Birthday of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Both abortion and the death penalty directly kill a human being; however, the person killed by an executioner has been given the benefit of a trial and an appeal process and been found guilty of a capital crime. Of course, there have been occasions wherein a person has later been found to be innocent while on death row or sadly, after execution; but with abortion, the victims are always innocent. The death penalty, unlike abortion, has been allowed in the Bible as a non-sinful act; therefore, we can see that it is not intrinsically evil, as abortion is. It has only been in recent decades, beginning with Pope John Paul II, that the death penalty began to be seen as an action that is no longer needed for a modern, civilized society that had other means at its disposal for keeping its citizens safe from dangerous criminals. When speaking of changes made by Pope John Paul II, Cardinal Ratzinger said, “ … members of the CDF maintain that the change wrought in the Catechism concerning capital punishment is a genuine development of doctrine caused by a better grasp of the dignity of the human person in modern society. If the Pope and the CDF wish to pursue the abolition of the death penalty on circumstantial grounds, that is fine. However, one may legitimately disagree with them as to the prudential nature of this pursuit.” He continued: “Not all moral issues have the same moral weight as abortion and euthanasia. For example, if a Catholic were at odds with the Holy Father on the application of capital punishment or on a decision towage war, he would not for that reason be considered unworthy to present himself to receive Holy Communion. While the Church exhorts civil authorities to seek peace, not war, “Cardinal Ratzinger continues, “and to exercise discretion and mercy in imposing punishment on criminals, it may still be permissible to take up arms to repel an aggressor or to have recourse to capital punishment. There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not however with regard to abortion and euthanasia.” Therefore, Catholics who support capital punishment need not fear that they are not in accord with the teaching of the Catholic Faith.
‘No Catholic can be obligated to assent to anything that contradicts Scripture and Tradition - not even if a pope says it. After all, the Church acknowledges that popes are not infallible when not speaking ex cathedra. Moreover, though there is a strong presumption that Catholics ought to assent even to non-infallible teachings, the Church also acknowledges that there are cases in which this presumption can be overridden and deficient magisterial statements respectfully criticized.” For example, in Donum Veritatis, issued under Pope John Paul II, it is stated:
“The willingness to submit loyally to the teaching of the Magisterium on matters per se not irreformable must be the rule. It can happen, however, that a theologian may, according to the case, raise questions regarding the timeliness, the form, or even the contents of magisterial interventions.” So, to put this in layman’s terms, a faithful Catholic must give respectful and deep thought to the change made by Pope Francis to the Catechism pertaining to the death penalty, but is not required to put this teaching on the same level of defined dogma. In other words, in spite of respect for the teaching, there is room to respectfully disagree. On the issue of abortion, however, there is no such wiggle-room. A faithful Catholic cannot disagree on something that is embedded in the natural law, Scripture and Magisterium. There is no way that these two issues carry equal weight when forming our consciences on a candidate.
Next week, we will talk about Socialism and what the Church teaches in regard to a Catholic being sympathetic to or belonging to a Socialist party.
—Fr. Epperson
Announcements
PARISH FINANCES Last week, we added a line at the bottom of each page showing you our income for the month of August, followed by the shortfall amount. As you can imagine, when Covid19 hit in early March, forcing the closure of the churches, things changed drastically for us. We began live-streaming our Masses, but of course, that did little to alleviate the income drop. Many of you turned to on-line giving or even came by and dropped your Sunday offering off in our mailbox, and for this, we are eternally grateful! You kept us afloat with your generosity! Now that we are back to having outdoor/inperson Masses, our collections are slowly bouncing back. Thanks be to God! Below, you will see a “year-to-date” line showing our collections and short fall amount. As you can see, we are quite in the red, and thus, would greatly appreciate any extra help that you may feel able to give. God bless you all and thank you for your continued generosity.
Parish Finances in the Age of Covid
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Jan-Aug Finances
Income $309,480.06
Short fall $-32,296.02
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