I
totally denounce everything Archbishop Lori for his message on Thursday 14
February 2013 at Annapolis: Repeal of the death penalty is a matter of human dignity. I do have
Roman Catholics friends and I am a Born Again Christian myself and also a
former death penalty opponent, I respect the Archbishop for his job and his
opinion but I disagree with what he said. I would like to rebut him with
examples and statistics.
P.S Repeal of the death penalty is a
matter of human dignity.
Lori
said that essential dignity extend even to "human persons who do terrible
things."
REBUTTAL:
Wrong!
The repeal of the death penalty is disrespect to human life. Please refer to
this quote from John Murray and also remember Irish Philosopher, Edmund Burke
who once said, “One that
confounds good and evil is an enemy to the good.”
P.S. "Our position is there's a better way -- that life without
parole is more reasonable if there's any possibility of reform and
rehabilitation," he
said at the Maryland Catholic Conference's office in Annapolis. "Unfortunately, we do not create a more just and
humane society by taking life at any stage."
REBUTTAL:
Please
refer to Thomas Sowell’s quote about the disadvantages of Life without parole.
Saint Thomas Aquinas
once quoted in one of his writings, Summa Contra Gentiles, Book 3, Chapter 146:
The fate of the wicked being open to conversion so long
as they live does not preclude their being open also to the just punishment of
death. Indeed the danger threatening the community from their life is greater
and more certain than the good expected by their conversion. Besides, in the
hour of death, they have every facility for turning to God by repentance. And
if they are so obstinate that even in the hour of death their heart will not go
back upon its wickedness, a fairly probable reckoning may be made that they
never would have returned to a better mind.
We also do not have a
just and humane society by coddling evildoers. There are recidivist murderers
and prison killers who will kill again for sure.
P.S. Lori made a
distinction between the church's positions on the death penalty and abortion,
indicating that its stance on unborn life is more central to its teaching.
"Regarding
abortion, we believe the child in the womb is completely innocent and
completely defenseless," he said. "We're
not equating the two but we're saying that even on death row a human life
retains its value."
REBUTTAL: Kristen Walker who is against
abortion and against capital punishment will explain more. There are Roman
Catholics and Christians who support the death penalty but are against
abortion.
P.S. Lori,
who was making his first appearance as archbishop at a Maryland
legislative hearing, said he would not attempt to appeal to lawmakers with
arguments about the effectiveness or costs of the death penalty but would stick
to the moral questions.
"The death penalty just isn't the way," he said. "Killing
does not beget peace. Killing does not beget kindness in our society."
REBUTTAL:
One of my
beloved judges, Chief Justice Rayner Goddard once said: “If
our criminal law is to be respected, the public conscience has to be satisfied,
and it will not be satisfied if gross violence, and sometimes bestial crime, is
not punished in a way that will satisfy the public. There are old people who go
trembling to their doors at night.”
P.S. Lori
expressed sympathy for the survivors of murder victims, saying his family
had lost one of its own to homicide.
"My late cousin's wife was murdered and we decided as a
family the death penalty would not bring us peace," he said.
REBUTTAL:
I respect
your decision to oppose capital punishment, despite being a relative of a
victim, but please respect those who are waiting for justice and those whom
justice was served. At the same time, see this blog post.
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