From Edward Feser
UPDATE: The conversation continues. Prof. Fastiggi has responded to this post in the comments section over at Catholic World Report.
I have cut and pasted his responses below, under the text of my
original post, together with my replies. Scroll down to take a look.
In the comments section under my recent Catholic World Report article “Three questions for Catholic opponents of capital punishment,” theologian Prof. Robert Fastiggi raises a number of objections. What follows is a reply. Fastiggi’s objections are in bold, and I respond to them one by one.
In the comments section under my recent Catholic World Report article “Three questions for Catholic opponents of capital punishment,” theologian Prof. Robert Fastiggi raises a number of objections. What follows is a reply. Fastiggi’s objections are in bold, and I respond to them one by one.
Fastiggi
begins:
There are multiple
problems with Prof. Feser’s article.
1. He sets up a false
dichotomy with his insistence that either Pope Francis’s revision of CCC 2267
represents a doctrinal change or merely a prudential judgment. This either/or
does not do justice to the new formulation in the Catechism, which represents a
deepening and a development of the moral principles of John Paul II that apply
to the prudential order (but is not merely prudential in nature).
The revision
to the Catechism asserts flatly that the death penalty should never be
used. My claim is that there are only
two ways to read this. Either the
revision is saying that capital punishment should never be used even in principle, which would
constitute a doctrinal change; or it is making a merely prudential judgment to the effect that it should never be used in
practice. This is what Fastiggi
characterizes as a false dichotomy.
Now, if I
really were guilty of setting up a false dichotomy, then there should be some
third alternative way of reading the revision that I have overlooked. So what is this third alternative? Tellingly, Fastiggi never tells us! He merely asserts that the revision “represents
a deepening and a development of the moral principles of John Paul II”
etc. But this is mere hand-waving unless
we are told exactly what this deepened
moral principle is that is neither (a) a reversal of past doctrine nor (b) a
mere prudential judgment.
The reason
he does not tell us what this third alternative is is that there could be no third alternative. Think about it. Any such alternative would have to say flatly
that the death penalty is never permissible for reasons that are both stronger than merely prudential reasons (otherwise the
purported third alternative would collapse back into alternative (b)), but not as strong as reasons of principle (or it would collapse back
into alternative (a)). But that simply
makes no sense. If the reasons why it is
flatly impermissible are more than merely prudential, then there is nothing left for them to be than reasons
of principle. And such reasons would
inevitably entail a doctrinal change, since the Church has in the past
consistently taught that capital punishment can
in principle be used.
2. Feser falls into the
fallacy of begging the question when he insists that a total rejection of the
death penalty contradicts “the irreformable teaching of Scripture and
Tradition.” This is his position, but I don’t believe he’s proven it to be
true. There’s no irreformable teaching of Scripture and Tradition that prevents
the Church from judging now that the death penalty is inadmissible in light of
a deeper understanding of the Gospel.
This is an
even less plausible charge than the claim that I had set up a false
dichotomy. I would be guilty of begging
the question if I simply asserted, without argument, that capital punishment is
the irreformable teaching of scripture and tradition. But of course, I have in fact provided a
great deal of argumentation in support of that claim, in writings such as my Catholic World Report article “Capital punishment and the infallibility of
the ordinary Magisterium,” and in my book By
Man Shall His Blood Be Shed (co-authored with Joe
Bessette). And of course, Fastiggi knows
this, both because he has commented before on these earlier works, and because I
refer to them in the very article to which he is responding here!
Fastiggi has the right to disagree with the arguments I present in those writings,
but he has no right to speak as if they don’t exist. Yet one would have to pretend that they don’t
exist in order to accuse me of begging the question. Indeed, if I wanted to play Fastiggi’s game,
I would say that he is begging the
question, given that his comments here simply assume, without argument, that my
other writings fail to make the case for irreformability.
Anyway, the interested reader is directed to the article and book just
referred to, where he will find ample evidence that the Church has indeed
taught irreformably that capital punishment is not per se contrary to either natural law or the Gospel.
But even if Feser were
persuaded that his position is true, he should abide by what the Congregation
for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) teaches in its 1990 document, Donum
Veritatis, no. 27: “ the theologian will not present his own opinions or
divergent hypotheses as though they were non-arguable conclusions.”
Fastiggi is
attacking a straw man. I have never said
and never would say that my own opinions are non-arguable conclusions. What I have said is that the consistent teaching of scripture, the Fathers and Doctors of the Church,
and two millennia of popes are non-arguable conclusions. The Church says the same thing (as I show in
the writings referred to above), and the Church says that the legitimacy in
principle of capital punishment is among these consistent teachings of
scripture, the Fathers and Doctors of the Church, and two millennia of popes
(as I also show in the writings referred to above).
3. Feser assumes that
Pope Francis’s opposition to life sentences is not defensible. In fact, Pope
Francis’s position is in line with the top human rights court in Europe, which
in 2013 ruled that sentences of life in prison without parole represent inhuman
and degrading treatment and violate the European Convention of Human
Rights: https://thinkprogress.org/top-european-human-rights-court-deems-life-in-prison-without-parole-inhuman-and-degrading-d615fc306396/
First,
whatever one thinks of this “top human rights court in Europe” and its
assertions about life imprisonment, they have zero doctrinal relevance. They
are relevant at most only to the prudential
question about whether life imprisonment is a good idea in practice, not to the
doctrinal question about whether it is legitimate in principle. So, Fastiggi’s remark here hardly undermines
my main point that the pope’s remarks about life imprisonment are best
interpreted as the expression of a prudential judgment rather than as a
doctrinal revision.
Second, it
is worth noting that Fastiggi completely ignores the points I made about the
problematic consequences of abolishing life imprisonment (such as that it would
entail paroling serial killers and Nazi war criminals). Surely any attempt to show that the abolition
of life imprisonment is “defensible” should address this rather glaring
difficulty?
Feser’s [sic] suggests
that Pope Francis’s opposition to life sentences represents “a secular rather
than a Catholic understanding of hope.” This is a complete non sequitur. To
hope for criminals to undergo reform and eventually be released from prison in
no way denies hope in eternal life. Feser’s suggestion is gratuitous and
insulting to Pope Francis.
Fastiggi’s
remarks here are a gratuitous and insulting misrepresentation of what I actually
wrote. I never said that either the
pope, or his view about life imprisonment, “denies hope in eternal life.” What I said is that when he appeals to hope
when criticizing life imprisonment, he is making use of a secular conception of
hope rather than the Catholic theological conception of hope. It’s not that he denies the latter, but just that he does not make use of it.
And that is manifestly
the case. For one thing, as I pointed
out in my article, life imprisonment is obviously not incompatible with hope in the theological sense, because no misfortune we can suffer in this life
is incompatible with hope in that sense.
For another thing, it is clear from Pope Francis’s own words that he has
a secular conception of hope in mind. In
my article, I cited remarks in which he ties hope to the possibility for the
offender to “plan a future in freedom.”
And in a
speech from just a few days ago wherein he revisited the theme of
life imprisonment, the pope tied hope to the offender’s “reintegration” into
society and “the right to start over.”
I fail to
see why it is “insulting” to Pope Francis simply to call attention to what he
actually said.
4. Feser speaks of Pope
Francis “attributing” a certain position to the Russian author Doystoyevsky. [sic]
Feser, though, seems ignorant of the source of the Holy Father’s citation. The
passage Pope Francis cites is from the novel, The Idiot, and it needs to be
read in context to appreciate the profound insight of the Christ-like
character, Prince Mishkyn, concerning the death penalty: https://flaglerlive.com/25951/dostoevsky-idiot-death-penalty/
Pope Francis’s
reference to Doystoyevsky is not really central to his arguments against the
death penalty. Nevertheless, Feser should not comment on the quote from
Doystoyevsky unless he understands the context in which it appears. It should
also be noted that Doystoyevsky was once brought before the firing squad to be
executed (only to receive a last-minute reprieve to serve five years in Siberia).
Doystoyevsky saw a side to the death penalty that few of the living know.
Naturally, I
was aware that the quotation came from Dostoyevsky’s The Idiot. When I said that
the pope “attributes” the quotation to Dostoyevsky, I was not implying that the
attribution was mistaken. Rather, I used
that word precisely to forestall quibbles about matters of Dostoyevsky
exegesis. I knew that some readers might
complain that the words are actually those of a character in a novel rather
than something Dostoyevsky said in a non-fiction context, that to pull them
from context risks oversimplifying their meaning, etc. So I simply spoke of “the view [the pope]
attributes to Dostoyevsky” in the hope of avoiding getting into all that. As Fastiggi’s quibbles here indicate, my
hopes were in vain.
Anyway, the
average person who reads the pope’s remarks is hardly likely to know all the
context that Fastiggi says needs to be taken into account. The average reader will just see that the
pope approvingly quotes a remark to the effect that executing a murderer is
worse than what the murderer did – a claim that many are likely to find
shocking and incompatible with traditional Catholic teaching. If Fastiggi wants to insist that people
shouldn’t cite this Dostoyevsky passage without making the context clear, then
it seems he should direct his complaints to Pope Francis rather than to me.
5. Prof. Feser
continues to appeal to a leaked 2004 memo of Cardinal Ratzinger regarding
worthiness to receive communion. This memo was not focused on the death
penalty, and it was written within the context of the 1997 Catechism on the
death penalty. Since the new formulation of CCC 2267 has replaced the version
in force in 2004, the brief comment of Cardinal Ratzinger articulated in his
2004 memo no longer applies. Moreover, it’s simply bad theology to cite a
document of lesser importance to override a later document of greater
importance and authority.
First, it is
extremely misleading to say that the
memo in question “was not focused on the death penalty.” It was not focused only on the death penalty, but it was most certainly intended to
clarify the Church’s teaching on matters of life and death, including the death penalty (alongside
war, abortion, and euthanasia).
Second, the
memo is in fact extremely important to the current discussion, precisely because
it clarifies the status of the Church’s teaching on those matters, including
its current teaching.
Here’s
why. The memo was written by
then-Cardinal Ratzinger, who was at the time the Prefect of the Congregation
for the Doctrine of the Faith under Pope St. John Paul II. In other words, he was the Church’s chief
doctrinal officer, responsible for clarifying for the faithful the meaning of
the Church’s teachings, including those
of John Paul II himself. And
Ratzinger made it clear in that memo (and elsewhere, as Joe Bessette and I
discuss in our book) that John Paul II’s teaching on capital punishment was a prudential matter rather than a
development of doctrine. That’s why, as
the memo explicitly says, even a faithful Catholic can be “at odds with the
Holy Father on the application of capital punishment” and why “there may be a
legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about… applying the death
penalty.”
Now, Pope
Francis appeals to Pope John Paul II’s teaching in order to justify his own
revision to the Catechism. He says that
he is merely extending what John Paul said.
But John Paul II’s teaching was
prudential rather than a matter of doctrinal revision, as John Paul II’s
own chief doctrinal officer confirmed.
So, Pope Francis’s extension (as he sees it) of John Paul’s teaching can
itself be merely prudential. Whereas John Paul II made the prudential
judgment that the cases in which the death penalty is called for are “very
rare, if not non-existent,” Francis makes the prudential judgement that they
are flatly non-existent. But in both
cases, we have merely a prudential judgment.
So, Fastiggi
is mischaracterizing my use of the memo.
I am not guilty of citing a document of lesser magisterial authority in
order to override a document of greater magisterial authority. What is in fact going on is this. There are two documents here of equal
magisterial weight: (a) the text of the Catechism as John Paul II left it, and
(b) Pope Francis’s revision to the text of the Catechism. What I am doing is citing a clarification
made by the Church’s official doctrinal spokesman – the man whose job it was to make such
clarifications and who spoke for John
Paul II – about the proper understanding of (a). And I am then saying that we have to
interpret (b) in light of this proper understanding of (a), especially because Pope Francis himself has indicated that
he is merely extending what is already there in (a).
Now, what we
are debating here is the proper interpretation of the Church’s magisterial
documents. And Fastiggi, who has over
the years consistently tried to downplay significance of the 2004 memo, is guilty
of ignoring the Church’s own
clarification of the meaning of those documents. Now that,
I submit, is bad theology.
6. Feser seems to
believe he is justified in not accepting what Pope Francis and the Catholic
Church now teach about the death penalty because he finds the arguments
unpersuasive. Here Prof. Feser directly contradicts the teaching of the CDF in
no. 28 of Donum Vertitatis [sic] which explictly says that disagreement with a
magisterial teaching “could not be justified if it were based solely on the
fact that the validity of the given teaching is not evident or upon the opinion
that the opposite position would be the more probable.”
This is a
gross misrepresentation of my position. Fastiggi
makes it sound as if I have identified some teaching unambiguously put forward
by Pope Francis as binding on the faithful, and then gone on to reject that
teaching. As anyone who has read my article
knows, that is precisely what I have not done.
What I have actually done is to note that Pope Francis’s words are ambiguous between two possible
teachings: (a) a reversal of the Church’s traditional teaching that capital
punishment can in principle be legitimate, and (b) a mere prudential judgment
to the effect that even if it is in principle legitimate, it is better in
practice to abolish capital punishment.
Now, as
Fastiggi well knows, it is a general principle of Catholic theology that
magisterial statements ought if possible to be interpreted in a way consistent
with traditional teaching. That alone
makes reading (b) preferable to reading (a).
Furthermore, as is clear from the passages from Donum Veritatis that I cited in my article (and which Fastiggi
conveniently ignores, since they undermine his case), the Church permits
respectful criticism of magisterial statements that are problematic in various
ways, including with respect to their content.
And there can be nothing more
problematic with a magisterial statement than an apparent conflict with
scripture, the Fathers and Doctors of the Church, and two millennia of
consistent papal teaching. Therefore,
even if the pope intended reading (a)
(which he has not said he intends,
and indeed which he has implicitly rejected since he says that he is in no way
contradicting past teaching) a Catholic would be within his rights to withhold
assent to (a).
So, the
better reading is reading (b). But if
reading (b) is what is intended, then the
Church herself does not require assent to it in the first place, because
prudential judgments require only respectful consideration rather than
assent. As I argue in my article, if (b)
is the correct interpretation, then what then-Cardinal Ratzinger said in the
2004 memo still applies.
So, though Fastiggi
accuses me of dissenting from some binding teaching, the whole point of my
article was to show that that is not what is going on with those who have been
critical of the revision to the Catechism.
He is simply begging the question
against the argument presented in the article.
7. Feser’s rejection of
the new teaching of the Church on the death penalty is in direct violation of
what Lumen Gentium, 25 teaches about the need to adhere to teachings of the
ordinary papal Magisterium “with religious submission of mind and will.” His
rejection also violates canon 752 of the 1983 CIC and no. 892 of the Catechism
of the Catholic Church.
Again, this
simply begs the question in the way I just described. It also ignores inconvenient texts like the
passages I quoted from Donum Veritatis
and from St. Thomas, as well as the qualifications that the Church herself puts on the requirement of assent, which I set
out at length in an
earlier post to which I linked in my article.
Feser and his followers
do not seem to understand the “argument from authority” that applies to
teachings of the ordinary papal magisterium and judgments of the Congregation
for the Doctrine of the Faith. Catholics who support the new formulation of CCC
2267 are being faithful Catholics. Prof. Feser’s attempt to put such faithful
Catholics and the Pope on the defensive suggests that he believes he has more
authority than the Roman Pontiff. If he has difficulty accepting the Church’s
new teaching on the death penalty he should, in a spirit of humility, make every
effort to understand the teaching “with an evangelical spirit and with a
profound desire to resolve his difficulties” (CDF, Donum, Vertiatis, 30). [sic]
I have no difficulty with the new teaching. I hope and pray that Prof. Feser
and his followers will overcome their difficulties.
Here we see
Fastiggi once again deploying two of his favorite rhetorical tricks. The first is to suggest that I am appealing
to my own “authority.” Of course, I am doing
no such thing. Again, I am only ever appealing
to what the Church herself says. In particular, I am appealing to the
consistent teaching of scripture, the Fathers and Doctors of the Church, and
two millennia of popes. I am appealing
to what the Church says about the proper interpretation of scripture and
scripture’s freedom from moral error. I
am appealing to what the Church says about the conditions under which the
ordinary magisterium teaches infallibly.
I am appealing to what the Church says about the authority of the
Fathers and the Doctors. I am appealing
to what the Church says about the conditions under which respectful criticisms
of deficient magisterial statements might be raised. And so on.
Again, see By Man Shall His Blood
Be Shed for the mountain of evidence and argumentation along these lines,
or, if you lack the time or patience for that, at least my
article on capital punishment and the ordinary magisterium.
What Fastiggi
does is to try to chip away a little at this mountain by raising weak
objections to some of the arguments I have presented, and then to try to
undermine the rest of it by writing it off as an appeal to my own “authority.” This is a rhetorical distraction, nothing
more. Either the arguments I present are
cogent or they are not. If they are
cogent, then labeling them mere appeals to my own “authority” does not
magically make them less cogent. And if
they are not cogent, then the problem
is that they are not cogent, not that they are appeals to my “authority.” Either way, the focus should be on the arguments themselves. To go on about my “authority” or lack thereof
is just to kick up dust.
The second
rhetorical trick Fastiggi likes to play is to make reference to my “followers,”
as if I were the leader of some movement.
I don’t have “followers.” I have readers.
And some of them sometimes find some argument that I have given to be
convincing, while finding Fastiggi’s counterarguments to be unconvincing. That’s all.
Characterizing these people as “followers,” while fancying himself a
noble defender of the magisterium against them, doesn’t magically make my
arguments any worse or his any better.
It is simply another rhetorical distraction.
Moreover,
Fastiggi doesn’t see that these same rhetorical tricks could be turned against
him. Someone inclined toward
Fastiggi-style rhetoric could say that he is pitting his own “authority”
against the weight of scripture, the Fathers and Doctors of the Church, and two
millennia of popes. One could suggest
that Fastiggi and his “followers” are bent on encouraging Pope Francis to teach
something contrary to traditional teaching – rather than respectfully
encouraging him, in line with Donum
Veritatis and the teaching of St. Thomas, to reaffirm traditional teaching. Again, one could do these things if one were inclined toward
Fastiggi-style rhetoric. I’m not.
One last
comment. Fastiggi’s expression “the
Church’s new teaching” should give every faithful Catholic the dry heaves. The Church has no “new teachings.” The Church only ever teaches what has been
believed “always, everywhere, and by all,” as St. Vincent of Lerins put it. The Church only ever teaches “the same doctrine,
[in] the same sense, and the same understanding,” as the First Vatican Council
solemnly affirmed. While the
Church may clarify the sense of her traditional
teachings and draw out the implications
of those teachings, she may never reverse
those teachings or introduce “some new doctrine,” as the same council
taught. The Church cries out, with Pope
St. Pius X: “Far, far from the clergy be the love of novelty!”
The most faithful
Catholics, and the most loyal sons of our Holy Father, Pope Francis, are those
who interpret his teaching in continuity with tradition, and who respectfully
implore him – in obedience to the teaching of Donum Veritatis and of St. Thomas – explicitly to reaffirm that
tradition.
“Such a disagreement could not be justified if it were based solely upon the fact that the validity of the given teaching is not evident or upon the opinion that the opposite position would be the more probable. Nor, furthermore, would the judgment of the subjective conscience of the theologian justify it because conscience does not constitute an autonomous and exclusive authority for deciding the truth of a doctrine”
UPDATE 9/21:
Prof. Fastiggi has
responded in the comments section over at Catholic World Report. Here
are his responses, followed by my replies:
I am honored you would
give so much attention to my comments regarding your recent article in Catholic
World Report. I will now respond to the points you raised to my numbered
comments:
1. You seemed to miss
what I said. The third alternative would be that the revision of CCC 2267
represents both a doctrinal development/change and a prudential application. To
my mind, you did set up a false dichotomy.
This is no
answer at all. As I said before, in
order to show that I was guilty of setting up a false dichotomy, Fastiggi needs
to tell us exactly what this new
doctrinal principle is that both rules out the death penalty in all cases and
yet is neither a reversal of past doctrinal principle nor merely a prudential
judgement. Just saying that there is such a principle does not
suffice. If I say “Either A or B” and
you accuse me of a fallacy of false dichotomy, the accusation is groundless
unless you can identify some further proposition C that I have failed to
consider. All Fastiggi has done is yet
again to assert, without argument, that
there is such a proposition. He hasn’t
told us what that proposition is.
The
proposition can’t be something like “The death penalty is always wrong in
principle,” because that would contradict past doctrinal principle, and
Fastiggi claims that the pope’s revision does not contradict past
doctrine. Nor can it be “The death
penalty is always wrong in principle unless necessary to protect society
against the offender,” for two reasons.
First, the revision says flatly that capital punishment is “inadmissible,”
and makes no reference to any exceptions.
Second, Fastiggi holds that Pope St. John Paul II already limited the
legitimate use of capital punishment even in principle to cases where it is
necessary to protect society against the offender. (In fact this is not true, since as Joe
Bessette and I show in our book, John Paul’s teaching was merely prudential
rather than a development of doctrinal principle. But what matters for present purposes is that
Fastiggi thinks it was a development
of doctrine.) So, since Pope Francis presents
the revision as going beyond what
John Paul already said, it must be insisting on a more thoroughgoing ban on
capital punishment than the thesis that the death penalty should never be used
except where necessary to protect society.
But the only
remaining possibility seems to be to interpret it as the expression of a thesis
like “The death penalty is always wrong under
current circumstances.” But that
reduces it to a mere prudential judgment, and Fastiggi says that the revision
entails something stronger than a mere prudential judgment (even if, he says,
it also in part involves a prudential
judgment).
So, again, we
have yet to be told by Fastiggi exactly what this principle is that is neither
a reversal of past doctrinal principle nor a mere prudential judgment. And until he tells us, his accusation that I
am guilty of a false dichotomy rings hollow.
2. I think you do beg
the question because you state your opinion at times as if it were an
established fact.
That’s not
what “begging the question” means.
Fastiggi’s conception of what “begging the question” amounts to would
entail that anyone who thinks that something is an established fact, but who
turns out to be wrong, is begging the question.
And that is not the case. For
example, Europeans used to think that all swans are white, and this turned out
to be wrong. But they weren’t for that
reason begging the question. They were just mistaken, that’s all. Similarly, even if it turned out that I am
wrong to think that the Church’s traditional teaching on capital punishment is
irreformable, that doesn’t entail that I am committing the fallacy of begging
the question. It would just mean that I
was mistaken.
3. Pope Francis has not
articulated his position against life sentences with the same insistence as he
has against the death penalty. Perhaps it is only a prudential judgment. Behind
every prudential judgment, though, are certain principles that are worthy of
respect.
Actually,
the only significant difference is that the pope has not inserted the
teaching
against life imprisonment into the Catechism.
But as the citations I gave show, he has raised the issue many times, he
has characterized life imprisonment as morally on a par with the death
penalty,
and he has invoked the Magisterium when commenting on it. That’s pretty
significant. Now, as I have argued, because what he says
about life imprisonment would be very problematic if interpreted as a
statement
of doctrinal principle, it is better interpreted as a prudential
judgment. But since he characterizes the death penalty
and life imprisonment as morally on a par, this would give us good
reason to
interpret his teaching on capital punishment as merely prudential as
well. That was my argument, and Fastiggi has not
answered it.
I provided the example
of the European court of human rights to show that Pope Francis’s position
against life imprisonment without parole is held by many respectable people. The
authority of Pope Francis’s position comes from his authority as the Roman
Pontiff not from the European court.
As some of
Fastiggi’s readers have pointed out, the suggestion that the European Court of
Human Rights is a source of “respectable” moral opinion is dubious given the
court’s rulings on abortion.
Here is what you said
about Pope Francis’s view of hope: […]
My point was that hope
for life outside prison does not deny a Catholic understanding of hope. I am
glad you now accept that point. It wasn’t clear in your article. In fact, you
took it upon yourself to quote 1 Cor 15:19 as if the Holy Father needed to be
reminded of this Scripture.
I highly
doubt that the Holy Father reads my blog.
I quoted that passage to illustrate how radically different the
theological virtue of hope is from hope in a secular sense. I fail to see what is wrong with that.
4. I am glad you are
aware of the context of the Dostoyevsky quote. It’s not central to the Holy
Father’s argument, but it’s something worth considering. Since the reference is
not so central, I wonder why you gave it so much attention. I suspect it’s
because you want to make Pope Francis look bad. But it doesn’t really make him
look bad. The insight on the death penalty provided in the novel, The Idiot, is
something we all need to contemplate.
Pope Francis
is known for a tendency to say things that are theologically imprecise and sometimes
even extreme. For example, he once famously
remarked that “the great majority of our sacramental marriages are null” (a
remark he
later qualified). I quoted
his remark about Dostoyevsky to illustrate that he has this tendency when he
talks about capital punishment no less than when he talks about other
subjects. And the point is that,
precisely because of this tendency toward imprecision and overstatement, we
need to be very cautious before drawing momentous doctrinal implications from
Pope Francis’s various statements.
Now, it is
true that calling attention to this tendency might make him look bad, because
popes, of all people, should, given the nature of their office, be precise and
cautious in what they say in public. But
it is unfair to accuse me of wanting to
make him look bad. That was not my intent. My intent was to call attention to a
consideration that is highly relevant to interpreting the meaning of the pope’s
remarks on capital punishment and evaluating their doctrinal status.
This is
hardly some novel point of my own. As
Joe Bessette and I note in our book (at p. 170), in volume I of their Contemporary Moral Theology, Ford and
Kelly give examples of statements from Pius XI and Pius XII that were
potentially misleading because of their imprecision, and that were later
qualified. Ford and Kelly use these
examples to illustrate the point that “a theologian is not necessarily
irreverent or disloyal in supposing that [some papal] statements may need
clarification or restriction or rephrasing” (p. 30).
5. You completely miss
my point on the 2004 memo of Cardinal Ratzinger. First of all, the Cardinal in
the memo never says that the teaching of John Paul II on the death penalty was
merely prudential. The word “prudential” does not appear in the text.
The word
“prudential” does not have to be in the text in order for it to have the
implication that John Paul’s teaching was prudential. The memo says that “if a Catholic were to be
at odds with the Holy Father on the application of capital punishment… he would
not for that reason be considered unworthy to present himself to receive Holy
Communion,” and that “there may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among
Catholics about… applying the death penalty.” Obviously, it follows that the
views of John Paul II with which a faithful Catholic may be “at odds” and have
a “legitimate” difference of opinion about cannot be matters of doctrinal
principle. Hence they must be
prudential.
The 1997 version of CCC
2267 left open the possibility of applying the death penalty if it were “the
only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust
aggressor.” This is why Cardinal Ratzinger could say in 2004 that the death
penalty could still be applied and there might be a legitimate diversity of
opinions about applying the death penalty. Since Cardinal Ratzinger was one of
the major editors of the 1997 Catechism we must assume that the legitimate
diversity of opinions corresponded to the very limited possibilities for the
use of the death penalty in that edition of the CCC.
As I’ve
said, Joe Bessette and I show at length in our book (at pp. 163-82) that there
are several considerations, including other remarks from Cardinal Ratzinger,
that make it clear that John Paul II’s restriction of the death penalty to
cases where it is necessary to protect society was itself merely a prudential
judgment rather than a development of doctrine.
But even if it had been a development of doctrine, the memo makes it
clear that a Catholic would still have the right to argue that capital
punishment is necessary in some cases for the defense of society against the
aggressor. And given the argument I gave
above about the relevance of the memo to interpreting both the 1997 version of
the Catechism and the new revision (which claims to be merely extending the
principles underlying the 1997 version), the teaching of the memo applies today
no less than it did in 2004.
Because Pope Francis
ordered a revision of CCC 2267, the more authoritative text is the revised text
of 2018. This text supersedes the 1997 version and has more authority now.
But the
question is, exactly what is the doctrinal principle that the 2018 version
contains that is different from what the 1997 version contained. And as I noted above, Fastiggi still hasn’t
answered that question. But then, since
he hasn’t even told us what the doctrinal principle is, he can hardly claim to have shown that that principle leaves no
room for there to be legitimate disagreement among Catholics on the prudential
question of whether capital punishment is still sometimes necessary in
practice.
You are simply wrong to
claim that we are dealing with two documents of “equal magisterial weight.” The
2018 version supersedes the 1997 version just as the 1997 version superseded
the earlier 1992 version. Because the 2018 version does not allow for the very
limited possibilities of applying the death penalty found in the 1997 version,
it is bad theology to cite a 2004 memo of Cardinal Ratzinger to override the
authority of the later revised version of CCC 2267. This revised version was
ordered by the Roman Pontiff and supported by the Congregation for the Doctrine
of the Faith. It clearly supersedes the authority of the leaked 2004 memo,
which is now outdated with respect to the death penalty.
Fastiggi is
here equivocating on the expression “magisterial weight.” The expression could connote either:
(a) the
relative authority of documents of different types, such as ex cathedra definitions, conciliar
decrees, encyclicals, catechisms, papal allocutions, documents from the CDF,
etc. (where you might label this a synchronic
notion of magisterial weight), or
(b) the way
later magisterial statements may be intended to clarify earlier magisterial
statements (where you might label this a diachronic
notion of magisterial weight).
Now, in our
earlier exchange, Fastiggi objected that a memo didn’t have the same weight as
a catechism, and thus was clearly appealing to notion (a). I responded that the significance of the memo
was that it clarified the meaning of the 1997 version of the catechism – which,
qua catechism, has the same magisterial weight in sense (a) as the 2018 version of the catechism has. A catechism doesn’t somehow cease being a
catechism just because a later revision, or a later catechism altogether, comes
along. For example, the Roman Catechism
of Pope St. Pius V is not somehow now a non-catechism just because Pope John
Paul II issued a new one. So, in sense (a) – which is the sense I had
in mind – the 1997 and 2018 versions of the current catechism, along with the
Roman Catechism, are indeed of “equal magisterial weight.”
But isn’t
the 2018 version nevertheless of greater magisterial weight than the 1997
version in sense (b)? And doesn’t that mean that we should now
ignore the 1997 version and care only about the 2018 version? No, because as I have said, the 2018 version
claims precisely to be extending the principles of the 1997 version. So we need properly to understand the latter
if we are properly to understand the former.
But the 2004 memo shows (or, to be more precise, is one of several considerations
that show – again, see the discussion at pp. 163-82 of By Man Shall His Blood Be Shed) that the 1997 version amounted to a
prudential judgment. And my point was
that this prudential nature of the 1997 version carries over into the 2018
revision.
Fastiggi
hasn’t answered this point. He simply
misses it.
6. I am afraid you also
miss my point here. It is quite clear that you disagree with the revised text
of CCC 2267, which carries magisterial authority because it was ordered by the
Roman Pontiff. Here is what no. 28 of Donum Veritatis says:
“Such a disagreement could not be justified if it were based solely upon the fact that the validity of the given teaching is not evident or upon the opinion that the opposite position would be the more probable. Nor, furthermore, would the judgment of the subjective conscience of the theologian justify it because conscience does not constitute an autonomous and exclusive authority for deciding the truth of a doctrine”
Now it’s quite clear
that you believe Pope Francis’s teaching on the death penalty is not evident
and the arguments for the opposite position are more probable. The CDF, though,
specifically says that your disagreement is not justified on such grounds. The
claim that the Church does not require assent to authentic teachings of
ordinary magisterium is nowhere supported by the CDF in Donum Veritatis.
As I have
said, in order to disagree with some teaching, you first have to know what it
is. And as I have also said, what is at
issue here is precisely the question of exactly
what Pope Francis is teaching. Is he
saying (a) that capital punishment is always illegitimate even in principle, or (b) that it is
legitimate in principle but always illegitimate under current circumstances?
The revision to the Catechism is ambiguous between readings (a) and (b)
(though (b), as I have also suggested, should be the default interpretation
given the “hermeneutic of continuity”).
But either way we interpret it, I have argued, assent to it cannot be
obligatory on Catholics. For on
interpretation (a) we would have a conflict with traditional teaching, and the
norms for legitimate respectful criticism set out by Donum Veritatis (in passages quoted in my original article) would
kick in. And on interpretation (b), we
would have a mere prudential judgment, and Catholics are not obligated to
assent to such judgments in the first place.
Now,
Fastiggi is here simply ignoring this argument rather than answering it. He is simply stomping his foot, shouting that
“it is quite clear that you disagree with the revised text,” and then
expressing his disapproval of this purported disagreement. But what is at issue is precisely whether the text is in fact saying something that Catholics
are obligated to agree with in the first place. And if it isn’t
saying something that Catholics are obligated to agree with, then the passage
from Donum Veritatis cited by
Fastiggi is moot.
What
Fastiggi owes us, then, is an actual response to the argument, rather than a
reiteration of the same question-begging, foot-stomping accusation.
The document does make
room for raising questions “regarding the timeliness, the form, or even the
contents of magisterial interventions” (no. 24). Respectfully raising questions
is not the same as public dissent from a magisterial teaching. As I explained
above, I do not believe the revised text of CCC 2267 is merely prudential. A
prudential judgment applies principles to concrete cases. Here is the revised
teaching of CCC 2267:
“Consequently, the
Church teaches, in the light of the Gospel, that ‘the death penalty is
inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the
person’, and she works with determination for its abolition worldwide.”
How is this teaching
merely prudential? The “light of the Gospel” is not merely prudential but
normative. The “inviolability and dignity of the person” is not a prudential
judgment but a theological principle by which to make moral judgments. Your
claim that this teaching is merely prudential does not correspond to the text
and, therefore, must be rejected. Moreover, even with respect to interventions
in the prudential order, Donum Veritatis never says that such interventions
only require “respectful consideration rather than assent.” This is your
inference, but it’s not to be found in the text itself. Nowhere does Donum
Veritatis ever justify dissent. Instead it speaks of dissent as a “problem.”
Here too
Fastiggi yet again just begs the question and misses the point. I have already myself explained how the revision
contains some elements that point to
a “prudential” reading, but also elements
that point to a “doctrinal revision” reading.
So in pointing to the latter, Fastiggi is merely reiterating things I
have already acknowledged. But he is
also ignoring the problem that, if
the new text is read as a doctrinal revision, then it would seem to contradict
traditional teaching. And I have already
explained ad nauseam why that is a
massive problem, and how
the Church allows the faithful respectfully to disagree in such a case.
Now, though
Fastiggi himself is open to a reversal of the traditional teaching, he appears
to think that the revision to the Catechism does not quite amount to that. He thinks it does constitute a novel doctrinal
principle, but not one that strictly contradicts past teaching. Yet as we have seen, he has also now twice failed to tell us exactly what this novel doctrinal principle
is. Even Fastiggi, it seems, does
not know exactly what the revision is saying.
But then how can he accuse anyone of “dissent,” if he cannot tell us
what we are dissenting from?
7. You completely fail
to respond to my point here. It’s quite clear to me that you do not adhere to
the teaching of the revised text of CCC 2267 with religious submission of will
and intellect. In spite of your attempts to justify your dissent, the fact
remains that you do dissent from the teaching. Your reasons justifying your
dissent fail because Donum Veritatis, no. 28 specifically says that
disagreement with a magisterial teaching “could not be justified if it were
based solely upon the fact that the validity of the given teaching is not
evident or upon the opinion that the opposite position would be the more
probable.” Your appeals to the Church Fathers and “two millennia of popes” are
all open to challenge. At the end of the day, all you can offer are your own
reasons for justifying your dissent. But who’s to decide whether your reasons
for dissent are sufficient to justify your resistance to a clear magisterial
teaching? It seems that you are assuming the authority that belongs to the
magisterium itself. You certainly have the right to make known to the
magisterial authorities your difficulties with the revised version of CCC 2267.
In the final analysis, though, it’s up to the magisterium to decide the issue
not you. So until the magisterium decides to revise the text of CCC 2267, I
will abide with what the magisterium teaches and not Dr. Feser.
This is just
more of the same question-begging and foot-stomping. Phrases like “it is quite clear to me,” “it
seems that,” etc. merely inform us about the subjective feelings of certainty that
Fastiggi finds when he introspects the contents of his own consciousness. They provide exactly zero evidence that I am
actually guilty of what he accuses me of.
And once
again, Fastiggi’s last redoubt is to object that “at the end of the day, all
you can offer are your own reasons,” and to claim that I am appealing to my own
“authority” – despite the fact that I consistently appeal, not to my own authority or reasons but rather to scripture, the
Fathers and Doctors of the Church, the popes, what the Church herself says
about the infallibility of the ordinary magisterium over time, what the Church
herself says about the circumstances under which respectful criticisms may be
raised, etc.
But Fastiggi
is guilty of a rather simple and obvious fallacy. No matter what the reasons are that any
person gives for any conclusion, he is in a trivial sense giving what are his reasons. They are, after all, reasons that he gives. And in that completely trivial sense, I have
indeed been giving “my own reasons.” But
then, in that completely trivial sense, Fastiggi
too has been giving “his own
reasons.” They are, after all, reasons he gave – they came from his keyboard, out of his mouth, etc.
Now,
obviously this has nothing to do with “private judgment,” putting one’s own
“authority” in place of the Church’s, etc.
It is just a trivial consequence of the fact that a person can’t give
any reasons for anything at all, not even when the reasons amount to “The
magisterium says so,” without he himself
being the one who is presenting those reasons.
That is simply a point about the nature of communication, and has no
theological significance.
Fastiggi’s
fallacy is in thinking that, since anything I say is at the end of the day
coming out of my mouth or from my keyboard, and thus in that (completely
trivial) sense counts as “my reasons,” it follows that I am guilty of pitting
my “authority” against that of the pope, that I am guilty of the error of
private judgment, etc. But again, that
is nothing but a crude fallacy, rather than the devastating trump card Fastiggi
supposes it to be.
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Comments are subject to deletion if they are not germane. I have no problem with a bit of colourful language, but blasphemy or depraved profanity will not be allowed. Attacks on the Catholic Faith will not be tolerated. Comments will be deleted that are republican (Yanks! Note the lower case 'r'!), attacks on the legitimacy of Pope Francis as the Vicar of Christ (I know he's a material heretic and a Protector of Perverts, and I definitely want him gone yesterday! However, he is Pope, and I pray for him every day.), the legitimacy of the House of Windsor or of the claims of the Elder Line of the House of France, or attacks on the legitimacy of any of the currently ruling Houses of Europe.