Ultramontanism's Death Sentence

[St.Justin]

From: Rorate https://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2017/10/ultramontanisms-death-sentence.html#more

Ultramontanism's Death Sentence
Pope Pius XII
In 1952 Pope Pius XII said the following, in a public address recorded among his official acts:

Even when it is a question of the execution of a condemned man, the State does not dispose of the individual's right to life. In this case it is reserved to the public power to deprive the condemned person of the enjoyment of life in expiation of his crime when, by his crime, he has already disposed himself of his right to live.

In 2017 Pope Francis spoke, in a not dissimilar context:

It must be clearly stated that the death penalty is an inhumane measure that, regardless of how it is carried out, abases human dignity. It is per se contrary to the Gospel, because it entails the willful suppression of a human life that never ceases to be sacred in the eyes of its Creator and of which – ultimately – only God is the true judge and guarantor.

Again:

It is necessary, therefore, to reaffirm that no matter how serious the crime that has been committed, the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and the dignity of the person.

What can the Ultramontanists, those with an exaggerated view of papal authority so prominent in the debate over Amoris laetitia, make of this situation?

Presumably, in 1952 all good Ultramontanists said that, because the Pope had said so, it follows that it is true that the death penalty is not only permissible, but for sufficiently serious crimes, uniquely appropriate. (What else does it mean, to say that a criminal has 'disposed' of his 'right to life'?)

Today, in 2017, all good Ultramontanists are saying that, because the Pope has said so, it follows that it is false that the the death penalty is ever permissible.

Now, the official Ultramontanist line is that Papal authority, being supreme and (for practical purposes, always) infallible, can never be self contradictory. But between these two papal statements there is a contradiction as plain as the nose on your face. The suggestion that the 2017 statement is a 'development' or 'clarification' of what was said in 1952, or that is draws out implications of this and other expressions of the Church's teaching on capital punishment over the centuries, is not something one needs to haggle over. It is simply insane.

But for those who wish to haggle, a simple test of the development of doctrine is to ask if later authors can continue to accept earlier expressions of a doctrine as being true. Thus, we find the discussion of grace in Augustine lacking some distinctions developed by later authors and used in dogmatic statements, but Augustine is not for that reason wrong, and what he writes is not, with hindsight, heresy. It might on occasion be misleading to quote Augustine on grace, but one need not disavow him. In this case, by contrast, it is evident that Pope Francis disagrees with Pope Pius XII: they can't both be right.

Today's Ultramontanists are in a bind, therefore. In order to uphold the supreme and (for practical purposes, always) infallible authority of Pope Francis, they are going to have to admit that the authority of Pope Pius XII was not so supreme or infallible after all.

But if people would have been wrong in 1952 to throw themselves on their faces before Pius XII and agree with what he said about capital punishment, just because he'd said it, then the hideous possibility must exist that people may be wrong to agree with everything that Pope Francis says in 2017, just because he's said it.

Pope Francis' statement, by so simply and so clearly contradicting his predecessor of 65 years ago, demonstrates the falsity of Ultramontanism in a way I would never have thought possible. We may point out to the Ultramontanists that the contradiction of one Pope by another on a matter of faith and morals is possible, given the fallibility of most of their pronouncements, even when they are giving every appearance of exercising their teaching office (let alone when they are talking off the cuff on aeroplanes, or writing private letters), but usually Popes are far too careful in preparing their public remarks to allow this to happen, except in the most subtle and tacit way. But Pope Francis has done it. The game is up.

Ultramontanism as a practical guide for Catholics only works, insofar as it can work at all, in times of great stability. At times like the present, it is self-contradictory and absurd. After Pope Francis' statement on the death penalty, no Catholic with intellectual integrity can continue to hold it.

Where does this leave the ordinary Catholic? The ordinary Catholic is obliged to believe what the Church teaches. The Church hands on faithfully what she has received from her Lord. We can see Pope Pius XII doing that in the quoted passage: using the language of his time, certainly, but in its content faithful to the Popes, the Fathers and Doctors, and Scripture (see Gen. 9:6; Lev. 20-1; Deut. 13; Deut. 21:22; Matt. 15:4; Mk. 7:10; Jn. 19:11; Rom. 13:4; Heb. 10:28).

Of Pope Francis' statement, to put it mildly, this cannot be said.

Note: the liceity of capital punishment is the first of the propositions discussed in the Appeal to Cardinals of the 45 Theologians, which gives more references.

[Reader]

I don't know about the rest of the Catholic world, but in the US, 20 people were executed in 2016 for crimes so bad that they were given the death penalty (and probably a couple decades to try and get out of it). Is this really the big problem of our time?

Contrast that with roughly 650,000 murders in 2016 in the US of babies who never did anything to anyone. If the pope really feels he has to be the mouthpiece of social justice, I wish he'd pick/prioritize his fights.

[Quaremerepulisti]

This version of Ultramontanism vanished a long time ago, as in about 200 years ago, when the condemnation of heliocentrism was reversed.  Thus, this is a 200-year-old problem.  And who is to say 200 years from now, when everyone knows the death penalty is barbaric and inhumane, just like everyone knows the earth orbits the sun today, the same apologetic contortions now used for heliocentrism won't be used for the death penalty then.  And I'm sure new, modern Scriptural interpretations can be found to reconcile the offending passages, just as with heliocentrism (e.g. the writers were going by what sensibly appeared, instead of the reality, was a novelty invented by Leo XIII).

But it's facile to simply brush this off as "extreme Ultramontanism" as though, if everybody would just have the "not-so-extreme" version of Ultramontanism everything would be fine.  A serious analysis of the implications of this for Catholicism is needed.

First, all this really shows is that sometimes, things that Popes and theologians make a big deal about are 1) much more the result of a historically conditioned worldview (Aristotelian cosmology then, "social justice" today) than anything really related to faith and 2) not that much of a big deal anyway.  It really has no impact on your salvation what you think about cosmology or what you think about the death penalty.  The desire of Popes and theologians to make it so doesn't make it so.

Second, "faithful to the Popes, Fathers, and Doctors" simply has no punch.  Obviously, faithful to the Popes by definition does not here, since we're being unfaithful to Francis if we say the death penalty is legitimate, but unfaithful to Pius XII if we say it is not.  But the Fathers and Doctors don't qualify either, since they get their titles from the Popes, and it is "extreme Ultramontanism" according to the definition of the authors if we demand that, based on that fact alone, their writings have authority.  And "faithful to Scripture", if by that we mean our interpretation of Scripture, and not the Pope's, we are Protestant.

[Gardener]

Following the golden rule, I beg you all to make sure I am executed rather than spend the rest of my natural life in prison, should I either truly be guilty of a crime worthy of either or am falsely convicted in the same.

[St.Justin]

This version of Ultramontanism vanished a long time ago, as in about 200 years ago, when the condemnation of heliocentrism was reversed.  Thus, this is a 200-year-old problem.  And who is to say 200 years from now, when everyone knows the death penalty is barbaric and inhumane, just like everyone knows the earth orbits the sun today, the same apologetic contortions now used for heliocentrism won't be used for the death penalty then.  And I'm sure new, modern Scriptural interpretations can be found to reconcile the offending passages, just as with heliocentrism (e.g. the writers were going by what sensibly appeared, instead of the reality, was a novelty invented by Leo XIII).

But it's facile to simply brush this off as "extreme Ultramontanism" as though, if everybody would just have the "not-so-extreme" version of Ultramontanism everything would be fine.  A serious analysis of the implications of this for Catholicism is needed.

First, all this really shows is that sometimes, things that Popes and theologians make a big deal about are 1) much more the result of a historically conditioned worldview (Aristotelian cosmology then, "social justice" today) than anything really related to faith and 2) not that much of a big deal anyway.  It really has no impact on your salvation what you think about cosmology or what you think about the death penalty.  The desire of Popes and theologians to make it so doesn't make it so.

Second, "faithful to the Popes, Fathers, and Doctors" simply has no punch.  Obviously, faithful to the Popes by definition does not here, since we're being unfaithful to Francis if we say the death penalty is legitimate, but unfaithful to Pius XII if we say it is not.  But the Fathers and Doctors don't qualify either, since they get their titles from the Popes, and it is "extreme Ultramontanism" according to the definition of the authors if we demand that, based on that fact alone, their writings have authority.  And "faithful to Scripture", if by that we mean our interpretation of Scripture, and not the Pope's, we are Protestant.

I would really like to respond to this but it is Sunday and I am going to attempt to practice Charity.

[Prayerful]

A lot of people live in the present, and just take what PF says as Doctrine, and wouldn't care if the Argentine contradicted himself one day to the next. Anything before V2 somehow isn't applicable.

[bigbadtrad]

This version of Ultramontanism vanished a long time ago, as in about 200 years ago, when the condemnation of heliocentrism was reversed.  Thus, this is a 200-year-old problem.  And who is to say 200 years from now, when everyone knows the death penalty is barbaric and inhumane, just like everyone knows the earth orbits the sun today, the same apologetic contortions now used for heliocentrism won't be used for the death penalty then.  And I'm sure new, modern Scriptural interpretations can be found to reconcile the offending passages, just as with heliocentrism (e.g. the writers were going by what sensibly appeared, instead of the reality, was a novelty invented by Leo XIII).

But it's facile to simply brush this off as "extreme Ultramontanism" as though, if everybody would just have the "not-so-extreme" version of Ultramontanism everything would be fine.  A serious analysis of the implications of this for Catholicism is needed.

First, all this really shows is that sometimes, things that Popes and theologians make a big deal about are 1) much more the result of a historically conditioned worldview (Aristotelian cosmology then, "social justice" today) than anything really related to faith and 2) not that much of a big deal anyway.  It really has no impact on your salvation what you think about cosmology or what you think about the death penalty.  The desire of Popes and theologians to make it so doesn't make it so.

Second, "faithful to the Popes, Fathers, and Doctors" simply has no punch.  Obviously, faithful to the Popes by definition does not here, since we're being unfaithful to Francis if we say the death penalty is legitimate, but unfaithful to Pius XII if we say it is not.  But the Fathers and Doctors don't qualify either, since they get their titles from the Popes, and it is "extreme Ultramontanism" according to the definition of the authors if we demand that, based on that fact alone, their writings have authority.  And "faithful to Scripture", if by that we mean our interpretation of Scripture, and not the Pope's, we are Protestant.

I would really like to respond to this but it is Sunday and I am going to attempt to practice Charity.

I find it strange that Quare can show where the history of the Church is wrong and create epistemological arguments against the faith and then has the view that he is right and the history of the Church is wrong because he can nitpick a few things that benefit his argument and disregard what doesn't. We can practice charity and call him a charlatan St. Justin.

Never believe anyone who criticizes the history of the Church and galvanizes their view by saying those who disagree are Protestant unless you have a picture of them praying with Protestants, Jews & Muslims in accordance with current Papal practice and teaching. They are just flaming hypocrites.

[Quaremerepulisti]

I find it strange that Quare can show where the history of the Church is wrong and create epistemological arguments against the faith and then has the view that he is right and the history of the Church is wrong because he can nitpick a few things that benefit his argument and disregard what doesn't. We can practice charity and call him a charlatan St. Justin.

Never believe anyone who criticizes the history of the Church and galvanizes their view by saying those who disagree are Protestant unless you have a picture of them praying with Protestants, Jews & Muslims in accordance with current Papal practice and teaching. They are just flaming hypocrites.

You've taken the Blue Pill.  Hope it makes you happy.  Please realize though that others have taken the Red Pill.

You are angry because you can't answer this:

Who is the final authority on matters of doctrine?  If Rome, then accept Vatican II, "extreme Ultramontanism" or no, and contradiction with prior teaching or no.  If yourself, then Catholicism isn't essentially different from Protestantism.

[St.Justin]

I find it strange that Quare can show where the history of the Church is wrong and create epistemological arguments against the faith and then has the view that he is right and the history of the Church is wrong because he can nitpick a few things that benefit his argument and disregard what doesn't. We can practice charity and call him a charlatan St. Justin.

Never believe anyone who criticizes the history of the Church and galvanizes their view by saying those who disagree are Protestant unless you have a picture of them praying with Protestants, Jews & Muslims in accordance with current Papal practice and teaching. They are just flaming hypocrites.

You've taken the Blue Pill.  Hope it makes you happy.  Please realize though that others have taken the Red Pill.

You are angry because you can't answer this:

Who is the final authority on matters of doctrine?  If Rome, then accept Vatican II, "extreme Ultramontanism" or no, and contradiction with prior teaching or no.  If yourself, then Catholicism isn't essentially different from Protestantism.

VII defined no doctrines so you lost the argument already. There is nothing to accept about VII not to mention it has nothing top do with the OP. Which also is a deflection from it.

[Clare]

Catholic Encyclopedia on Ultramontanism

In the eighteenth century the word passed from France back to Germany, where it was adopted by the Febronians, Josephinists, and Rationalists, who called themselves Catholics, to designate the theologians and the faithful who were attached to the Holy See. Thus it acquired a much wider signification, being applicable to all Roman Catholics worthy of the name.

[bigbadtrad]

You've taken the Blue Pill.  Hope it makes you happy.  Please realize though that others have taken the Red Pill.

You are angry because you can't answer this:

Who is the final authority on matters of doctrine?  If Rome, then accept Vatican II, "extreme Ultramontanism" or no, and contradiction with prior teaching or no.  If yourself, then Catholicism isn't essentially different from Protestantism.

I won't believe a word you say unless I see you praying with a Lutheran and ask for their blessing unless of course you think you are the final authority on the disciplines of the Church and their interpretation which would make you PROTESTANT. Follow the picture in my avatar and I'll believe you and take you seriously, otherwise you're like my friend who always loved to pick on my football team but never told me his team. He just wanted me to be wrong, and never himself to be right. I think you know such a person.

Cry all you want but your argument is with following the guy in my avatar and his interpretation of discipline and doctrine. I want the pictures of you doing so and if you don't have the money I'll send you the money via paypal so you can get a camera. Until then stop lecturing traditionalists who you despise on a traditional forum.

Oh and if you think I'm angry you don't know me, I think you're a comedian.

[Prayerful]

Sacrosanctum Concilium does not appear on reading to be worst of the decrees of V2, affirming the place of Latin and Gregorian Chant, seeking only 'noble simplicity,' but the work of Concilium in concocting the ambiguous ordinary and propers of the Novus Ordo Missae (how Masonic that sounds), and before that the Cancer of options which afflicted the 'transitional missal,' was not in defiance of the gap filled SC. Contrary to its spirit, or what so many bishops thought they supported, but not contrary to that loosely phrased, verbose document. The de-facto suppression of the Mass was probably contrary to Missale Romanum of 1969, but again the words are vague. Supposedly it was meant to 'enrich' and V2 is 'pastoral.' Yet the 'Spirit of V2' ultras who treat Bergoglian vagaries as the new Gospel, certainly don't hold it to be optional. If a diocesan priest likes the Mass, and somehow survived the seminary, he will find life hard unless he is agreeable to saying the false Mass.     

A Catholic has to avoid, as best as possible, everything that has resulted from the Robber Council. Someone's convoluted reasoning doesn't make it otherwise. Nearly all the canonisations and beatifications (JP2, Paul VI Mother Teresa etc obviously excepted) like Padre Pio, Fr Damian of Molokoi or Bl Charles of Mt Argus are of good and praiseworthy, but with the changes made to the process, doubts arise. A priest of great energy, courage and personal charisma, particularly if he was a Jesuit or Passionist, with some sort of cultus might have had grave flaws of character, which will be missed with the modern V2 process.

Ultramontane was a nineteenth century derogatory term. It is best forgotten like Cisalpine from the latter part of the eighteenth century. In this crisis we can do without this false category.

[Gardener]

https://onepeterfive.com/pope-francis-wrong-death-penalty-heres/

The death penalty is far more humane than life in a pay-to-play (greased political/judicial palms) private prison system.

I would absolutely beg for the death penalty if I ever faced it vs life in prison.

[nmoerbeek]

From: Rorate https://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2017/10/ultramontanisms-death-sentence.html#more

Ultramontanism's Death Sentence
Pope Pius XII
In 1952 Pope Pius XII said the following, in a public address recorded among his official acts:

Even when it is a question of the execution of a condemned man, the State does not dispose of the individual's right to life. In this case it is reserved to the public power to deprive the condemned person of the enjoyment of life in expiation of his crime when, by his crime, he has already disposed himself of his right to live.

In 2017 Pope Francis spoke, in a not dissimilar context:

It must be clearly stated that the death penalty is an inhumane measure that, regardless of how it is carried out, abases human dignity. It is per se contrary to the Gospel, because it entails the willful suppression of a human life that never ceases to be sacred in the eyes of its Creator and of which ? ultimately ? only God is the true judge and guarantor.

Again:

It is necessary, therefore, to reaffirm that no matter how serious the crime that has been committed, the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and the dignity of the person.

What can the Ultramontanists, those with an exaggerated view of papal authority so prominent in the debate over Amoris laetitia, make of this situation?

Presumably, in 1952 all good Ultramontanists said that, because the Pope had said so, it follows that it is true that the death penalty is not only permissible, but for sufficiently serious crimes, uniquely appropriate. (What else does it mean, to say that a criminal has 'disposed' of his 'right to life'?)

Today, in 2017, all good Ultramontanists are saying that, because the Pope has said so, it follows that it is false that the the death penalty is ever permissible.

Now, the official Ultramontanist line is that Papal authority, being supreme and (for practical purposes, always) infallible, can never be self contradictory. But between these two papal statements there is a contradiction as plain as the nose on your face. The suggestion that the 2017 statement is a 'development' or 'clarification' of what was said in 1952, or that is draws out implications of this and other expressions of the Church's teaching on capital punishment over the centuries, is not something one needs to haggle over. It is simply insane.

But for those who wish to haggle, a simple test of the development of doctrine is to ask if later authors can continue to accept earlier expressions of a doctrine as being true. Thus, we find the discussion of grace in Augustine lacking some distinctions developed by later authors and used in dogmatic statements, but Augustine is not for that reason wrong, and what he writes is not, with hindsight, heresy. It might on occasion be misleading to quote Augustine on grace, but one need not disavow him. In this case, by contrast, it is evident that Pope Francis disagrees with Pope Pius XII: they can't both be right.

Today's Ultramontanists are in a bind, therefore. In order to uphold the supreme and (for practical purposes, always) infallible authority of Pope Francis, they are going to have to admit that the authority of Pope Pius XII was not so supreme or infallible after all.

But if people would have been wrong in 1952 to throw themselves on their faces before Pius XII and agree with what he said about capital punishment, just because he'd said it, then the hideous possibility must exist that people may be wrong to agree with everything that Pope Francis says in 2017, just because he's said it.

Pope Francis' statement, by so simply and so clearly contradicting his predecessor of 65 years ago, demonstrates the falsity of Ultramontanism in a way I would never have thought possible. We may point out to the Ultramontanists that the contradiction of one Pope by another on a matter of faith and morals is possible, given the fallibility of most of their pronouncements, even when they are giving every appearance of exercising their teaching office (let alone when they are talking off the cuff on aeroplanes, or writing private letters), but usually Popes are far too careful in preparing their public remarks to allow this to happen, except in the most subtle and tacit way. But Pope Francis has done it. The game is up.

Ultramontanism as a practical guide for Catholics only works, insofar as it can work at all, in times of great stability. At times like the present, it is self-contradictory and absurd. After Pope Francis' statement on the death penalty, no Catholic with intellectual integrity can continue to hold it.

Where does this leave the ordinary Catholic? The ordinary Catholic is obliged to believe what the Church teaches. The Church hands on faithfully what she has received from her Lord. We can see Pope Pius XII doing that in the quoted passage: using the language of his time, certainly, but in its content faithful to the Popes, the Fathers and Doctors, and Scripture (see Gen. 9:6; Lev. 20-1; Deut. 13; Deut. 21:22; Matt. 15:4; Mk. 7:10; Jn. 19:11; Rom. 13:4; Heb. 10:28).

Of Pope Francis' statement, to put it mildly, this cannot be said.

Note: the liceity of capital punishment is the first of the propositions discussed in the Appeal to Cardinals of the 45 Theologians, which gives more references.

Should we call it Ultramontanism's death sentence or the fact that many members of the Hierarchy and who fill the pews are basically Marcionists (those who reject God the Father as revealed in the Old Testament).  How many people believe that "God spoke through the prophets" when God the Father ordered through the Prophet Samuel the complete destruction of the Amaleks?   How many Christians believe God the Father was so angry that he nearly destroyed all of humanity in a flood?

The truth is there is almost a total repudiation today of God as He revealed himself in the Old Testament, even though in the new Testament Our Lord Jesus Christ through acts such as the cursing of the fig tree, condemning whole areas to hell fire, and numerous parables where He warns of the total destruction of peoples (Such as Luke 11) shows very clearly that He and His Father are one and the same.

Even in the Acts the Holy Ghost strikes down dead on the spot Ananias and his wife for lying about the amount of money they had presented to St. Peter (they had held some of it back and then lied about it).

It is one of the most pernicious heresies today that God is a cuddly teddy bear and that he wants us to be cuddly too.  Ultramontanism for all of its errors is  more bearable than this vapidness that gives rise to this abandonment of even the most basic ideas of human justice, prudence and the truth that God will punish us now and in the next life for not obeying Him.

[PerEvangelicaDicta]

Sacrosanctum Concilium does not appear on reading to be worst of the decrees of V2, affirming the place of Latin and Gregorian Chant, seeking only 'noble simplicity,' but the work of Concilium in concocting the ambiguous ordinary and propers of the Novus Ordo Missae (how Masonic that sounds), and before that the Cancer of options which afflicted the 'transitional missal,' was not in defiance of the gap filled SC. Contrary to its spirit, or what so many bishops thought they supported, but not contrary to that loosely phrased, verbose document. The de-facto suppression of the Mass was probably contrary to Missale Romanum of 1969, but again the words are vague. Supposedly it was meant to 'enrich' and V2 is 'pastoral.' Yet the 'Spirit of V2' ultras who treat Bergoglian vagaries as the new Gospel, certainly don't hold it to be optional. If a diocesan priest likes the Mass, and somehow survived the seminary, he will find life hard unless he is agreeable to saying the false Mass.     

A Catholic has to avoid, as best as possible, everything that has resulted from the Robber Council. Someone's convoluted reasoning doesn't make it otherwise. Nearly all the canonisations and beatifications (JP2, Paul VI Mother Teresa etc obviously excepted) like Padre Pio, Fr Damian of Molokoi or Bl Charles of Mt Argus are of good and praiseworthy, but with the changes made to the process, doubts arise. A priest of great energy, courage and personal charisma, particularly if he was a Jesuit or Passionist, with some sort of cultus might have had grave flaws of character, which will be missed with the modern V2 process.

Ultramontane was a nineteenth century derogatory term. It is best forgotten like Cisalpine from the latter part of the eighteenth century. In this crisis we can do without this false category.