Hussein and Punishment as Vengeance

Saddam Hussein has been executed by his own people for his crimes against them. The Vatican has protested the execution.

In 1976 Richard Herrin murdered Bonnie Garland. He confessed to the murder and intent to murder. As undergraduates at Yale they were lovers. She broke up with him after graduation. He broke into her house at night, took a hammer to her head as she slept, and smashed it open like a watermelon.

Both Herrin and Garland were members of the Catholic community at Yale. The Catholics there immediately sprang to the defense of Herrin, placing him in the Christian Brothers while he awaited trial by the order of a judge with ties to the Christian Brothers, raising money for the defense, and finding a psychiatrist who would function not as an expert witness but as a defense lawyer, presenting an analysis that would help Herrin.

Despite the confession of intent to murder, Herrin was convicted only of manslaughter, and was given a sentence of a minimum of eight and 1/3 years (in a very comfortable cell), to the outrage of the Catholic Community who thought that NO ONE SHOULD EVER GO TO JAIL, NO MATTER WHAT THE CRIME. They argued that Bonnie was dead, that ruining another young life – Herrin’s – would not bring Bonnie back, so why punish him.

Sister Ramona, Herrin’s chief defender, extended this argument to Eichmann.

After the collapse of Nazi Germany, Vatican officials helped war criminals escape justice. Franz Stangl, a Catholic SS officer, had first worked in the euthanasia program, with which many Catholics cooperated, and then supervised the mass murder of 900,000 Jews at Treblinka. As trains arrived at the camp, Jews, men, women, and children, were off-loaded, told to strip, and then driven naked by guards with whips to the gas chambers. Stangl found his way to the Vatican and got help from Bishop Alois Hudal, whose Nazi sympathies were well known to all. Stangl moved to Argentina and lived under his own name until Simon Wiesenthal found him. There had been high officials at the Vatican in 1945 who did not think that mass murder should be punished.

Willard Gaylin wrote a book about the Garland murder, The Killing of Bonnie Garland. He was astonished at the lack of moral sense among the Catholics he interviewed in the 1970s. I highly recommend the book. It describes the moral vacuum among Catholics who tolerated the sexual abuse of children.

Among Catholics, even at the highest levels, there is a lack of moral revulsion at the most heinous crimes, such as Herrin committed on a small scale and Hussein on a large scale, feeding his victims into wood choppers or to packs of starving dogs. As Gaylin discovered, there is little or no sympathy for the victims, a great deal of sympathy for the criminal, and a strong dislike of those who call for vengeance.

Underlying this attitude Gaylin detects a faulty concept of justice: “Obviously for all of these people there exists a specific concept of justice that only looks forward; it is concerned with what purpose would be served by punishment in the future. It starts with the death of the victim, and looks forward from there. It is an incomplete and imperfect consideration of justice. A worthy concept of justice would demand that we look backward as well as forward. This concept of justice would require a respectful consideration of punishment.”

Gaylin describes the dangers of private vengeance, and continues, “The state must punish not just because it might serve some other purpose, not because it will do some good to some future other, but simply because the killer of our child deserves to be punished.”

Righteousness demands that the guilty be punished, and the governor wields the sword to punish evil-doers.

Gaylin writes: “in both these major institutions, the Church and the state, there is a role for the concept of evil, whether it is called sin or crime. There is a concept of payment, whether it is called punishment or penance,” but “for the most part the clerics involved with Richard were peculiarly disinterested in the concept of penance.”

Repentance is the first word of the gospel message, but it has been strangely absent from Catholic discourse for many decades. The gentle way in which sexual abusers were handled, the desire to protect criminals from their just punishment by the state, the strong sympathy for universal salvation which John Paul II evinced, all reveal a fundamental change in the Catholic attitude to sin and repentance, crime and punishment. Forgiveness is impossible without repentance, and repentance must include a desire to set right the evil that we have done, if only by accepting punishment for it.

Whence this change? Psychology has been far more influential in the Catholic Church than Scripture in the assessing responsibility, and “compulsions” can remove responsibility from any act. In reviewing the personnel files of sexually abusive priests in Boston , I have noticed that psychological jargon becomes more and more prominent over the decades.

But of course the group that wants to get rid of the idea of responsibility and sin and repentance and punishment are unrepentant criminals and sinners, and the Catholic clergy has harbored an extraordinary number of those in recent decades. Cui bono if punishment is rejected as barbaric? – Those who have committed the most heinous crimes against God and man.

Comments

[mairnéalach]

The most emotionally compelling argument I have heard from the pacifist school is the idea that, since Christ was the victim of unjust capital punishment, his followers must reject the practice root and branch.

This argument fails because it tries to pit justice against justice. The only rational conclusion one can draw from it is the rejection of unjust verdicts, NOT the rejection of punishments.

It also ignores the paradox of our faith: Christ was indeed innocent, but his punishment was the truest verdict ever rendered.

Satan loves a hypocrite, but he positively adores a coward. He prefers nuanced omphaloskeptic slackers to dutiful servants any day.

[GL]

Having been personally involved (though tangentially) in a case in which a woman was wrongfully convicted of murdering her own son and having sense followed the cases where later evidence proved that the person convicted of murder and sentenced to death was in fact innocent of the crime involved, I have come to believe that we have insuffient safeguards against wrongful conviction in cases in which the death penalty may be imposed. The remedy, however, is not to abolish the death penalty, but to mandate greater safeguards against wrongful conviction in those cases in which the death penalty is applicable. Deuteronomy 19:15-20 offers some good guidelines.

I have also participated (as a law clerk) in aiding the prosecution of a man convicted of murder who was sentenced to death. Multiple eyewitnesses identified the killer in that case. Death was an appropriate sentence in that case. The only defect in our system in his case was that he did not receive his full punishment until 19 years after his initial conviction. For all their problems, the Iraqi government has demonstrated that it is better equipped to justly mete our the ultimate punishment available to a human magistrate than are we.

[Martha]

Sir,

Whatever the merits of capital punishment as a deterrent, I protest your insult that 'Catholics' (of whom I am one) immediately side with murderers and evildoers to the detriment of the victim and actively work to ensure criminals avoid the consequences of their crimes. I request that you retract your slander of Pope John Paul II by making his views on the death penalty equivalent to efforts by the religious group to help the defendant in a murder case. I do not know if they, as you put the case, actively tried to get a guilty man freed from all punishment by deceit, undue influence, and lies: I do know that linking this to 'official Church policy' is a coward's way of proving your unimpeachable integrity when you call for blood for blood and deny it is revenge that motivates you.

[James Kabala]

I think we should make a distinction between opponents of the death penalty (which is a large group, including some people that Mr. Podles would have to concede are good people) and opponents of all punishments (limited to a handful of cranks, as far as I can tell). Even in liberal Massachusetts, when there was a debate over the death penalty in the legislature over a decade ago), the opponents of capital punishment (mostly Catholics or nominal Catholics) had as one of their key arguments that life without parole was a actually a harsher punishment than the death penalty, because the criminal would languish in prison for decades, bored, lonely, and miserable, instead of meeting the relatively quick release of an early death! Therefore, they claimed, opponents of the death penalty were the real tough-on-crime group. (This is also the position of Bill O'Reilly, of all people.) Open favoring of the criminal does not seem to be a widely espoused position anymore, even if it was in the Seventies.

[David Gray]

>when you call for blood for blood and deny it is revenge that motivates you

Given that Paul stated that the state bears the sword in order to restrain evil it is hard to see how you argue that statement (unless you think Paul was motivated by "revenge.")

[Anonymous Thinking Christian]

to the outrage of the Catholic Community who thought that NO ONE SHOULD EVER GO TO JAIL, NO MATTER WHAT THE CRIME.

This is impossible to believe. And shows prejudice, sir or madam.

No thinking person can believe this statement.

[coco]

This article is a hatchet job.

The linking of one Nazi cleric to some nebulous coterie of "high Vatican" officials is particularly vile.

Is Lee Podles a pseudonym for Jack Chick, RIP?

[coco]

italics off.

Rage still on. How Dare you.

[coco]

That didn't work. Still attempting to clear "italics".

Maybe a bit like Podles: those dirty Vatican wops and liberal 70s papists couldn't possibly be christians.

[Rebecca]

Dr. Podles is himself an orthodox Catholic, which I believe is why he felt free to speak with such severity. I am also a Catholic, and although I'm not entirely comfortable with the death penalty, I've often been bewildered by some of the Catholic opposition to it -- not so much the opposition itself as the naive arguments against it. I think he raises good points.

[coco]

Well, I guess it's all in the Bible. Remember the whore of Babylon? Well, that's the Catholic Church. Need evidence? Sorry, my fellow Catholic friends: for good sola scripturists, bad news needs no evidence.

[Gintas]

Italics off.

[coco]

Having just Rebecca's remark, I instantly withdraw my scurrilous indirect reference to Protestants.

"Ira furor brevis est."

But Podles' remarks (I can't bring myself to use an honorific) remind me of nothing so much as a catholic (small 'c' advisedly) Professor at Leuven who took part in a debate with an atheist over the existence of God.

In order to win his audience, he felt it necessary to garner a titter by referring to the "lies proceeding from the Vatican". We need loyal sons who can tell the truth unflinchingly, not "loyal" sons with an axe to grind and no balance.

[William Rush]

In our courts, the community makes its judgement on the actions of the accused and the presiding judge determines the sentence. The jury represents us all.
If we believe in capital punishment, then it our responsibility, if asked, just as it is with jury service, to be prepared to take part in the execution of the accused on behalf of our fellow citizens. It lacks integrity to say this is only the duty of some faceless official to pull the lever, turn on the switch etc.

My argument against capital punishment is that although I am happy to serve on a jury when asked to by the State, I would be unable to destroy the life of another human being on the behalf of society. Why should I be content to leave this to another if I truly believe it to be a correct action? Would you do it if your name was drawn out of a hat?

[coco]

Right. I've calmed down just enough to address a major misconception in the substance of Mr. podles' argument.

Cui Bono?

Is it to the bono of an individual to allow him to escape the consequences of his crime; to aid, conceal and comfort him?

Is this likely to further the chances of his salvation?

Do you think that no Catholic ckeric is concerned with such issues?

The abuse appears to have peaked in the late 60s, around the time the sexual revolution was in its first flush of wild success.

Recently, 5 priests were defrocked in a European diocese in relation to abuse cases stretching back over 40 years. It's a small diocese, so the number involved represents a huge portion of the diocesan staff. Many accused had already died and so couldn't fairly be convicted. (Let it be noted that this diocese was unusual but not unique in the country for having its own seminary).

40 years between worst outbreak and retribution: would that the British and US slave trade (to pick two nations almost at random) had been wound up in that length of time!

[Fr J J Pokorsky]

To my eye, Mr Podles is just reminding Catholics -- including priests like myself -- to stop rattling off the Act of Contrition and to recite it with intelligence and belief. It includes a promise to "do penance." We need to rediscover the spirit of true penance beyond the three Hail Mary's we routinely receive in Confession.

[GL]

William,

While I was not the executioner nor the lead prosecutor, I did aid in the prosecution of a man in a capital murder case. I researched evidentiary issues and I aided the prosecutor in addressing evidentiary and other legal issues throughout the trial. I sat in the courtroom throughout the trial, with the accused not more than 10 to 20 feet away from me. I also heard the multitude of witnesses whom he terrorized and the distraught family members of the man he shot and killed in cold blood. I watched as he smirked at two women while they each testified about his attempts to force them to perform oral sex on him, once before the murder and once afterwards (at least as I recall it).

I am sorry for the accused's family, particularly his mother, but I have never lost a night's sleep over my role in sending this man to the death chamber. I hope that he repented and found forgiveness from God before his death, but his death sentence was just and necessary.

You can read about his case at http://www.clarkprosecutor.org/html/death/US/kenley829.htm.

[GL]

By the way, my involvement was during the first trial, not the retrial.

[coco]

Fr J J,

When I enter the US, I have to fill out a form including a question as to whether I ever aided or abetted the government of Nazi Germany in its persecution of Jews.

To read Podles' article, you'd think (at least to my fevered imagination) that the question should read:
"Are you, or have you ever been, a member of the Catholic church?"

[Little Gidding]

I know of people who have spent much energy thinking about the subject who very definitely believe that no one should ever go to jail, no matter what the crime. The only allowance they give is to place them in some kind of arrangement in which future harm might be prevented. Something like effective "house arrest," I suppose, like Martha Stewart's radio ankle band she wore at home for a while. Or like the bracelet my senile father wore in the nursing home that alerted staff if he tried to make his "escape" out of the building. Different arrangements for different people, but the main principle was that, apart from being an instrument of charitable restraint, "jail" was only allowable as a kind of rehabilitative hospital for criminals. It was not allowable as a way to carry out retribution.

I am afraid that, as much as I may have worded things somewhat differently than Mr. Podles, I believe he has his finger on something quite important. I think he has quite properly highlighted what has come to constitute a crisis in Catholicism, far more important than liturgy and music and governance, and that is a diminished notion of sin and the profound need for penance and atonement. I am speaking now as a Catholic.

Why do we need to do so much less penance today than the early Christians did? Why do we think so differently (and so little) about atonement and punishment nowadays than they did? Is it just that we've become more enlightened? I don't believe that.

I think that the answer is somehow tied to a kind of crisis in Western thought regarding the "self" and the moral "agent." Perhaps Benedict XVI would locate the beginning of the problem in Duns Scotus, I don't know, but I do think that ever since Calvin and Luther brought "works" into a bad light, a problem has entered into Western thought that has cumulatively undercut the foundations of moral agency in general and that reached a kind of tipping point in the late 19th century and early 20th century. By that time, many people were willing to recognize "real" moral agents, not as the "conventional" individuals who had always been thought to be sinners or saints, but rather, the hidden or underlying forces that were the real "actors" in the world. This was true whether you were a follower of Marx, Freud, or Darwin.

How could the "old" model of sin and virtue, justice and mercy, retribution and punishment and reward, penance and grace, continue to function, given that the self that was involved in these had been rendered an illusion? I think the answer is that it couldn't. And so it didn't. The Vat2 change in Catholic practice was, I believe, quite as profound regarding the sacrament of Penance as it was regarding the Mass, although I don't read so much about this, perhaps because it all happened one person at a time in the dark of the confessional booth, rather than out in the light of the church. The sacrament of Penance nowadays is often construed as a kind of therapy session and is conducted that way. And I think that goes some of the way toward explaining why Catholics now eat meat on Friday, why there was such a drop off in confessions, why even profound evil confessed brings only the recitation of a decade or two or the rosary as its penance, why the idea of universal salvation has gained such ground in the Church, why capital punishment has come under such newly-intensified scrutiny, why the practice of exorcism went into abeyance, why Catholics became newly uncomfortable with the crucifix and focussed on being "resurrection people," and on and on.

In short, many people don't appear to see themselves or others as truly capable of sin, except perhaps, like Marxists, as capable of the one sin of "false consciousness," i.e., doubting that all will be saved. I fear the day when someone figures out that I can't be re-educated.

[Fr J J Pokorsky]

Some time ago, I read a news report of a fellow charged with armed robbery who pleaded for mercy in court because he "found Christ." I told my parishioners that if he really found Christ, he would be willing to take the medicine of punishment like the Good Thief. Many Catholics have lost a sense of the horror -- and consequences -- of sin. Catholics aren't alone, of course. But we should know better. Authentic Catholic moral theology is unified, beautiful and demanding. It's also woefully (conveniently?) neglected.

[The Irish One]

Just finished watching 'In My Country' based on the book 'Country of my skull'. The South African story of truth and reconciliation...

Look at where that country is now - how it has moved on...

Should Saddam have been treated the same way?

But then Bush - the 'christian', a follower of 'the way' (which one I'm not sure as I watch from Ireland) - has carried out the 'justice' he has longed for... One of many death sentences he has passed... Never mind the 3000 american troops he's sent to eternity too...

[coco]

That's right, a mhic. The insurgents/rebels/freedom fighters/whatever had nothing to do with their deaths. Let's absolve them from all blame, like good Catholics, eh?

[Little Gidding]

Re: "The Irish One"

This is evidence of what I'm talking about--imagining that the Iraqis didn't (couldn't?) do this themselves; rather, that they can only be members of a victimized class of the oppressed, or possibly just puppets being controlled by larger, cosmic forces of Darkness and Light, who are the real agents in the universe, e.g., George Bush or whatever cabal is behind him. This, it seems to me, is how Gnosticism presents itself in our day.

[coco]

Likewise, that grim, monolithic, Nazi-and-pervert-succouring behemoth: the Vatican.

I'm going to call that one the 'Podlesian Gnosticism'...

[Michael]

Gidding--

Calvin and Luther, especially Calvin, and despite Luther's best efforts to the contrary, probably threw more attention on "works" than the entire apostolic church before them. Because Calvin preached predestination, no individual who was chosen would act outside the sovereignty of God. Ergo, if you did evil, you must not be saved. The puritans who founded America were essentially calvinist Anglicans, and their moral and legal structure has given rise to an adjective--puritanical--considered about even with a harsh punishment structure of ancient Athens (draconian).

Luther, on the other hand, encouraged people to "sin boldy" so that at the very least they were doing something. Luther could hardly stand people who claimed the cross and did not carry it. The call to action, implied or otherwise, by both of these reformers have many socilogists citing the "Protestant work ethic" as the boon that brought such a great resurgence in Western civilization around the time of the Enlightenment.

I do see the problem with the concept of moral agents and the conceptualization of self that you point out, but you can hardly blame such things on Luther and Calvin simply because they acknowledged things working in the background that drove people to despair. Acknowledging the existence of these causal factors is not the same as shifting the responsibility to them. If that were the case, Luther would never have levelled the title of antichrist at the papal office, because, you know, there was something in the background at work and the pope himself could not be blamed for such ridiculously unbiblical edicts. But Luther didn't pass the buck to the agents. He called the Pope out and got excommunicated for it.

My defense of Luther over, Mr. Podles is correct in pointing out this disturbing trend in Catholicism. Given that he's writing from the perspective of a layman beholden to Rome, but he unfortunately doesn't point out similar trends in Protestant (especially Evangelical) circles. I can't count the number of times I have heard a speaker claim that because we are Christian--and in the case of the Evangelicals, a "Christian nation" as well--that we should practice forgiveness towards criminals and be quite "progressive" with rahabilitation rather than true punishment.

They seem to ignore the distinction of the two kingdoms and their respective business. As a Christian individual, we belong to the Kingdom of God and forgive. The government, as a secular entity, is meant to enforce the laws and morals with things like the justice system.

[coco]

Wit, scrub 'monolithic'. That's too close to the Petrine scripture for comfort...:)

[coco]

Michael,

"beholden to Rome"?

Gee, I'd love to continue arguing about that way of describing RCs, but I think I'll have to check with the Pope-o-Rome first...

Gosh! I said "think"! I'm not allowed to do that, being "beholden"...

[David Gray]

>Gosh! I said "think"! I'm not allowed to do that, being "beholden"...

I'm beholden to a lot of folks. More than I probably even realize. I still try to think (regarding with what level of success a couple here may be dubious).

[coco]

Hallo David!

Indeed. But I'm not beholden to a city, an administration, a reigning pope or any predecessor of his.

I owe obedience to his (extremely rare) definitive pronouncements on faith and morals: also when in council with the bishops of the church.

After that, I don't have to give a fig for whatever he says, does or thinks. Much less to anyone else in the administration or city outside of whose historic boundaries the RC HQ is.

The substance of my beliefs come from the Church founded by Jesus Christ.

Because I'm a Catholic...one who understands his faith to a reasonable extent.

[tony]

I for one am really tired of Lee Podles and his constant slandering of many things Catholic. This tiresome piece is just one more whine job that's become a trademark of his. Whatever your problem with the Church is Mr. Podles, get over it. Coco's got it right .. another Jack Chick.
Cheers from Canada.
Tony

[coco]

Woah there, Tony!

You've hit on the one thing that'll scare me right off this or any other thread...agreeing with me!

Got that, guys? James A? :)

[coco]

Huh.

There was some scandalous mayor of a major US city who got into trouble for his predilection for young Catholic Chicks...I don't think Podles is what he had in mind :)

[Fr J J Pokorsky]

So, ahem, Podles needs to be severely punished?

[coco]

Naaah. I've almost completely blown off steam by this stage. When I descend to cracking jokes like that one you know I'm cheering up.

[texanne]

The widespread existence of a "moral vacuum" in the Catholic Church, as Mr. Podles describes it, is what drove me away from it. It was hard to find Christianity within Catholicism.

[coco]

I'm sad to hear it. You should have gone to the Catholic Church I attended. There I prayed with saintly priests.
As an altar server, the only unpleasant incident I witnessed was when one of my colleagues was given a bloody nose by some gang members he knew. His yells could be heard from the sacristy all over the Church.
Far from scolding him, the saintly old dean did all he could to comfort and calm him down.
They also had real sermons. Doctrine. Beautiful music. This was the 70s and 80s. It was wonderful and helped me survived what happended since.

[coco]

Gosh, that's a lot of typos and grammatical mistakes. Mr. Podles, look what you've done to my blogging style!

[William Rush]

Thank you for your comments GL - I accept the case to which you refer was horrific indeed and cries out for justice. I still ask myself whether I could be his executioner - and I'm afraid the answer is no. Apart from natural horror and squeamishness,I prefer to leave his physical departure from this world in God's hands, in the hope that in the interim some miracle of grace and transformation might occur in the criminal's life. I also have in mind the few, though not to be discounted, number of people who have been executed and later proved to be innocent.

[David Gray]

>I prefer to leave his physical departure from this world in God's hands

You feel Paul really didn't understand what he was talking about?

[coco]

Today I've also been inflicting myself (under the same pseudonym, wudja believe) on the commenters at Amy welborn's fabulous blog.

http://amywelborn.typepad.com/openbook/2006/12/the_vatican_sta.html#comments

Apart from my comments, there was a lot of sensible discussion of the death penalty.

[GL]

William,

If you will read my initial post, you will see I was involved (tangentially) in a case where a woman was wrongfully convicted of murdering her own son. When the truth became evident, the prosecutor sought her release from prison and exoneration, which she recieved. As I stated earlier, are system does not provide adequate safeguards against such errors (including not following biblically based procedures which all Christians should demand in capital cases).

Mr. Kenley, in the case in which I was involved, was not erroneously convicted, nor was Saddam Hussein. Both were given ample time to anticipate their deaths and both, therefore, had the opportunity to be reconciled with God. I pray that both were. Justice, however, demanded that each receive the temporal punishment which in fact they did receive.

[Judy Warner]

If an Anglican Catholic can weigh in here, I'd like to say that the subject of forgiveness was my greatest stumbling block in my journey to becoming a Christian. The attitude that Mr. Podles describes as Catholic seems pretty widespread among Christians in general. When I joined a Lutheran (ELCA) church I found that forgiveness was the concept most preached about and discussed. The pastor's licence plate was FORGIVN. But I don't think I ever heard the words repentance or atonement, and although the word sin is in the liturgy, it wasn't something the pastor ever talked about. In the liturgy itself, after the brief public confession, the minister declares the forgiveness of all your sins.

In the Book of Common Prayer, by contrast, the general confession is much more serious, and the priest does not declare forgiveness of your sins, but asks God to have mercy and pardon you. Repentance, atonement, and sin are not strange concepts in sermons or conversation.

I come from a sort-of Jewish background, and I'm trying to formulate the enormous difference in attitude about forgiveness, but it's too vast a subject. I will note that Jews repent their sins formally just once a year, on Yom Kippur. But there is no concept of God wiping the slate clean. God can forgive you for sins against him. But for sins against other people, you have to get forgiveness from the people you've wronged, and make it right with them. You carry it around until you do something about it.

Coming from that kind of background, I found it peculiar that Christians would say they forgave someone who wasn't sorry for what he had done. The most peculiar thing was third party forgiveness, where someone forgives someone for something he did to someone else. I had to separate out real forgiveness from the modern kind of forgiveness that is so pervasive, and it's something I continue to ponder.

Mr. Podles's post is extremely helpful in making sense of all this.

[John Hetman]

Dr. Podles certainly woke me from my post-dinner slumber with his volley at the contemporary Church's predilection for psychology over contrition and just punishment, aka, penance. Although he certainly may over generalize from the specifics that he uses to bolster his argument, there is no question in my mind that he is far from serious errors in his account.

I left a Church in the 1960s when long lines formed for the weekly sacrament of confession; and returned some twenty years later to find those lines had withdrawn to mere handfuls of penitents.

Touchy-feely general absolution with Marty Haugen ditties replaced the Christ-given sacrament that required a courageous and honest examination of conscience. Many priests, then and now, cannot and will not even use the term, "sin" preferring such gibberish psychobabble as flaws and faults. And rarely in private confessions do priests offer greatly needed spiritual guidance. It is unusual to even get a meaningful penance.

I was surprised therefore to go to a pre-Christmas confession scheduled for general English-speaking parishioners only to find seemingly hundreds of people in line: young and old, handicapped and strong, they all waited patiently.

Except that they are fairly recent Polish immigrants at a once American suburban church and their priests still offer some substance and fire in a kool-aid age of relativity. I wonder how many of their fellow Poles actually went to the Polish language evening confession later that day?

Yet, I think that the age of kool-aid religion is passing away. There are more and more sparks of a renewal occurring in the Catholic Church --perhaps the strongest main force that holds the gates of hell from prevailing in this quite sinful and even more frightening world. In spite of it all--the Church militant will hold fast.

[coco]

[re John Hetman's comment]
An optimist! At last, I'm joined by one of my own :)

Mr Podles, let me try to diminish some of your worries about the Vatican. we have it on good authority from a major conspirator (John XIII, really one Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli: nudge, nudge, wink, wink) that not everyone in the Vatican is active in the antichrist's program.

When asked how many people worked at the Vatican, he replied: "About half of them"...

[coco]

Left out an 'X' there. so many of these dam' mischievous wops it's hard to keep track of 'em!

[coco]

Roncalli was a member of a famous Italian "family" (they would say famiglia), the Roncagli, with records stretching back to the 1300s at least.

No doubt many of them could be quoted discussing 'la cosa nostra'.

Need I say more?

[Bobby Winters]

I am torn. On one hand, I am against the death penalty because it puts into the hands of man something that ought not be there. Yet, on the other, the young man described in the thread starter does deserve to die. In some sense, death is too good for him. He should be put alone on an island in the South Pacific like Tom Hanks in Castaway--but without a volley ball.

[Tony Esolen]

My colleague, Dr. Podles, is writing a book about the sex scandal that he has researched for several years. I know I've said this before on this blogsite, so forgive me the repetition, but I have listened to him describe not only the instances of abuse but the deliberate fraud, the bullying, and the suicides that followed. My first question to him was, "How can you sleep?" In fact, he has had to armor himself with constant spiritual direction, and constant prayer. This continual dealing with deeply repulsive evil can break a man -- I'm not sure that I could bear up under it.

Anybody who doubts that between about 1966 or whenever it was that Carl Rogers got hold of the convents, till now, Catholic catechists and teachers, at all levels, have not engaged in a massive reconceptualization of sin, recasting it in psychological terms that are incompatible with Christian teaching, has not been paying close attention. I recommend for your perusal a book called Human Sexuality, printed in the late '70's, that calls into question every single Catholic doctrine in sight, stamping the sexual revolution with a New Catholic seal of approval. That book -- what is the opposite of prescient? nescient? pseudoprophetic? essentially wrong on all counts -- exerted a great influence upon catechists for a long time.

One thing that nobody talks about is the harm that patent injustice does to a man's faith. John Paul II did speak about this -- and it is the state's duty to protect the people not only from a murderer's recidivism, but from the despair and the sense of ineradicable injustice that can result from a heinous crime that goes unpunished or that goes punished with a negligent and uncharitable leniency. We in our age tend to forget that in the matter of the punishment of a heinous crime, everyone is involved, not just the criminal: everyone has a claim for just treatment, and the people, not the criminal, justly claim our protection.

I'm not an opponent of capital punishment, simply because I see that Scripture does not oppose it -- indeed in many cases Scripture commands it of the ancient Israelites. I've yet to hear a really persuasive argument against it, whether theological or ethical or criminological. Most such arguments evade the issue of justice for the people as a whole, focusing almost entirely on what would be or would not be terrible punishment for the criminal. I have no opinion on the relative severity of life without parole and the death penalty -- I only note that the degree of severity is in part beside the point, since what makes a punishment just is not simply the balancing of severity with severity, but the fit of the punishment to the crime. It also seems odd to me that we would wish to insist on life imprisonment without parole on the grounds that such a punishment is more miserable and unbearable than death -- and then, almost without blinking, insist upon it as the more merciful punishment.

Dr. Podles is a deeply reverent Roman Catholic. No mercy for the likes of him, eh? Whether he's had his faith shaken by the wickedness of the bishops and church officials he's had to examine, that just doesn't count for anything?

[Ethan Cordray]

Oh! So that earlier Tony wasn't you, Dr. Esolen? I beg you, forgive me for thinking so for even one second! How foolish of me. I had begun to be suspicious of it before your post, though. So hopefully I'm not a total dope...I think the Canada thing musta thrown me off.

Re William Rush's comments,

I can quickly say that I would in fact be willing to execute someone whom I firmly believed to be guilty of murder. Blood cries out for blood, and the earthly authorities must heed it. I would not consider it immoral to act as an agent of the state in such a matter.

As to whether this "puts into the hands of man something that ought not be there," in Bobby's phrase, I'm not so sure. The murderer has already taken upon himself that sin by taking another's life. His execution is not a further violation of the divine law but rather a restoration of order. The victim is recompensed by taking from the murderer the same thing that was stolen from his victim.

Of course, there must be a place for mercy in the temporal legal system as well. But I think that the paradigm of temporal law ought to prioritize justice over mercy, seeing merciful treatment as an exception rather than the rule. Mercy ought to require remorse and repentance from the criminal.

The state of our legal system in rightly adjudicating capital cases is a separate issue, though an extremely important one. With GL, I too believe that the American system is woefully overeager to convict, and that capital cases especially are often not given proper gravity and restraint. As frustrating as it can be to hear tales of decades-long appeals processes, it is in fact proper to have exhaustive and meticulous oversight of all such decisions.

[Ethan Cordray]

The Irish One,

I cannot accept your analogy between South African reconciliation and the treatment of Saddam Hussein.

1. The South African system relied upon voluntary confession and mutual reconciliation. At no time in his trial (that I am aware of) did Mr. Hussein indicate any contrition or even admission of wrongdoing.

2. The South African system was established to reconcile different social groups that had long been in a relationship of oppression and resentment. In contrast, Mr. Hussein's trial was a matter of personal punishment for discreet crimes. It was between Mr. Hussein and his few co-defendants and the people of Iraq, not one social segment and another.

Now, if you say you would like to see a similar process between the Sunnis, Shi'ites, and Kurds, then that's fine. Who wouldn't? The question then would be whether Mr. Hussein's trial would fit within such a process. However, there is no such process underway, so the point is moot. And even if there were, I think good arguments could be made that as the dictator, Mr. Hussein ought to be treated with an exceptional level of severity given his personal and official responsibilities.

Of course mercy should be preferred to harsh justice, when it is possible. But I do not see how it would be possible in Saddam Hussein's case.

[GL]

I am against the death penalty because it puts into the hands of man something that ought not be there.

Bobby,

It is a fearful and awful thing to be a magistrate, not only because one in such an office has the authority to sentence other men to death but, even more so, because he has the responsibility to do so when justice demands. St. Paul tells us that God ordains government and governors and that He has placed the sword into their hand. For a magistrate to refuse his responsibility in this area is to reject the responsibilities of the office into which God has placed him. Such a man is not acting on his own, but as the agent of the state.

Therefore, with all due respect, it is simply inaccurate to conclude that "the death penalty . . . puts into the hands of man something that ought not be there." To say so is to say that God erred in giving such authority and responsibilities to men who are magistrates or else that St. Paul, in inspired Scripture, misstated the nature of government and the authority and responsibilities of magistrates.

Tony and Ethan,

I have been inside the old maximum security prison in Jefferson City, Missouri, including walking to path to the old gas chamber and stepping inside. It was a true hell hole. I am not sure that if I were in such a place that I wouldn't prefer an early death to decades there with such men as inhabit such places.

Nonetheless, fear of death is powerful and, in the end and when it is not merely a hypothetical question but one's reality, I believe most men would prefer life in prison without parole to death. Thus, life in prison without parole is simply not the equivalent of the death penalty. There are simply some cases in which death is the only just punishment. Some who deserve death should escape it because of the need to assure against executing a death sentence imposed upon an innocent man, yet when sufficient safeguards are applied, those who deserve it should receive it absent some overriding reason justifying commuting the sentence or a pardon.

Finally, Ethan, there is no reason why adequate precautions cannot be assured to prevent error without having a convicted murder sentenced to death live nearly two decades after his conviction and sentencing. That is unjust to his victims.

[Arnold]

I personally cannot accept the (seemingly) blanket rejection of all capital punishment expressed by many at the Vatican. I did think there were exceptions, however, where the public good would be served by execution to avoid the evil that could result from keeping the criminal alive. Saddam Hussein certainly appears to be an excellent example of the latter since his imprisonment for life would have made him an inspiration for his supporters and a constant danger to the already fragile state of the country.

Dr. Podles' objection to the Vatican statement, however, is laden with slanderous comments and assumptions about Church officials and Catholics in general. One Croatian bishop with fascist sympathies working at or near the Vatican becomes the entire Church leadership there...despite reams of evidence of how Church leaders from the Pope on down assisted many tens and hundreds of thousands of Jews and others to escape death at the hands of the Nazis. Over 800,000 according to one Israeli diplomat. One kooky Catholic group at one college does not justify generalized comments that slander all Catholics. I have never ever heard fellow Catholics make the comments about punishment as he asserts. Even those who oppose capital punishment support life imprisonment (hardly a position against punishment per se).

Dr. Podles may have good reason to despair about the mendacity and complicity of all too many clergy and bishops, especially in this country, during the sexual abuse scandal, but I do not see how that gives him the right to make such blanket slanderous statements about Catholic leaders elsewhere and under different circumstances.

I have been and remain a strong supporter of Touchstone, but my initial reaction after reading his comments tonight was to worry about what might be happening to Touchstone and whether it should have such bigotry represented among its writers. I am trying to understand the emotions that compelled him to write what he did, but he is supposed to be an intelligent and thoughtful man as well as a very "orthodox" Catholic. The latter do not write such bigotry about their fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, both leadership and laity.

[coco]

I've seen several references in this thread to how "orthodox" Podles is. Was this obvious from the article?
Did he spend time valiantly defending the doctrines of the Real Presence or the Immaculate Conception of the BVM against heretics?
No. What we had from him was disgust over sex abuse (for which it is sufficient to be a decent human being) and an appalling regurgitation of semi-digested Jack-Chickery and John Corwellism (of "Hitler's Pope" fame).
Perhaps among the 6% of Catholics who are US citizens, this represents a particular form of Orthodoxy. A strange sort of particularism.

[James A. Altena]

Since "Coco" apprently invoked my name ("James A.") earlier as an invitation for comment, I'll offer a brief one.

Bravo to both Lee Podles and Tony Esolen. Anyone who doubts Podles' complete Roman Catholic orthodoxy obviously has not read his many writings over the last several years. He speaks severely to his own communion the way that Dr. Hutchens does to his Protestant (particularly Evangelical) brethren. Such witnesses are sorely needed. And the rot to which both refer is far more advanced than most wish to contemplate.

I was once completely opposed to capital punishment, but am so no longer. The final linch-pin in the gradual conversion of my views was the debate over just-war theory leading up to the Iraq war. Regardless of what one thinks of the Bush administration and its conduct of the war (and readers of this blog know of my criticisms on that score), I realized that just war doctrine and capital punishment were actually the same issues on different scales of magnitude. Without fleshing out all the details (which would take too much space and time) any argument against all capital punishment is also an argument for complete pacifism. There can be no life imprisonment or house arrest for a Nazi Germany or Khmer Rouge Cambodia as nations, or for their leaders. That is why Podles' invocation of Franz Stangl alongside Richard Herrin is right on target.

It is particularly important swiftly to execute terrorists. As manifold instances have already shown, keeping them prisoner only incites their fellow terrorists to commit even more heinous acts in efforts to win their companions' releases. The failure to execute the latter positively invites and incites further terrorism. The failure to take a guilty life -- mandated in both the OT and NT (by those who read St. Paul aright) makes one in part responsible for the further innocent blood shed as a result.

[coco]

That is why Podles' invocation of Franz Stangl alongside Richard Herrin is right on target.

Since you mentioned Bush, why not make him personally and his whole administration, together with the Republican party, responsible for the torture of some Iraqi prisoners?

That would be equally on target. i'd even say "Bravo"...though it wouldn't be entirely sincere.

[David Gray]

>Since you mentioned Bush, why not make him personally and his whole administration, together with the Republican party, responsible for the torture of some Iraqi prisoners?

Do you deal with all issues this frivolously?

[coco]

Perhaps I was frivolously attempting to analogize the ludricrousness of several (not all) of Mr. Podles sweeping assertions.
"Sweeping" is hardly broad enough. He excluded no-one from his highly emotional and vituperative piece. It's unusual to see strong emotion and base innuendo in the same piece, but he accomplished it.
When I learned from poster Rebecca that he's a Catholic, I nearly wanted to dry wretch.

[coco]

Retch, of course, at the wretchedness of much of the article.

[David Gray]

>When I learned from poster Rebecca that he's a Catholic, I nearly wanted to dry wretch.

You seem quite a puzzle on this. You wish Podles to dwell on the Immaculate Conception and quite worrying about peripheral issues like life, death and the protection of baptized children? I have my problems with Roman Catholicism (otherwise I'd be RC myself) but it is not inherently pro-pedophile. Nor has it been pacifistic or anti-death penalty, at least historically. Both areas where they have been historically spot on. What Podles seems to be doing, at least to me, is calling for Catholics to start behaving like Catholics. Now how that makes him like Jack Chick I have no idea. I don't recall Chick ever demanding people behave like Catholics. But what Podles seems to be doing is no different than a Presbyterian demanding that Reformed believers do more than just lip service to the Westminster Confession. Nor do I see where he says all Catholics are in error in these areas although he would seem to judge the numbers to be significant.

[coco]

I have no interest in discussing the merits of the death penalty here. I left a link above to the comments of myself and others that covers that part of the discussion.
The day I see a Presbyterian snidely asserting that the Westminster Confession is full of Nazi sympathisers or protectors, then I'll accept a valid comparison with what Mr Podles wrote.
I don't see what the puzzle is about. My point was very simple and was dealt with by others at lesser length. The unfairness of Mr. Podles' articles reeks.

[coco]

Article, nor articles. allow me to correct that misleading typo.

[David Gray]

>The day I see a Presbyterian snidely asserting that the Westminster Confession is full of Nazi sympathisers or protectors, then I'll accept a valid comparison with what Mr Podles wrote.

I am not aware that a confessional document can contain actual human beings. The Presbyterian Church USA contains some people doing hell's work. (is that as bad as being a Nazi to you?)

[coco]

Right y'are. An abbreviated mode of speech invalidates my argument, eh?
The key word in your statement about PCUSA (which I'm very sad to hear) is "some".
This is a qualification that would have served Mr. Podles well.

[David Gray]

>This is a qualification that would have served Mr. Podles well.

If you actually believe that Podles meant "all" and not "some" then you are being tendentious at best. Of course to mean all Podles would have to mean himself, Mr. Esolen, Mr Mills, etc. Do you think he meant that?

[coco]

No, but he didn't take any pains to make that clear. But don't take my word for it. I wasn't the only Catholic who found his article needlessly offensive.
That's my last word on the topic.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>Whatever the merits of capital punishment as a deterrent, I protest your insult that 'Catholics' (of whom I am one) immediately side with murderers and evildoers to the detriment of the victim and actively work to ensure criminals avoid the consequences of their crimes.<<<

Catholics (of whom I happen to be one) may not immediately side with murderers and evildoers to the detriment of the victim and actively work to ensure criminals avoid the consequences of their crimes, but our bishops certainly do in a remarkably consistent manner, and nowhere is this more true than within the Curia Romana, which over the past half century or so has utterly lost its moral compass on the issue and totally jettisoned the 1900-year tradition of the Church regarding not only the relative competencies of the state and the Church, but also the Christian understanding of "retribution" as the counterweight to "mercy" in the maintenance of human justice. Nowhere is this more true than in the statement issued by the Vatican, in which the specious claim is made that capital punishment ends all hope for repentence. First, we know this is not true from experience: capital punishment is, in many cases, the spur that leads to true repentence. "Nothing so concentrates the mind as knowledge that one is to be hanged in a fortnight", wrote Samuel Johnson (a supporter not only of capital punishment but of public executions). Moreover, it ignores the fact that true repentence for a capital offense could lead the offender to WANT to die to atone for his crimes. Second, the statement implicitly presumes that there is no afterlife--that what we do here is the end of the story. One might conclude, reading this and similar statements coming out of the Vatican of late that a substantial number of its highest ranking officials have lost all faith in the life of the world to come. That would explain so much.

One might also add that capital punishment can be (and was intended by the Hebrews to be) a life-affirming statement. Unlike the pagan cultures around them, that punished crimes against property more harshly than crimes against persons, the Hebrews recognized the sanctity of human life, and that only the forfeiture of human life can provide true restitution for the taking of human life.

Robert Heinlein's alter ego Lazarus Long famously said, "A man has got to be able to shoot his own dog". This applies to societies as well. A society that no longer can brace itself to execute the worst among its members for crimes committed against it, has lost the moral fortitude needed to preserve itself against more insidisous threats within and without.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>We need loyal sons who can tell the truth unflinchingly, not "loyal" sons with an axe to grind and no balance.<<<

What? Are you saying, then, that statements eminating from the Vatican over the past three decades, and the embarrassing utterances of the USCCB are to be ignored? Or are you saying that they never said any such things, and even if we did, we as Catholics have a duty and obligation to ignore the vapidity of our bishops (and even the Pope, when his statements are equally vapid)? This is clericialism with a vengence. I guess I'll just revert to my proper "Pray, Pay and Obey" mode.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>"Are you, or have you ever been, a member of the Catholic church?"<<<

The bulk of Germans in the '40s were Protestants. Does this mean that Protestants are implicitly Nazi sympathizers? There were Protestants who supported the Nazis, there were Protestants who opposed them (Bonhoffer, anyone?). Likewise there were Catholics who supported the Nazis and Catholics who opposed them. To quote Solzhenitzen, the dividing line between good an evil runs down the center of each human heart.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>God can forgive you for sins against him. But for sins against other people, you have to get forgiveness from the people you've wronged, and make it right with them. You carry it around until you do something about it.<<<

This is, of course, the central premise of the Sacrament of Reconciliation--albeit one that commonly gets overlooked today. Sin has two dimensions. First, it offends God. Second, it injures one's self, other individuals, and indeed, the entire Cosmos. God's forgiveness is obtained at the moment of true contrition. God neither needs nor demands anything else. On the other hand, the damage we have done in this world still remains, and thus we are obliged to ask forgiveness and provide restitution to those we have injured. In the early Church, this confession and absolution was combined with serious penitential acts to demonstrate to the community one's contrition. There was a distinct Order of Pentitents, who wore distinctive garments, had to stand in the Narthex of the Church, had to kneel during the liturgy (at a time when standing was the norm). They confessed their sins publicly, and they were restored to communion publicly by the bishop during a liturgical service. As the Church grew, the pastoral problems with public confession became more evident, so that private auricular confession became the norm. But what seems to have gotten lost is the fact that the priest (acting as deputy of the bishop) is not himself forgiving sins (the Eastern texts use the third person in the absolution formula), nor is he forgiving sins on behalf of God, nor is he imposing penance as something to propitiate God, but is rather offering forgiveness on behalf of the Church, and is imposing penance to reconcile the sinner with the Church. Thus, there was always the understanding that repentence and reconciliation required putting one's self to right both with God and with the human community one had offended.

[Tony Esolen]

Dr. Podles is making a plea that our leaders in the Roman Catholic church return to Scripture (!), and to a conception of sin that insists that it is

1. an act of the will, even if, by habit, the act has become irresistible,

2. an injustice against God and man.

If our leaders do not take seriously the notion of sin, how can we trust that they aren't just playing a churchly game when they talk about salvation, and the resurrection, and even the existence of God? If a priest, who is "in the know" as far as the man sitting in the pew is concerned, is cheerfully willing to risk eternal damnation for a few minutes of tawdry excitement with some poor kid, then maybe there is no eternal damnation ... But if Jesus seemed to say there was, and if Jesus is wrong about that, then maybe the whole thing is all a game.

It is hard not to conclude that the officials who are protesting the execution of Saddam Hussein, a thoroughly just execution and infinitely more merciful than the deaths he made his own people suffer, are not thinking a great deal about the man's murders and about the human longing not for personal vengeance but for justice. (It's a strange feature of our day that we can't easily distinguish the two.) But maybe they aren't thinking hard about Saddam's sins, because we in the Church have gotten away from thinking deeply about sin at all. I include in that supposition all Christians and not just Catholics. I'm dismayed by the ease with which Christians will sin and then claim that they have been forgiven (and if they are repentant, they have been forgiven), and, if forgiven, that they don't need to bother with making restitution....

[Christopher Hathaway]

Might I offer the observation that if coco's responces are meant to defend te Catholic Church then it might explain why so many became Protestant. It seems to me that when abuse and unChristian foolishness are about in the church the best defense of the church's honor is to point it out and try to eradicate it, rather than to attack those who do.

[coco]

Ladies and gentlemen,

I would have thought it was clear that I was protesting the complete lack of qualification in Mr. Podles' arguments.

I have no problem with him hunting down the source of evil.

Stuart, perhaps Mr. Podles would have been better off concentrating his fire on the USCCB (about which I know very little except what I read in Diogenes at CWN, which is not pretty reading) and US diocesan bishops.

Frankly, I found his "Nazi" broadside against some nebulous coterie of "high Vatican" officials disgraceful. Give us some evidence, next time, Mr. Podles--and if you can, try not to cite John Cornwell or Jack Chick.

If Mr. Podles had put "American" in front of "Catholic" every time he used the latter, it would have helped to qualify his statements to some extent. Not accurately, I admit, but his references (except the almost comically racist one to Vatican officials) are pretty particularist.

Are US Catholics kinda Gallican in their outlook?

[Howard Kainz]

"The outrage of the Catholic Community who thought that NO ONE SHOULD EVER GO TO JAIL, NO MATTER WHAT THE CRIME." Where on earth did you get this idea? I can't believe a senior editor of Touchstone wrote that!

[coco]

An I LOVE the capitals. The louder you scream it, the truer it must be.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>Stuart, perhaps Mr. Podles would have been better off concentrating his fire on the USCCB (about which I know very little except what I read in Diogenes at CWN, which is not pretty reading) and US diocesan bishops.<<<

That would be useful, if only the views of the USCCB weren't also mirrored by the bishops of Germany, Austria. France and the UK. Oh, and also the Vatican Secretariat of State. In other words, the attitude that Mr. Podles identifies is endemic throughout the Catholic episcopate.

[coco]

Stuart:

episcopate

Good. Now we're narrowing the charge down a little. I also like your implicit qualification to "western" Europe. I don't know if it's justified, but it's a start.

Nevertheless, we must, I think, presume that there are some carbon-based life-form units in this western episcopate that don't hold exactly and all the views we might condemn. After all, the Borg are from Star Trek, which is fiction.

[Stuart Koehl]

David Pryce Jones reflects on the hanging of Saddam Hussein, and an earlier exection:

Milestones for Humanity
12/30 11:03 AM

In 1962 I attended portions of the trial in Jerusalem of Adolf Eichmann. The experience was bewildering. There, behind bullet-proof glass, sat Eichmann, intently listening through headphones to the ghastly evidence, and adding to it with every interjection he made. Apparently sane and self-possessed, he had no idea of the enormity of his crime, talking about it as though mass murder were a part of everyday life. The sight and sound of the man encased in bullet-proof glass misled Hannah Arendt into coining the phrase “The banality of evil.” This has a journalistic ring about it, but it has consistently irritated me. There was nothing banal about Eichmann and the solemnity of his trial was a milestone for humanity.

With Eichmann in front of me, I questioned the death penalty. To take a person’s life, even after due process and a fair trial, is a fearful deed, seeming to overpower taboo and the instinct to respect one’s fellow men. A day came when his appeal was heard. I was in court. The judge was quoting this and that precedent in international law, and suddenly, without ceremony or pause, he rejected the appeal. Eichmann was escorted away. Everyone else gathered in the small square outside the court, all of us silent, a few in tears. After quite a short time, the news came through, again without ceremony, that he had been hanged. To my surprise, the sun immediately seemed brighter, the sky more blue, the earth cleaner, and I realized that I do not in fact question the death penalty for mass murder.

These responses resurfaced this morning with a surge of emotion at the news that Saddam Hussein has gone to the gallows as once Eichmann had. In the course of his trial, he too had condemned himself with every word he spoke, equally oblivious to the enormity of his crimes, as though mass murder answered to his job description. Anyone who holds that such men really are banal, and shouldn’t pay with their lives for the evil they do, must further explain how justice is to be done to the victims.

[coco]

Anyone who holds that such men really are banal, and shouldn’t pay with their lives for the evil they do, must further explain how justice is to be done to the victims.

Christianity is a very challenging thing. It subsumes a startling Jewish tradition which includes Deuteronomy. I refer to chapter 32, especially verse 35.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>Good. Now we're narrowing the charge down a little. I also like your implicit qualification to "western" Europe. I don't know if it's justified, but it's a start.<<<

Bishops are the shepherds of the Church. They are charged with teaching true doctrine and upholding the Tradition. When they fail to do so, it is the role of the laity to remind them of their charge and point out their errors.

I do not limit my point only to the Western European bishops, but they are the leaders of this movement, its origins are European, and they are spreading by osmosis to places where, for the most part, the bishops still abide by Tradition--i.e., to Africa, Latin America and Asia.

As for whether the episcopate should be indicted collectively as long as there are some exceptions individually, I am afraid that the predominate value in the Catholic episcopate has for some time been "collegiality", and it is a brave bishop indeed who wishes to alienate his brother bishops by pointing out their foibles and thus risk being labeled "unclubbable".

[coco]

OK, Stuart, we likely are in times of "Athanasius contra mundum" with regard to the brave few.

But let's be clear about this. To call the cowardice, laziness and blindness which led to the rampant growth of the sex abuse scandal "foibles" is inappropriate.

These grievous faults were obviously present to a far greater extent in some bishops (read: "men") than in others.

In the European diocese to which I referred above, the hopeless geriatric who oversaw the beginnings of the most scandalous diocese-wide abuse ring in the country was replaced by an alcoholic media-operator who was finally forced to resign well before the standard age for gross inability to perform his job of oversight.

My point is, there is no question of collegiality in failing to do one's job on one's own patch.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>There is a concept of payment, whether it is called punishment or penance,” but “for the most part the clerics involved with Richard were peculiarly disinterested in the concept of penance.”<<<

Peevometer ON: Please tell Mr. Gaylin the difference between "disinterested" and "uninterested", and explain to him why the clerics were the latter not the former.

Peevometer OFF.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>OK, Stuart, we likely are in times of "Athanasius contra mundum" with regard to the brave few.<<<

I was thinking more Maximos the Confessor.

>>>But let's be clear about this. To call the cowardice, laziness and blindness which led to the rampant growth of the sex abuse scandal "foibles" is inappropriate.<<<

Understatement works better than hyperbole. Let the acts speak for themselves without extraneous descriptors.

>>>My point is, there is no question of collegiality in failing to do one's job on one's own patch.<<<

The Latin Church has no one to blame for the failure of its bishops other than itself. The Tradition in most Churches, since the beginning, was to have bishops elected by the episcopal synod of a particular metropolitan province, with or without ratification by the patriarch with jurisdiction. Since the 19th century, the Church of Rome has appointed all bishops directly through the office of the Holy See. Thus, the men nominated to the episcopate in most cases are not known personally to the man who appoints them. He must rely on reports provided to him by his nuncios, acting as his agents in foreign lands. The Nuncios, in turn, reflect the values of the Curia Romana, which are, in order of precedence, compliability, stability, and financial competence. The process of cooption gradually results in an episcopate that mirrors the Curia, which thus has a dominating role in the life of the Church. The Curia values collegiality above pastoral ability--so why be surprised when the foxes end up running the hen house?

[coco]

Your comment about the mode of selecting bishops is very apposite. This is a matter of discipline which is open to vast improvement. Perhaps a future rapprochement with the Orthodox will be the means by which this state of affairs can be ameliorated.

To me "understatement" is the replacing of one word with a weaker word in the same category. I don't think "foible" is in the same category as "fault" because it lacks an imputation of culpability.

I have no problem with the use of understatement or even overstatement. But for me Mr. Podles' article ventured into the realms of gross distortion.

[Bobby Winters]

>>>To say so is to say that God erred in giving such authority and responsibilities to men who are magistrates or else that St. Paul, in inspired Scripture, misstated the nature of government and the authority and responsibilities of magistrates.<<<

I know where you are coming from, but the question I have is this. God gave authtority to the government in regard to abortion as well. The government then devolved that to the mother. Does that make abortion right? I say no because killing innocents is wrong, and the government has erred is exercising its authority. Is putting someone (all-be-it not innocent) a similar error?

Saying this, I could, acting as a member of a jury, vote for the death penalty if the case met the requirements of law.

Any way, larger minds than mine are burdened as well.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>Your comment about the mode of selecting bishops is very apposite. This is a matter of discipline which is open to vast improvement. Perhaps a future rapprochement with the Orthodox will be the means by which this state of affairs can be ameliorated.<<<

I would be very happy if all the Eastern Catholic Churches were allowed to select their own bishops in every jurisdiction, not merely those which were Eastern back in 1646.

[coco]

I don't think the ECCs have enough 'clout' to force such a major change.
That's why I suppose it'll take a humble rapprochement with the Orthodox.

[Ethan Cordray]

Stuart, when are you ever *not* thinking of Maximos the Confessor? :)

>>Christianity is a very challenging thing. It subsumes a startling Jewish tradition which includes Deuteronomy. I refer to chapter 32, especially verse 35.<<

Yes indeed, Coco. I find it interesting that with such a reservation, so much of the Deuteronomic law prescribes the death penalty.

Also interesting (perhaps particularly to you, Mr. The Irish One) is how often in Jewish history a hostile foreign power is used as God's agent of justice. This reflects no judgment about the moral state of the punishing nation, but it is clear in the prophetic witness that God's will is certainly done through such occurrences.

[coco]

Ethan, Deuteronomic law prescribes an awful lot else that we wouldn't wish to adhere to today: treatment of slaves (involving implicit acceptance of the institution), various hygiene laws, etc.

Some have had a field day with pointing out how ludicrous some Deuteronomic laws appear now: usually when promoting the homosexualising agenda.

The only way I can get my head around much of the OT is to remember that it's largely the history of a people: that is, a group of men.

[GL]

Bobby,

I know where you are coming from, but the question I have is this. God gave authtority to the government in regard to abortion as well. The government then devolved that to the mother. Does that make abortion right? I say no because killing innocents is wrong, and the government has erred is exercising its authority. Is putting someone (all-be-it not innocent) a similar error?

I understand what you are saying as well and appreciate your position, but I do disagree with it. Actually, government also refuses to exercise its God-given (and demanded) responsibility when it abdicates its duty to protect innocent life by permitting a woman to decide whether or not to let her child live or to kill it. It is, therefore, the same error on the part of the magistrate that is seen when he refuses to impose the death penalty to those who deserve it. The magistrate also errs when it permits lax rules of procedure and evidence in capital cases, resulting in too high a risk of wrongfully executing the innocent. The former example is one of abdication of duty; the latter is an example of error in execution. For each, the magistrate must answer and each is an example of why I say that it is fearful and awful to be a magistrate.

We know that failure to execute those guilty of capital offenses and to protect the innocent unborn are both abdication of God-given (and demanded) responsibilities because God's Word makes clear that the magistrate is charged with protecting innocent life and punishing those who take such life with premediation with death. No man made up these responsibilities; they are assigned in God's Word.

Any way, larger minds than mine are burdened as well.

That applies to me as well.

[John Lamont]

Here is Podles' argument;

- Catholic bishops have covered up for, if not actively participated in, great evil.

- This activity is itself a great evil.

- That explains why they oppose capital punishment, even for the most heinous sinners such as Saddam Hussein; because it means getting rid of the ideas of sin and responsibility and penance and atonement.

This line of reasoning is plausible; the question is whether or not its premises are true. The first premise is the key one. The argument for it is that the bishops have tolerated terrible sexual crimes, and the teaching of theology that promotes terrible sexual crimes. One might say, in objection, that not all bishops covered up for sexual abusers. However, Podles can point out that until forced to it by public exposure some three years ago or so, there are no examples of bishops who knew about sexual crimes, but did not cover them up. (Can anyone suggest any exceptions? I would be glad to hear of them.) It seems unlikely that the evil bishops by chance happened to be the ones who had the sexual abusers in their dioceses, and that they were unrepresentative of the bishops as a whole, so I think it is fair to say that their moral failure is a fair indication of the moral state of bishops generally. As for tolerating teaching that justifies total sexual corruption, most bishops have explicitly done this; the book on Catholic Sexuality referred to above is the best example. (Its author, Fr. Kosnik, is as far as I know still a priest in good standing in the Archdiocese of Chicago.)
The real objection to Podles's position is that instead of evil acts having led bishops to eschew the idea of moral responsibility, it is the eschewing of the idea of moral responsibility that has led them to commit evil acts. (I will put in a plug for myself by saying that I have an article in New Blackfriars, forthcoming, called 'What was wrong with Vatican II', that argues for this.) Leaving aside this objection, however, Podles' description of the moral state of the episcopate is basically accurate, and Catholics (of whom I am one) need to wake up to this fact and start doing something about it rather than trying to dismiss it as anti-Catholic prejudice.

[coco]

John L,
Is your article going to be online? I'd like to read it.
You summarize Podles' argument well, and without his grotesque asides. I applaud this.
My point, otherwise stated: there's a world of difference between accusing someone of writing unfairly and accusing him of prejudice with regard to facts.
I have done the former. If I slipped into the latter, it was unintentional.
At times my laguage on this thread has been hyperbolic. This was an attempt to mock Podles' approach.

[Deacon John M. Bresnahan]

Part of the problem is that many Catholics think of the theories and speculations in the psychological field as "hard" science--and have adjusted their belief in sin and evil and what should be punished and how to punish to match what they erroneously think is "hard" science. Why do Catholics so easily fall into this trap?? 500 years of ridicule for not listening to Galileo--and not wanting to be seen as anti-"science" on issues of today.
Instead, it is time for us Catholics to start delving back into our own traditions of sin and repentance, most of which were biblically shaped. The collapse of morality in our modern Western world--and the appeal of a powerfully moral (from their point of view) Islam --proves the psycho-babble route only gave us homosexual and pedophile clergy and rampant disrespect for life and the family. It is time to turn things around.
However, I think Mr. Podles is way too intemperate and will turn off Catholics of Goodwill while making him the hero of bigots and haters if that is to be the tone of the book he is researching.

[John Lamont]

It won't be online I'm afraid, unless you have access to it through an internet subscription to Blackwell's journals. Complaints about Podles being too intemperate evade the issue of whether his description of the moral state of the episcopate is substantially correct. If it is, then it would be hard to be too intemperate in decribing and condemning it. Peter Damian was rather more intemperate in style than Podles, but was canonised for it.

[John Lamont]

In justice, it should be pointed out that saying that 'the Vatican' condemned Saddam Hussein's execution is misleading; it was the Vatican press officer who complained, someone who has no more authority over what the faithful should believe than I do.

[coco]

I'll have to consider spending some money :)

Ah yes. Peter Damian. A notorious Nazi, if I understand Mr. Podles correctly. He got into trouble for accusing everyone else of being a Nazi.

At least, that's my idea of someone being more intemperate than Mr. Podles in this instance.

[coco]

There was a lot of comment in relation to the status of the press officer's (Mons. Lombardi's) statement in relation to recent Church teachings on the utility of the death penalty on the blog thread to which I linked above.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>In justice, it should be pointed out that saying that 'the Vatican' condemned Saddam Hussein's execution is misleading; it was the Vatican press officer who complained, someone who has no more authority over what the faithful should believe than I do.<<<

in the real world (everyplace beyond the confines of the Vatican City), press officers do not make public statements that do not reflect the positions of the institutions they represent. When press officers speak on the record, it is assumed that their statements are in fact those of their superiors.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>However, I think Mr. Podles is way too intemperate and will turn off Catholics of Goodwill while making him the hero of bigots and haters if that is to be the tone of the book he is researching.<<<

My dear Deacon,

Mr. Podles is only guilty of saying aloud that which a great many Catholics of good will have been saying silently for quite a few years. His main offense is a violation of the sacrsanct Eleventh Commandment--"Thou shalt not criticize the Church in front of strangers". Apparently, it's quite all right for us to say that our bishops are a bunch of corrupt, time-serving hacks, as long as no non-Catholics are within earshot. If they are, we remain mum, or worse, try to defend the indefensible. And woe betide any Protestant or Orthodox who might happen to say about such matters that which we merely think to ourselves.

[coco]

And let's remember, Catholic friends, lest among other things we scandalize our Christian brethren: our relation to Vatican pronouncements on one hand and papal/Council dogmatic definitions on the other is roughly the same as that of Republican voters to Bush administration announcements on one hand and the laws he and R-dominated congress has passed on the other.