Catholic Info
Traditional Catholic Faith => Fighting Errors in the Modern World => Topic started by: Isaac C Bishop on March 11, 2025, 06:54:30 AM
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Short letter to the editor
Letters: Smith on Biblical Justice, Lanese on elected officials ignoring constituents - Vermont Daily Chronicle (https://vermontdailychronicle.com/letters-smith-on-biblical-justice-lanese-on-elected-officials-ignoring-constituents/)
Under Biblical law, the tax-funded prison system would be eliminated and swift justice reinstated, and measures against perjury and false accusations more firmly established.
Crimes would focus on the guilty party compensating the victim and preventing future offenses rather than on state punishment. Classifying crimes as “against the state” shifts the focus from victim compensation to criminal punishment. Biblical law has things the other way round. For example, our approach to robbery is flawed in several ways:
Victims of assault and robbery see their attacker imprisoned, yes, yet they also indirectly fund the criminal’s prosecution and housing through taxes. In Vermont, taxpayers pay over $50,000 annually to house a prisoner. Victims receive no compensation; instead, they bear the financial burden, while the criminal is supported by taxpayers who had no part in the crime.
Think of another scenario from the viewpoint of a survivor of a serial rapist and murderer. Years after the attack, the victim still suffered mental and physical trauma while her assaulter was “eating three meals a day, had a television, and didn’t have to work or worry about rent. He had gotten married in prison and was having people write to him…he was costing the state $26,500 per year just in food and housing…I was a victim, yet no one was paying my rent or making sure I got three meals a day…he was sitting on death row with his every need being cared for.”
In the Bible, justice was based on compensation to the victim by the guilty party and on discouraging future crimes. With an eye to prevention, the Bible imposed an uneven punishment for theft; you had to give back more than you took. Exodus 22:1 reads, “If a man steals an ox or a sheep, and slaughters it or sells it, he shall restore five oxen for an ox and four sheep for a sheep.” Proverbs 6:31 says, “Yet when he is found, he must restore sevenfold; He may have to give up all the substance of his house.”
This system ensures that neither victims nor innocent bystanders are taxed to fund it. Instead, victims receive overcompensation for their losses, while heavy penalties discourage future theft. There is nothing immoral about this approach. The immorality, it might be argued, lies in what we are doing at present.
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I spent a good deal of time living in France and Italy and visited countless small towns and villages in both countries.
One thing I noticed is that there were no jails, prisons, or even police departments anywhere
to be found. Both of these things are rather recent developments throughout the West.
When you had both an ethnically homogenous culture that was also Catholic it was more moral and higher trust.
Criminals weren't coddled and justice was swift.
In these towns things had more or less remained the same for centuries. For generations the families were the same, there were bakeries, maybe a pharmacy, a florist, a couple cafes, butcher shop, and there were market days for
anything else.
In middle of each town was a Catholic church and everything centered around that.
Nearly every place you go in America there are overlapping layers of law enforcement departments:
local police, state police, special units, FBI, Sheriff depts, DEA, etc.
Cities have to build and staff more and more facilities to incarcerate more people and in places like
Chicago they release violent repeat felons over and over due to Soros funded judges, district attorneys
and budget restraints.
We have city, state, and federal legislators making new laws every day to add to the tens of thousands
existing laws...yet we are less safe than ever. In addition to our own homegrown criminals we have imported
the worst criminals from other nations.
Fr. Chazal said we must face the reality that live in a post Christian culture but in some respects it's worse than a pagan culture because ours retains the pretense of remaining Christian.
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I spent a good deal of time living in France and Italy and visited countless small towns and villages in both countries.
One thing I noticed is that there were no jails, prisons, or even police departments anywhere
to be found. Both of these things are rather recent developments throughout the West.
When you had both an ethnically homogenous culture that was also Catholic it was more moral and higher trust.
Criminals weren't coddled and justice was swift.
In these towns things had more or less remained the same for centuries. For generations the families were the same, there were bakeries, maybe a pharmacy, a florist, a couple cafes, butcher shop, and there were market days for
anything else.
In middle of each town was a Catholic church and everything centered around that.
Nearly every place you go in America there are overlapping layers of law enforcement departments:
local police, state police, special units, FBI, Sheriff depts, DEA, etc.
Cities have to build and staff more and more facilities to incarcerate more people and in places like
Chicago they release violent repeat felons over and over due to Soros funded judges, district attorneys
and budget restraints.
We have city, state, and federal legislators making new laws every day to add to the tens of thousands
existing laws...yet we are less safe than ever. In addition to our own homegrown criminals we have imported
the worst criminals from other nations.
Fr. Chazal said we must face the reality that live in a post Christian culture but in some respects it's worse than a pagan culture because ours retains the pretense of remaining Christian.
Amen to everything said above.