He's an anti-death penalty fundamentalist [1]. Anti-abortion, too. Anti-gay marriage.Thinks that the practice of moving "pedophile" priests around to new places was "a stupid idea." Wants irregularly married Catholics to come to church, but not communion. Thinks women are important, but not capable of being priests. Etc. All in all, pretty Catholic.
Preaching on his birthname feast day today to assembled cardinals in Rome, he joked that Jerusalem's sending of Barnabas to check out the fledgling Gentile ministry (Acts 11) was the beginning of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (the son of the Inquisition.) And made it very clear that you can't have Jesus without belonging to the Mother Church, on which he quoted Jesuit founder St Ignatius Loyola: the Church "hierarchical and Catholic."
Foot kissing man of the people he may be, but when it comes to content, it's Popery all 'round.
[1] The very strong anti-death penalty attitude --theoretically ok but practically not-- is recent, though, no matter what they say. The 1912 Catholic Encyclopedia: "The infliction of capital punishment is not contrary to the teaching of the Catholic Church, and the power of the State to visit upon culprits the penalty of death derives much authority from revelation and from the writings of theologians. The advisability of exercising that power is, of course, an affair to be determined upon other and various considerations."
PS. I confess, with shame, that I was gonna title this post A Potpourri of Popery, but lacked the nerve.
1 comment:
My reading of the Catechism was always that the death penalty was acceptable if it was the only way to prevent a criminal from continuing to threaten society. Of course, that raises the question of how a judge or jury determines if the death penalty is appropriate.
I think there should be only a handful of crimes that automatically carry the death penalty: mass/multiple murder, serial rape, the murder/rape of a child, and treason. I write this with "Doctor" Kermit Gosnell and Tsarnaev in mend.
Lesser crimes really need a corporeal or economic punishment. Theft, return or replacement of item plus its worth, or double its worth. That or unpaid labor equal to the item's worth. Misdemeanors, maybe public shaming or electric shock.
-Sean
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