Edward Feser is my favorite living philosopher, and an expert on Aquinas. Here at First Things, he writes about Bergoglio's dogma-breaking move with the Church's ancient teaching on Capital Punishment. He's the co-author of a book titled:
that came out last year or so.
An excerpt from the First Things article (highlights are mine, of course):
Pope Francis, by contrast, wants
the Catechism to teach that capital punishment
ought never to be used (rather than “very rarely” used), and he justifies this
change not on prudential grounds, but “so as to better reflect the development
of the doctrine on this point.” The implication is that Pope Francis thinks
that considerations of doctrine or principle rule out the use of capital
punishment in an absolute way. Moreover, to say, as the pope does, that the
death penalty conflicts with “the inviolability and dignity of the person”
insinuates that the practice is intrinsically contrary to natural law. And to
say, as the pope does, that “the light of the Gospel” rules out capital
punishment insinuates that it is intrinsically contrary to Christian morality.
To say either of these things is
precisely to contradict past teaching. Nor does the letter from the CDF explain
how the new teaching can be made consistent with the teaching of scripture, the
Fathers and Doctors of the Church, and previous popes. Merely asserting that
the new language “develops” rather than “contradicts” past teaching does not
make it so. The CDF is not Orwell’s Ministry of Truth, and a pope is not Humpty
Dumpty, able by fiat to make words mean whatever he wants them to. Slapping the
label “development” onto a contradiction doesn’t transform it into a
non-contradiction.
An irony is that John Paul’s Catechism
was issued to clarify matters of doctrine, and finally put a halt to
post–Vatican II speculation that Catholic teaching was open to endless
revision. Yet now we have had two revisions to the Catechism’s
own teaching on capital punishment—one in 1997, under John Paul himself, and
another under Francis.
Nor is the problem confined to
capital punishment. This latest development is part of a by-now familiar
pattern. Pope Francis has made statements that appear to contradict traditional
Catholic teaching on contraception, on marriage and divorce, grace, conscience, and Holy Communion, and other matters. He has also
persistently refused to clarify his problematic statements, even when
clarification has been formally and respectfully requested by eminent
theologians and members of the hierarchy. The effect is to embolden those who
want to reverse other traditional teachings of the Church, and to demoralize
those who want to uphold those teachings.
If capital punishment is wrong in principle, then the Church has
for two millennia consistently taught grave moral error and badly
misinterpreted scripture. And if the Church has been so wrong for so long about
something so serious, then there is no teaching that might not be reversed,
with the reversal justified by the stipulation that it be called a
“development” rather than a contradiction. A reversal on capital punishment is
the thin end of a wedge that, if pushed through, could sunder Catholic doctrine
from its past—and thus give the lie to the claim that the Church has preserved
the Deposit of Faith whole and undefiled.
Not only does this reversal
undermine the credibility of every previous pope, it undermines the credibility
of Pope Francis himself. For if Pope St. Innocent I, Pope Innocent III, Pope
St. Pius V, Pope St. Pius X, Pope Pius XII, Pope St. John Paul II, and many
other popes could all get things so badly wrong, why should we believe that
Pope Francis has somehow finally gotten things right?
An Préachán again: There's no question in my mind that some future pope will declare Jorge Bergoglio an "anti-pope".
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