Ultramontanism and a supposed conflict between Pope Francis & Pius XII on capital punishment.

t LMS Chair­man, Dr. Joseph Shaw de­clares a death sen­tence on Ultra­montanism. How cute. As exhibits for the jury, he cites what he takes to be con­flicting state­ments on the death penal­ty be­tween Pius XII and Pope Fran­cis. Here is Pius XII:

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.

This is, Dr. Shaw wants us to believe, at odds with the pope’s recent words that the death penal­ty is “in itself con­trary to the Gospel.” The DP, the pope went on, “sup­press­es a human life”; and human life “is always sacred in the eyes of the Cre­ator.” Dr. Shaw insists this is a con­tra­dic­tion “plain as the nose on your face”; and he dis­miss­es any talk of the devel­op­ment of doc­trine as “sim­ply insane.” Thus does Dr. Shaw poi­son the well.

Now orig­i­nal­ly the term Ultra­mon­tanism referred to the author­i­ty of the pope over state pol­i­tics hith­er and yon. These days, as a weapon against the pope’s defend­ers, it seems to mean some­one who thinks every­thing the Pope says is infal­li­ble. It’s odd, then, that any­one should call me an “Ultra­mon­tanist”; for I have nev­er tak­en the posi­tion that every­thing a pope says is infal­li­ble. I defy you to find me mak­ing any such argu­ment, at any time, any­where. Search as long as you please and report back to me. “But Alt!” read­ers will cry. “The pope is infal­li­ble only in very, very lim­it­ed cas­es!” As though I don’t know this; as though I had assert­ed the con­trary when I assert­ed no such mat­ter.

What I have said—if any­one cares to know–is that it does not mat­ter whether a pope, in exer­cis­ing his Mag­is­teri­um, is speak­ing infal­li­bly or not. The Church is pre­cise; the Church takes care to dis­tin­guish between lev­els of epis­te­mo­log­i­cal cer­tain­ty. But she does not do so in order to inform Catholics of which state­ments they might dis­miss. Talk about “sim­ply insane.”

Did you know, in fact, that this idea—that the Church binds Catholics only to those state­ments that are infallible—is a heresy? It is. You know who con­demned it as such? Pius IX did in the Syl­labus of Errors. Tolle, lege. The Syl­labus is a list of con­demned propo­si­tions. Here is one of them:

The oblig­a­tion by which Catholic teach­ers and authors are strict­ly bound is con­fined to those things only which are pro­posed to uni­ver­sal belief as dog­mas of faith by the infal­li­ble judg­ment of the Church.

“But Alt! The Church only binds me to what’s infal­li­ble!” But no. That’s a Mod­ernist heresy, accord­ing to Pius IX. I tell you, some­one must have been mak­ing this claim back in 1864 if Pius IX took the time to con­demn it. Pius IX also con­demned the notion that church coun­cils have “erred in defin­ing mat­ters of faith and morals.” And on that point, two things are per­ti­nent to this dis­cus­sion.

The first is that Lumen Gen­tium 25, speak­ing with the author­i­ty of a Church coun­cil, says that “reli­gious sub­mis­sion of mind and will must be shown in a spe­cial way to the authen­tic mag­is­teri­um of the Roman Pon­tiff, even when he is not speak­ing ex cathe­dra.” (Canon 752 says the same thing.)

The sec­ond point to note here is that the Cat­e­chism of the Catholic Church (the orig­i­nal ver­sion of CCC 2267) teach­es this regard­ing the death penal­ty:

Today, in fact, as a con­se­quence of the pos­si­bil­i­ties which the state has for effec­tive­ly pre­vent­ing crime, by ren­der­ing one who has com­mit­ted an offense inca­pable of doing harm—without def­i­nite­ly tak­ing away from him the pos­si­bil­i­ty of redeem­ing himself—the cas­es in which the exe­cu­tion of the offend­er is an absolute neces­si­ty “are very rare, if not prac­ti­cal­ly nonex­is­tent.

Here the Cat­e­chism is quot­ing Evan­geli­um Vitae 56. (Many peo­ple love EV very much as long as they get to pre­tend it’s just about abor­tion.)

Pope Fran­cis and Pope Pius XII are not so much giv­ing dif­fer­ent teach­ings as speak­ing at dif­fer­ent times. Pius XII wrote before the Church dis­cerned that the sit­u­a­tions in which the death penal­ty is “an absolute neces­si­ty are very rare, if not prac­ti­cal­ly non-exis­tent.” One would have to do a great deal of work to prove that Pius XII believed the death penal­ty was okay even when it was not “an absolute neces­si­ty”; even when “blood­less means” were avail­able. Dr. Shaw does no such work. Very slop­py of him. May we assume that it was “an absolute neces­si­ty” more fre­quent­ly in 1952 than it is today?

The Com­pendi­um of the Social Doc­trine of the Church 405—yes, the word is “doc­trine”—says:

The grow­ing aver­sion of pub­lic opin­ion towards the death penal­ty [in a con­text where “absolute neces­si­ty” is “prac­ti­cal­ly non-exis­tent”] and the var­i­ous pro­vi­sions aimed at abol­ish­ing it or sus­pend­ing its appli­ca­tion con­sti­tute vis­i­ble manifesta­tions of a height­ened moral aware­ness.

I don’t real­ly need Pope Fran­cis to be speak­ing infal­li­bly, under the very care­ful and lim­it­ed def­i­n­i­tion of that term. He needs to be speak­ing author­i­ta­tive­ly; and on the ques­tion of the death penal­ty, the Cat­e­chism, Evan­geli­um Vitae, and the Com­pendi­um of the Social Doc­trine of the Church are pret­ty author­i­ta­tive. So are Lumen Gen­tium and Canon Law and the Syl­labus of Errors when it comes to whether Catholics need accept only state­ments which are infal­li­ble.

Back in 2002, the Nation­al Catholic Reg­is­ter had not yet drunk the elixir of pope hatred and right wing pro­pa­gan­da. And so it pub­lished an edi­to­r­i­al wth the title “Sev­en Rea­sons Amer­i­ca Should­n’t Exe­cute.” It was a review of the teach­ing of Pope St. John Paul II on the ques­tion. Though they con­cede  that ret­ribu­tive jus­tice is part of Catholic thought, the edi­tors note that, in empha­siz­ing restora­tive jus­tice, the pope was not “con­tra­dict­ing the tra­di­tion.” He was not­ing, as a point of devel­op­ment, that one must always pre­fer “blood­less means” to pro­tect soci­ety.

In the course of the arti­cle, the edi­tors note that Jus­tice Scalia dis­missed Evan­geli­um Vitae as “not ex-cathe­dra.” (But if it’s “not ex-cathe­dra” on the death penal­ty, why is it ex-cathe­dra” on abor­tion? I only ask ques­tions.) The Reg­is­ter was not impressed with this blithe, cafe­te­ri­aesque wave of the hand.

Many lib­er­al Catholics advanced this tired argu­ment to sup­port their sit-in schism over Humanae Vitae. Canon Law and the Cat­e­chism adopt the teach­ing of the Sec­ond Vat­i­can Coun­cil’s doc­u­ment Lumen Gen­tium that “loy­al sub­mis­sion of will and intel­lect must be giv­en … to the authen­tic teach­ing author­i­ty of the Roman Pon­tiff, even when he does not speak ex cathe­dra.” Cafe­te­ria Catholi­cism is wrong, whether the pick-and-choose cus­tomers are lib­er­al or con­ser­v­a­tive, judges or peas­ants.

That is exact­ly right. As I have said many times on this wery blog. Even if we dis­agree with a teach­ing, says the Reg­is­ter, “we are oblig­ed to give it loy­al sub­mis­sion of will and intel­lect.’ ”

It’s called obe­di­ence.

“John Paul [II],” says the Reg­is­ter, “asserts the pri­ma­cy of the per­son over the claim of the state to be the arbiter of the end­ing as well as of the begin­ning of life.”

So does Pope Fran­cis.