Death Penalty Vs The Tragedy of Fixated Modernist Hearts.

 

   The death penalty is intrinsically evil and against the inviolability of life and dignity of the human person.? If true, this would mean all previous allowance of it: Scriptural, patristic, medieval, magisterial; was morally false…but that is impossible! 

Preamble: 

A Modernist enthusiast’s fixation on the Modernist program often becomes a tragic study in stubborn obstinacy. No matter the clarity of evidence, he zealously defends his Modernist masters and their shifting aggiornamento in all it's shades.

 In the present article, we examine such a case: a trolling Modernist apologist who leaps to justify the Modernist rejection of the death penalty. His arguments offer a revealing window into the mentality of those who, rather than submitting to the perennial teaching of the Church, twist doctrine to conform to the spirit of the age.

In a 2023 article, an occasion offered itself for a treatment of the theme of death penalty at length. This entry claims for itself a nich of particular significance in unmasking the tragedy of fixated hearts that mistake novelty for mercy, and sentimentalism for justice. 

The Significant Revealing Occasion 

I shared a post on X made by my Brother Priest, Fr. Okerulu, which reads: 

“I recently saw a video of a well-known 'Catholic' Bishop in the South-East saying that the 'Catholic Church' does not teach that Capital Punishment is licit i.e morally right. Misleading a great many. 

Well, the Catholic Church HAS ALWAYS taught and STILL TEACHES that Capital punishment by the State is morally licit and even obligatory at times. 

The pictures below show clearly the teaching of a True Pope (Pope Pius XII) and a False Pope (Francis) on the matter. 

Two Popes, two contradictory teachings. Ergo Two religions, one True the other false. Take a pick, but choose wisely, your eternal salvation depends on it.”

The attached photo is below:

Two Popes, two contradictory teachings. Ergo Two religions, one True the other false... 

Contradictory Texts

Pope Pius XII said:

 “Even in the case of the death penalty, the State does not dispose of the individual’s right to life. Rather public authority limits itself to depriving the offender of the good of life in expiation for his guilt, after he, through his crime, deprived himself of his own right to life.” 

This comes from his Address to the First International Congress on the Histopathology of the Nervous System (14 September 1952). 

Meanwhile, what had the Modernist Papal Impostor “Pope Francis” to say? Precisely this: 

 “Today capital punishment is unacceptable, however serious the condemned’s crime may have been. It is an offence against the inviolability of life and the dignity of the human person which contradicts God’s plan for man and for society and his merciful justice.” 

He made this statement in a 20 March 2015 letter to the President of the International Commission against the Death Penalty. 

Can someone with a good comprehension skill analyze both texts and see the inherent contradiction simply so without any theological argument? The answer should be obvious!

Reading-Comprehension And Analytical Skills Put To Work

Someone with an appreciable reading-comprehension and analytical skills would naturally compare the two texts and identify the contradiction between them.

Firstly, he would restate each position correctly:

Pius XII (1952)

• Says the State may inflict the death penalty.
• Says doing so does not violate the offender’s right to life, because the offender has forfeited that right by grave crime.
• Implies the death penalty is just, legitimate, and compatible with moral law when used by public authority.

In short:

• Death penalty can be legitimate. The offender’s right to life can be forfeited by crime.

“Francis” (2015–2018)

• Says capital punishment is unacceptable “in all cases” today.
• Says it is an offence against the inviolability of life and the dignity of the human person.

Thus implies the death penalty is never morally legitimate, no matter the crime or circumstances.

In short:

• Death penalty is intrinsically wrong. The right to life cannot be forfeited.

Secondly, he would identify the underlying principles in conflict

A good reader doesn’t just look at the sentences; they look at the moral logic beneath them:

Pius XII’s principle:

• The right to life is not absolute.
• A criminal’s own action removes the protection that right ordinarily grants.
• The State acts justly when it administers the penalty proportionate to guilt.

Francis’s principle:

• The right to life is inviolable, even for murderers.
• Human dignity cannot be lost, even by grave crime.
• Thus the State may never use a punishment that destroys life.

Thirdly, he would show the contradiction clearly:

A skilled reader sees the contradiction by putting the claims side-by-side:

• While Pope Pius XII said death penalty can be morally legitimate; “Francis” said death penalty is morally unacceptable.
• While Pope Pius XII said right to life can be forfeited by grave crime, “Francis” makes it believable that right to life is inviolable even after grave crime.
• From Pope Pius XII we learn that state may, in justice, deprive the offender of life, “Francis” teaches that the state may never deprive the offender of life.
• From Pope Pius XII we learn that death penalty is morally permissible under some conditions, “Francis” make believe that death penalty is intrinsically contrary to human dignity.

The contradiction is not subtle:

• One says the death penalty can be an act of justice.
• The other says the death penalty always violates human dignity.

Both cannot simultaneously be true.

These two moral framework are logically incompatible. Or, are they not?

Comes in a Trolling Modernist enthusiast

A trolling Modernist enthusiast paces his argument thus: 

Sources against Death Penalty.

St Ambrose of Milan(Cain&Abel)

Origen Contra Celsum

Lactantius Divine Institutes

Exodus33

St. Cyprian Letter 56

1 Cor 6

St John Chrysostom Homilies on Statues

Ezekiel 33:11

John 8

Genesis 4:15

Tertullian on the Shows Three parts of a moral act are object, intention, circumstances. Impossible in the modern world under modern circumstances to justify capital punishment under the third element of a good moral act. Modern state is capable of rendering an offender incapable of doing further harm. 

Trent Catechism 280/281 by the legal and judicious exercise of which he punishes the guilty and PROTECTS THE INNOCENT. 

In the US

156 individuals have been exonerated from death row--that is, found to be innocent and released - since 1973 

Align yourself with

Jordan, Kuwait, Malaysia, Nigeria, North Korea, Oman, Pakistan, Palestinian Territories, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Taiwan, Thailand, United Arab Emirate. 

His argument in brief:

• the death penalty is morally unacceptable today, violates human dignity, and contradicts the early Christian witness, 
• Continuing to use the death penalty aligns one with repressive or unjust regimes, not with moral leadership

Here, his faithfulness to his modernist master, “Francis” and the popular modernist claim is very evident. 

In him we see a familiar pattern of Heretics through the ages: whenever the Church teaches clearly; whether by solemn dogma or her universal magisterium, they scramble to rummage through scripture and antiquity for some stray patristic line or historical anecdote to prop up their dissent. Instead of trusting the living voice of the Church, they clutch isolated quotes like a man clinging to driftwood while refusing the safety of a ship.

The saints cite the Fathers as loyal sons; the heretic cites them as lawyers seeking loopholes. He mistakes exceptions for the rule and turns the treasures of tradition into weapons of rebellion. But the true Catholic knows that the Fathers receive their authority from the Church, not against her. And so he finds peace in the Church’s perennial voice; while the heretic finds only dust and confusion.

The Irony of Moral Claims 

We must note that both the text of the Modernist Papal Impostor and his enthusiastic defender contains two categorically different moral claims: 

•  “The death penalty is intrinsically evil and against the inviolability of life and dignity of the human person.”
• “The death penalty is unacceptable today.”

These two statements do not express the same moral truth. They belong to entirely different categories of moral reasoning:

1. “The death penalty is intrinsically evil and against the inviolability of life and dignity of the human person.”

This is an absolute and timeless condemnation.

It asserts that capital punishment is wrong by its very nature, in every era, culture, and circumstance.

Such a claim places the death penalty in the same moral category as acts that are always and everywhere forbidden.

If true, this would mean all previous allowance of it: Scriptural, patristic, medieval, magisterial; was morally false.

2. “The death penalty is unacceptable today.”

This is a circumstantial and contingent judgment.

It does not deny the legitimacy of the death penalty in principle; it only claims that present social conditions render its use inappropriate or unnecessary.

It preserves continuity with the consistent teaching of the Church by locating the judgment not in the object of the act, but in today’s conditions. But, is it true that today's conditions render the use of death penalty inappropriate or unnecessary? That is not our concern here.

The Irony We Cannot Miss

A careful examination of the modernist argument reveals that the argument for prudential application of the death penalty is used to justify a categorial moral reversal. 

In other words:

• The appearance of continuity is used to justify a repudiation of continuity.
• A circumstantial observation is used to mask an essential contradiction.
• A prudential adjustment becomes the pretext for rewriting the moral object itself.

This is the essence of Modernist methodology, condemned repeatedly before the so-called Vatican II:

transmuting doctrine under the guise of “development,” while retaining only the vocabulary of tradition.

From the Traditional Catholic perspective, this is not development at all—it is doctrinal inversion wrapped in pastoral language.

Fixation Tragedy

One thing is clear: everyone who accepts the authority of the Modernist papal impostors and their aggiornamento have their minds fixed on the proposition that 

• the death penalty is morally unacceptable since it violates human dignity, and contradicts the early Christian witness, 
• Continuing to use the death penalty aligns one with repressive or unjust regimes, not with moral leadership. 

But, a thing is “intrinsically evil” only when its object is evil in itself, e.g., adultery, blasphemy, perjury.

But the Church, Scripture, Fathers, Doctors, and Magisterium, has always taught that capital punishment is not evil in itself.

It belongs to the legitimate potestas gladii (power of the sword) granted by God to civil authority (Rom 13:4), affirmed by Fathers such as St. Augustine and St. Thomas, and defined by the perennial Magisterium.

To claim intrinsic evil now is to claim that the Church approved, indeed, commanded, what was always gravely immoral.

Such a reversal imply:

• Scripture taught error.
• Fathers and Doctors taught error.
• Popes, councils, and catechisms taught error.
• The Church uniformly defended an act that was always sinful.

This is impossible.

The Church cannot contradict herself in matters of faith and morals.

Thus, the popular accepted modernist proposition is not merely incorrect: it is heretical in implication, for it denies the Church’s indefectible continuity in moral doctrine.

Picture the tragedy: they are 

• Inflexible in allegiance to novelty, and
• Blinded to perennial truth,
• even when evidence from Scripture, Fathers, and Magisterium is undeniable.

This fixation is a spiritual pathology: they substitute the authority of the Church and Tradition with the authority of personal or ideological allegiance. 

In essence, the Modernist heart is wedded to the spirit of the age, not the Spirit of God. This explains why historical precedent, rational argument, or theological clarity have no corrective effect on such minds.

Summing Up: 

It is simple. The said well-known 'Catholic' Bishop in the South-East saying that the 'Catholic Church' does not teach that Capital Punishment is licit i.e morally right, is misleading a great many. 

Modernist fixation produces not only doctrinal error but practical disorder: societies may be influenced to abandon legitimate instruments of justice under the guise of “human dignity,” creating moral confusion and vulnerability to lawlessness. The stakes are eternal, but also temporal.

The Modernist obsession with “today’s human dignity” reflects a temporal idolization: placing the present era above eternal moral law. The tragedy is that the fixated heart mistakes novelty for mercy, and sentimentalism for justice.

The fact remains that:

The Catholic Church HAS ALWAYS taught and STILL TEACHES that Capital punishment by the State is morally licit and even obligatory at times. 

From Moses’ law (“Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed”) to St. Thomas’ commentary on the potestas gladii, there is a continuous thread.

Modernist claims thus become not only logically inconsistent but historically incoherent, attempting to sever centuries of unbroken doctrinal authority.

The Modernists teaching the contrary simply show themselves as impostors, false prophets, wolves in sheep's clothing. 

Men of good will, helped by grace, are able to see this imposture and are eternally grateful to Divine Providence leading them out of their blindness.