tours protested against the execution, largely on the jurisdictional grounds that an ecclesiastical case should not be decided by a civil tribunal, and worked to reduce the persecution. Pope Siricius censured not only Ithacius but the emperor himself. On receiving information from Maximus, he excommunicated Ithacius and his associates. On an official visit to Trier, Ambrose refused to give any recognition to Itacius, "not wishing to have anything to do with bishops who had sent heretics to their death".[9] Before the trial, Martin had obtained from Maximus a promise not to apply a death penalty. After the execution, Martin broke off relations with the bishop of Trier and all others associated with the enquiries and the trial, and restored communion only when the emperor promised to stop the persecution of the Priscillianists.[9]
A stand-off ensued between the Empire and the Church. St. John Chrysostom later wrote that executing heretics was an "
inexpiable crime".
In the ninth century A.D., for the last time before modernity, a Pontiff raised his voice against the death penalty, in a letter to the newly converted Prince of the Bulgars in Eastern Europe:
The Responses of Pope Nicholas I to the Questions of the Bulgars A.D. 866
Chapter XXV.
You claim that it is part of the custom of your country that guards always stand on the alert between your country and the boundaries of others; and if a slave or freeman [manages to] flee somehow through this watch, the guards are killed without hesitation because of this. Now then, you are asking us, what we think about this practice. One should look through the laws concerning this matter.
Nevertheless, far be it from your minds that you, who have acknowledged so pious a God and Lord, now judge so harshly, especially since it is more fitting that, just as hitherto you put people to death with ease, so from now on you should lead those whom you can not to death but to life.
For the blessed apostle Paul, who was initially an abusive persecutor and breathed threats and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord,[cf. Acts 9:1] later sought mercy and, converted by a divine revelation, not only did not impose the death penalty on anyone but also wished to be anathema for the brethren [cf. Rom. 9:3] and was prepared to spend and be spent most willingly for the souls of the faithful.[cf. II Cor. 12:15] In the same way, after you have been called by the election of God and illuminated by his light, you should no longer desire deaths but should without hesitation recall everyone to the life of the body as well as the soul, when any opportunity is found. [cf. Rom. 7:6] And just as Christ led you back from the eternal death in which you were gripped, to eternal life, so you yourself should attempt to save not only the innocent, but also the guilty from the end of death.
(continued....)
