The Catechism in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz) - Day 294: Homicide (2025)

Episode Date: October 21, 2025

Continuing our examination of the fifth commandment, we look at various ways in which one may sin against this commandment as it relates to homicide. The Catechism addresses three categories of homicide: direct and intentional killing, indirectly killing, and unintentionally killing. Fr. Mike explores this grave topic with resonating examples and explains the varying degrees of moral culpability. Today’s readings are Catechism paragraphs 2268-2269. This episode has been found to be in conformity with the Catechism by the Institute on the Catechism, under the Subcommittee on the Catechism, USCCB. For the complete reading plan, visit ascensionpress.com/ciy Please note: The Catechism of the Catholic Church contains adult themes that may not be suitable for children - parental discretion is advised.

Hi, my name is Father Mike Schmitz, and you're listening to the Catechism in a year podcast, where we encounter God's plan of sheer goodness for us revealed in scripture and passed down through the tradition of the Catholic faith. The Catechism in a year is brought to you by ascension. In 365 days, we'll read through the Catechism of the Catholic Church discovering our identity and God's family as we journey together toward our heavenly home. This is day 294. We are reading two paragraphs, paragraph 2268 and paragraph 2269. As always, I'm using the Ascension edition of the catechism, which includes the foundations of faith approach, but you can follow along with any recent version of the catechism of the Catholic Church. You can also download your own catechism

in a year reading plan by visiting ascensionpress.com slash CIY, and you can click follow or subscribe on your podcast app for daily updates and daily notifications. Today, as I said, it's a 294. We are reading paragraphs 2268 and 22669. This is a subsection on intentional homicide. yesterday. We talked about legitimate self-defense. When is self-defense allowed? When is it permissible? When is it a duty to defend either oneself or one's family, one's community, etc.? We also looked at capital punishment and the church is teaching with regard to that. Today, we have two paragraphs, intentional homicide. Under the category of homicide, there are a number of different degrees. I'm not, it's all serious, obviously. Intentional homicide is always serious as it says in paragraph 2268, the Fifth Commandment, forbidden. direct and intentional killing as gravely sinful. And so we're talking about that. But there's also things like infanticide, which is killing of infants. There's fratricide, killing one's own sibling. There's parricide, killing one's own parent, and the murder of a spouse. Those are

especially grave crimes by reason of their natural bonds. So we'll look at that a little bit more closely too, as well as paragraph 2269, which forbids indirectly doing something that indirectly brings about a person's death, but that still has some kind of intention behind it and unintentional killing, which is not morally imputable unless there is some degree of culpability or some degree of responsibility that I carry. So we're looking at all three of those things, direct an intentional killing, the indirectly bringing about a person's death, and then lastly, unintentionally killing someone. Today, these two paragraphs, we'll see if it takes a little time or a long time to get through these two paragraphs because, yeah, it's incredible. I mean,

every one of the commandments is very serious. And everything we could say about the commandment, is incredibly serious. These are God's commands to human beings. And obviously, intentional killing and unintentional killing are really big deals. And so we approach the Lord. We approach his commands with the utmost seriousness as we enter into, I'm saying this to myself because I'm kind of chuckling about the fact that it's two paragraphs, but not chuckling about the fact of the content of these two paragraphs, which is grave and dire indeed. So as we enter into this time, we call upon the Lord to guide our thoughts, to guide our mind, guide our actions as we pray. Father in heaven, we love you. You are our father. You are our dad

because of your son Jesus Christ who lived, died, and rose from the dead for us, who sent his Holy Spirit into our lives, into our hearts and we may call out Abba, Father, you are a good dad. You call us to care for each other in the way that you care for us, to care for each other in the way that your son, Jesus Christ, cares for us. You are the God of life and any interpretation. intentional, direct killing of an innocent human being, Lord God, you, is reprehensible to you. Lord God, for those of us who are listening to this podcast today, and this is part of our story, we ask for a spirit of contrition, we ask for a spirit of repentance to come into our hearts now and always, that we can turn it to you in our weakness and our brokenness and our sinfulness

and receive your mercy. Lord God, anyone, anyone who's part of this community and has this as part of their story, I ask that you please meet them right now with your mercy. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, amen. It is day 294. We are reading paragraphs 2268 and 2269.

Intentional Homicide The Fifth Commandment forbids direct and intentional killing as gravely sinful. The murderer and those who cooperate voluntarily. in murder, commit a sin that cries out to heaven for vengeance. Infanticide, fratricide, and the murder of a spouse are especially grave crimes by reason of the natural bonds which they break. Concern for eugenics or public health cannot justify any murder, even if commanded by public authority. The Fifth Commandment forbids doing anything with the intention of indirectly bringing about a person's death. The moral law prohibits exposing someone to mortal danger without grave reason,

as well as refusing assistance to a person in danger. The acceptance by human society of murderous famines without efforts to remedy them is a scandalous injustice and a grave offense. Those whose usurious and avaricious dealings lead to the hunger and death of their brethren in the human family indirectly commit homicide, which is imputable to them. Unintentional killing is not morally imputable. But one is not exonerated from grave offense if, without proportionate reasons, he has acted in a way that brings about someone's death, even without the intention to do so.

Right, there we have it, those two paragraphs, 2268 and 2269. So this is almost, I don't want to say a no-brainer, but it is directly applicable, the most immediate application of the commandment, thou shalt not take innocent human life, right? Thou shalt not kill. So we look at this. And how the Fifth Commandment forbids direct and intentional killing is gravely sinful. So the murder and those who cooperate voluntarily in murder, commits a sin that cries out to heaven for vengeance, which, of course, is a quote from Genesis

Chapter 4. So those who directly commit murder and those who cooperate with them, they're part of that, right? Imputable. Now, it goes on to us talk about, I mentioned infanticide, fratricide, parricide, murder of a spouse. They're especially grave because of those natural bonds which they break. The next sentence here is going to be incredibly important for us because there are, in some places in the world, there's a return to this desire. for some form of eugenics, right? So it says concern for eugenics or public health cannot justify any murder, even if commanded by public authority. And so we recognize that if there is a, if there is a culture, if there's a movement, if there is a government that mandates or even

approves of killing because of sickness, ending someone's an innocent human being's life because they don't reach the status of health or the status of intellect or the status of race that a person or a society desires, that is always wrong, even if commanded by public authority. That is gravely sinful. So any form of eugenics is gravely sinful where you are eliminating part of the human race because of sickness, because of old age, because of some aspect of that human being that the society deems unwanted or undesirable.

That is incredibly grave, obviously. 2269 highlights this. The Fifth Commandment forbids doing anything with the intention of indirectly bringing about a person's death. So exposing someone to mortal danger without a grave reason could indirectly bring about a person's death. Now, the example here in 2269 is, for example, the acceptance by human society of murderous famines without efforts to remedy them is a scandalous injustice and a grave offense. I've heard, and maybe this is incorrect information, but I've heard that this is accurate, that there is enough food in the world. world right now to feed everyone. The reason that there are people who are still starving is less on the fault of not there being enough food, like in terms of famine, but on the terms

of corrupt governments who are not accepting the assistance that other more prosperous governments are offering them. Now, you might say, Logan, a fact check you on that one, but that's what the catechism is talking about here. So if there are famines, without efforts to remedy them, it's a scandalous injustice and a grave offense. you have country X that's trying to support country Y, and they're giving whatever resources are needed for country Y, but country Y, their government is corrupt and is not allowing the people of country Y to receive the assistance from country X. That is, I think, it seems to me, that is a relatively common occurrence. And the catechism is saying here, that is a scandalous.

That is a grave offense. It's a scandalous injustice and a grave offense. It goes on to say, those whose usurious and avaricious dealings lead to the hunger and death of their brethren and the human family indirectly commit homicide, which is imputable to them. Again, remember homicide is essentially murder, right? This is the taking of an innocent human life. So those who, because of their usurious or avaricious dealings, I'm here to make more money, I'm here to just use people up. They are guilty of this as is a grave, grave sin. Lastly, unintentional killing is not morally imputable. So, for example, I believe we might call this something like manslaughter, where here is just, it's an accident, right? There is an accident where I could not have foreseen

what would happen that my responsibility is, again, just let's call it what it is, an accident. So if I accidentally and have this unintentional killing in an accident, that's not morally imputable, right? I'm not morally culpable for that. At the same time, it says, but one is not exactly from grave offense if, without proportionate reasons, he has acted in a way that brings about someone's death, even without the intention to do so. So, for example, I could be driving in such a way that accidentally, truly accidentally, and without any fault of my own, and it ended up in manslaughter or unintentional killing. Or it could be I was reckless in my driving. And in that case, if it would involve an unintentional killing, I could be more morally imputable or drinking and driving. I'd be more

morally culpable of that action because there were decisions that I had made when it came to drinking too much. There are decisions I had made when it came to getting in my car, getting behind the wheel that I would be morally responsible for. So unintentional killing is not morally imputable, but I'm not exonerated if there were decisions that I made that places the responsibility on me, even if I didn't intend to kill someone. It didn't intend to take another person's life. Does that make sense? I hope it does. So it's really brief today at the same time again grave very important and critical that we understand always if you just bring to our hearts that what are the areas in not only in the world today where indirect unintentional killing

is tolerated where parts of the world today where there is indirectly bringing about a person's death because of policy or because of how maybe even I'm choosing to live is that is that a reality where I where I live right now also the reality of unintentional killing and what that is where I'm not morally culpable and where I might be morally culpable. So that's, as I said, that's what we have today. Tomorrow, we're going to talk about a big issue. And the big issue we're talking about tomorrow is abortion. And so as we prepare our hearts for that, prepare your hearts not only for conviction of the truth about the evils of abortion, but also for the mercy that God has, the mercy that God desires to be able to offer anyone who has fallen into these areas. So again, like today, we've said in the

prayer, if you are someone who, yes, you had killed someone, whether in intentionally or unintentionally, whether directly or indirectly, the Lord wants to offer you as mercy. And so we'll be able to receive that. Tomorrow, as we talk about the truth and sometimes the very painful truth of abortion, we're also going to talk about the great and almost unimaginable promise of God's mercy. That's today and that's tomorrow. So let's pray for each other. I'm praying for you. Please pray for me. My name is Father Mike. I cannot wait to see you tomorrow. God bless. Thank you.