Thursday, August 13, 2009

Capital Punishment, Part 4

Is it possible to have a "Christian State"? Can the State govern according to the Gospel? Can "forgiveness of enemies" be a valid principle of civil order? What do the Fathers say about the relationship of Church and State in regard to capital punishment? Listen HERE

4 comments:

Anonymous said...
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Fr. Gregory Jensen said...

Well done! (And not just because I agree with you).

Steve Robinson said...

Thanks, Father. The real hot button stuff is yet to come, stay tuned.

El Negro Cuerpo...if you read these comments email me about your blog at stevenpaul4@cox.net There's something wrong with your comment setup I think. Thanks.

Ephrem Antony Gray said...

Interesting. My thought based on my reading of Romans 13 (when a CoC guy) was that the state had a right to use 'the sword' - i.e, coercion, violence, but was not required to.

What concerns me is the notion of removing the state's right to use these means; But then, I think there is also a mistaken conflation of nations with persons (I think Owen talked about the mistaken notion of 'corporate persons') and implying that all responsibilities of a person apply to a state, or sometimes the other way around (in forms of radical libertarianism/anarcho-capitalism.)

Anyway, I know that pacifism has a strong ideological pull for those entering deeper who are ideological. This I think relates to the insufficiency of ideology in general; on a personal level I should be pacifistic; i.e. not using violence or coercion to defend my person, but I may enter a gray area for my family (certainly!) and my position in regards to the state is that it has the right to use coercion and violence - and that it should use them as Paul says, to be a terror to evil and a boon to the good.

This position is ideologically inconsistent - since it is not based on abstractions but rather on concrete realities.

Nonetheless, thank you for the podcast. I definitely learned a few things (and like Fr. I'm not just saying this because I agree.)