Could the Francis seamless garment death penalty teaching "'cover' for... legalized abortion"?
Is it possible that the teaching of Bishop Robert Barron and Francis that the "death penalty is inadmissible" can be a heresy?
Webster accurately says heresy is defined as:
Webster's number one synonym for the word "denial" is "contradiction."
Webster's definition of "inadmissible" is:
"Not capable of being allowed or conceded."
Francis is saying the "death penalty is inadmissible" or not allowed which if true contradicts scripture as well as the "infallible and irreformable doctrine of the ordinary Magisterium of the Church."
(Edwardfeser.blogspot.com, "Pope Francis and capital punishment," August 3, 2018)
According to ethics Professor Joseph Bessette, Francis is contradicting the two immediate previous popes before him:
"In 2004,...then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger - the pope's own chief doctrinal officer, later to become Pope Benedict XVI - stated unambiguously that:"
"There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about... applying the death penalty." (Catholic World Report, "Why the Church cannot Reverse Past Teaching on Capital Punishment," June, 7 2017)
One of the greatest Thomist philosophers alive today, Professor Edward Feser, shows that all the talking Catholic head "experts" who say this teaching is ambiguous, prudential and doesn't contradict scriptures and the 2,000 year old doctrine are wrong. Unless, they can come up with something different than what they are saying on the Catholic News Agency over the last few years.
I have a number of his books that have clarity yet amazing depth and have seen him on YouTube make a very intelligent atheist philosophers look amateurish.
In a back and forth in the internet with one of Francis's top theological defenders of capital punishment Professor Robert Fastiggi, he made the professor look unreasonable and ridiculous.
Personally, I can't wait for anyone of Francis's defenders to debate him. It'll be hilarious to see him spank them intellectually.
Anyway, Feser on the new teaching says:
"Pope Francis, by contrast, wants the Catechism to teach that capital punishment ought never to be used... he justifies this change not on prudential grounds, but 'so as to better reflect the development of doctrine.'"
"... Nor does the letter from the CDF [Francis's Vatican doctrine office] explain how the new teaching can be consistent with the teaching of scripture, the Fathers and Doctors of the Church, and previous popes. Merely asserting the new language "develops" rather than "contradicts" past teachings 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."
(First Things, "Pope Francis and Capital Punishment," August, 3 2018)
It appears that many pro-life Catholics who are defending this teaching by irrationally saying it doesn't contradict irreformable dogma or that it is prudential or it is ambiguous don't realize that they are defending the seamless garment and legalized abortion.
Francis's Secretary of State Pietro Parolin before Francis announced his new teaching for the first time let the cat out of the bag. Parolin profusely praised the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin signaling more upcoming support of his centerpiece teaching: the seamless garment.
The seamless garment teaches that there is moral equivalence between prudential social issues "where there can be legitimate diversity of opinion" as Ratzinger taught and abortion which is a grave sin where there can't be diversity of opinion.
One example of this teaching would be teaching that the murder of the unborn babies and the push for unrestricted mass immigration which Francis recently taught in his Gaudete et Exsultate are morally equivalent.
It is probable that Francis knows the vast majority of the new immigrants vote for the abortion party, the Democrats which leads to more legalized abortion.
Another example of the seamless garment would be to make murder of the unborn babies equivalent to not voting for the death penalty heresy of making capital punishment inadmissible or not allowed.
As Research Director for the Acton Institute Dr. Samuel Gregg put it:
"The 'seamless garment'... provide[d] 'cover' for Catholic politicians who supported legalized abortion."
(Catholic World Report, "The Consistent - and not so Seamless - Ethic of Life," August 13, 2015)
Feser and Bessette in their book "By Man Shall His Blood Be Shed" present evidence which shows that the best way to get more abortions is to support ending the death penalty:
"[S]ome... claim... abolition of capital punishment will contribute to 'building a culture of life'... As far as we can see, there is no evidence whatsoever for this claim, and compelling evidence against it. Abortion and euthanasia were much rarer in Western societies when capital punishment was more common, and they have become more common in Western society precisely as support for capital punishment has diminished."
"... Meanwhile, those who are most strongly opposed to capital punishment tend also to be strongly opposed to traditional morality and traditional religious belief. Precisely because of this opposition, though, opponents of capital punishment will also tend (again, not always, but in general) to support abortion and euthanasia. So, the suggestion that opposition to capital punishment is a natural part of 'building a culture of life' appears to be neither true to the sociological facts, nor at all plausible in light of the radical incompatible philosophical, moral, or religious premises that underlie most opposition to abortion and euthanasia, on the one hand, and most opposition to capital punishment on the other." (Pages 201 - 202)
Pray an Our Father now for reparation for the sins committed because of Francis's Amoris Laetitia.