Recently, the news showed a Roman Catholic priest advocating the killing anyone involved with preforming an abortion. He refered to it as "justifiable homicide". According to this priest anyone killing a doctor, who performs abortions, should receive a medal. Yes, he said a medal!
No it wasn't Pope Gallistus II at the Lateran I Council in 1123 forbidding married priest. Nor was it Paul III reaffirming moral standards for clergy at the Council of Trent, 1545-63. It certainly wasn't Dietrich Bonhoeffer who after his work, "The Cost of Discipleship", was executed in a concentration camp. And most assuredly it wasn't something from Derek Humphry founder of the Hemlock Society and ERGO! (an acronym of Euthanasia Research and Guidance Society).
It was a simple parish priest. It could have just as well been a extreme fundamental Protestant or Muslim. Or taken to extremes any ideologue, who thinks he or she is God's personal judge and jury. But who he was is not as important as the point he raised. What is "justifiable homicide"?
Justifiable - adjective: liable to trail in a court of justice or capable of being decided by legal principles or by a court of justice - do justice is to act correctly.
Homicide - noun: a person who kills another or a killing of one human being by another.
Justifiable homicide is the legal act of killing another human being. The key area here is legal. By whose standards or laws? if we go by the laws of our creator we are not allowed to take the life of any human beings. Of course after the Creator established this standard for humanity it became obvious everybody was not going to live up to the expectation of not killing. So particular rules tailored for the people were established that justified some killing.
The keystone to this system is the presence of the one who made the initial rule, the Creator. The absence of the Creator is perhaps the essence of the problem the priest from Mobile was addressing. Tolerate me now as I walk through the various paths logic thinking creates around this issue.
First question needed: what is a human being? Does life begin at conception and end at brain death or does it start with the first breath of fresh air - end with the last grasp?
Second question: can people live together who answer question one differently?
Third question: if they cannot live together what must be done?
Fourth question: is it possible for a group of one opposing view to impose their views and standards on the opposite group in an acceptable manner?
Final question: can a group of people with certain values live peacefully in a society with opposing values?
Possible answers to the above questions -
First answer: however you answer the only justifiable homicide is that defined by the legal or ruling identity.
Second answer: in America we have people who either oppose or favor the death penalty which is justified homicide. If the biological matter is not a human being the whole discussion is moot. If it is a human being, cannot the proper authorities define accurately justifiable homicide?
Third answer: history teaches us that when two opposing standards exists in one place, something eventually must give. Since the beginning of time one or the other groups becomes dominated by the other group and slave to their rules and standards. History also shows that the enslaved group either attempts political take over by peaceful or violent means. If that is not possible they usually migrate to a new land where they can impose their desired standards.
Fourth answer: There are no historical examples of this ever being done successfully.
Final answer: some major philosophies teach that a person or group may live in a society but not be of that society. The early Christian Church is a classic example of this approach. They were a minority group with certain values they could not impose on the greater society of the day. They developed a sub culture and over generations won converts to their beliefs and standards, but it was never peaceful.
In my subculture justified homicide is defined by our God with each person answerable directly to that God. We stress the turning of the cheek; the freedom of others from being judged by God and only God; and that all life that belongs to God goes to God after death of any kind. I am a Christian in a non Christian world. The people of God have always been strangers in our own land.
No I have no answers for all of you. I only have answers for those in my subculture. Just as you find yourself. It is called life.
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