Catholic Info
Traditional Catholic Faith => Catholic Living in the Modern World => Topic started by: spouse of Jesus on April 05, 2010, 12:37:21 AM
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UNICEF is wrong.
I am really against the idea of people under 18 being children. They are not children. A boy of 17 is bodily mature, can marry and be a father, he has mustache and beard. A girl of 17 is even more mature than that. They both have reach the age of reason when they were 7 (means 10 years before).
I wonder if The Church used to punish adolescents for their crimes in the age of faith?
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Part of the problem is having only 2 "modes" of existence -- child and adult.
For purposes of trial for crimes, legality, etc. you're either a "child" or "adult", which magically changes when you attain the age of 18 or 21. That's obviously ridiculous, as change is much more gradual than that.
In our legal system, a man who kills someone the day before his 18th birthday will get a far lighter sentence than a man who kills someone ON his 18th birthday -- assuming the crime committed was exactly the same. Of course, the prosecuting attorney would likely move to "try him as an adult" in the first case, but still -- by default, the age of 18 is considered magical.
The same is true about the age of reason. A child doesn't go to bed the day before his 7th birthday as dumb as a baby and wake up the next morning as rational as an adult.