Death penalty declared inadmissable in the Catholic Catechism.

[Willie Pep]

Mark Shea has two good blog posts on the recent changes to the language of the Catholic Catechism that declares the death penalty to be inadmissable. I am sure conservative Catholics will be freaking out over this.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/markshea/2018/08/the-pope-has-just-declared-the-death-penalty-inadmissible-in-all-cases.html

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/markshea/2018/08/here-is-the-new-language-of-the-catechism-on-the-death-penalty.html

[MattP]

1. What does that mean exactly

[Jake Stern]

2. Prior to this it was church doctrine that the death penalty was allowed in some circumstances

That wiggle room allowed Catholic politicians and judges to impose the death penalty while claiming to remain "faithful to church teachings".

This change by Pope Francis says that the church is against the death penalty in ALL situations, closing that loophole.

Conservative Catholics are already soiling their drawers over this. For decades they've sanctimoniously tut-tutted Pro-Choice Catholics as being in rebellion against the church but now they can no longer openly support state sanctioned murder without also being in rebellion against church doctrine.

[Fortinbras Armstrong]

3. Yesterday, I had an argument on Facebook about precisely that

I called it "Cafeteria Catholicism, conservative style". She didn't want to admit that was what she was doing. "The pope is wrong! That means it's not cafeteria Catholicism." I told her, "No, the pope disagrees with you, and you are placing your judgment above his. That is the definition of Cafeteria Catholicism. You just aren't honest enough to admit it."

God, it felt good saying that. Schadenfreude can be fun.

[47of74]

4. Yeah that tends to be a great big two by four in the eyes of conservatives

Even back during the reigns of John Paul II or Benedict XVI they tended to practice Cafeteria Catholicism quite a bit. They loved to hit our side over the head with the Cafeteria Catholicism argument when it worked for them, but when either man did or said something they didn't agree with they'd ignore what the Popes said.

And now that we have Pope Francis pretty much everything about the Pope being infallible and we have to listen to the Pope went right out the window with many conservatives. And Francis himself is still fairly conservative. If he was half the liberal the right likes to accuse him of being we'd have female and married priests right now.