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Andrew Serna
Mr. Gibson
Theology IV, Per. 1
19 November 2014
Annotated Bibliography
Murder
"Article 26." Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World: Promulgated by His Holiness
Pope Paul VI on December 7, 1965. Boston: St. Paul Editions, 1966. N. pag. Print. 3 Nov. 2014
Every person has interdependence that draws tighter and tighter over the whole world. Each
human being has the same rights and duties of that of the entire human race. We must look to benefit
this human person and not do the contrary. By going against the rights of a human is going against
God.
Gaudium Et Spes is another great church document that will help give me insights of the
church's views on certain topics. Murder in this case goes against the rights of a human being and how
they are obligated to live their life. Again it restates the whole going against God's will idea.
Cobb, John B. "Ch 6 The Law." God and the World. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1969. 174-90. Print. 3
Nov. 2014.
Cobb brings in all factors of the world that go against God's will and murder was the main point
of the book. He brings in every aspect of murder and also talks about how it is wrong to take part in
this evil doing even though circumstances might seem to benefit. There is no good that can come from
an evil act no matter what the circumstances are.
This source is an add on to what I want to go into on murder. It provides key details that are
necessary to explaining what murder really does. In the source it states that it goes against God's will
and moral teachings of life.
"Countries Compared by Crime > Murders > Per capital. International Statistics at NationMaster.com,
European Institute for Crime Prevention and Control International Statistics on Crime and
Justice, 2011. Aggregates compiled by NationMaster." 2006.
This source is a list of murder rates by country that indicates where most murders occur. The
statistics are given to provide an insight to see which countries have the highest murder rates per
capital. Many of the underdeveloped countries are at the top of the list while the United States is
located somewhere in the middle of the list.
This source can be where I bring in all of the facts about murder rates per country, and I can dig

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deeper to find why each country is where they are. I can look into the economy of the country and see
how the legal enforcement is, and even why the murders even occur.
Delany, Joseph, and Charles Sloane. "Homicide." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 7. New York:
Robert

Appleton Company,1910. 9 Nov. 2014.

The malice discernible in the sin is primarily chargeable to the violation of the supreme
ownership of God over the lives of His creatures. A person is regarded as innocent so long as he has not
by any responsible act brought any hurt to the community or to an individual comparable with the loss
of life.
The Catholic Encyclopedia is probably one of my best resources when looking to find the
violation of God's will. I can use in a portion of my paper of how the act of murder is going against the
will of God because it is taking a life out of God's hands. This resource will be good because it has
many details about my subject matter.
Fernandez, Aurelio, and James Socias. Our Moral Life in Christ: A Basic Course on Moral Theology.
Princeton, NJ: Scepter, 1997. Print. 3 Nov. 2014.
There is a respect for human life and these values are the highest standard of life. Therefore
killing an innocent person is a grave sin that is contrary to the natural law. There is also a need to
conserve life in all form. To deprive someone of life is to inflict upon himself the greatest harm of the
natural order.
Socias provides a little bit of everything I might need in this book. He talks about the values of
life, the natural law, and the will of God. The number one source for the base of my paper and I will
surround it with supporting details.
"Gun Rights, Gun Control and Mass Murder." Gun Rights, Gun Control and Mass Murder. N.p., n.d.
Web. 09 Nov. 2014.
Gun control advocates are not the only ones to be exploiting recent tragedies as ammunition for
their agenda. Neither gun rights nor gun control will do much to alter the rate of mass murder. Many of
the well-intentioned proposals coming in response to the recent spike in mass shootings may do much
to impact the level of violent crime that plagues our nation daily.
This source is kind of helpful because it acknowledges the fact that guns are the number one
used weapon to murder someone. This source talks about mass murder, but for my paper my primary
focus would be the human person as one. It also talks about how gun control can potentially stop most
mass murders which might be a good topic to use.
Gun Safety. Harvard Children's Health. Harvard Health Publications Group, 2006. Academic
OneFile. Web. 11 Nov. 2014.

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The United States has a higher rate of death due to firearms than any other industrialized
country. One child in every three hours was killed by a firearm-related incident in the U.S. Children in
large urban areas are more likely to be victims in gun homicides.
This source provides the in depth view of guns relationship with murder. It also gives statistics
that would help prove my point in determining what causes murder to happen. Another interesting
piece of this source is that kids from certain backgrounds are more likely to face firearms in their life. I
can bring up the idea of how places in poverty are considered to be more dangerous than other places in
the world.
Murphy, Jeffrie G. "The elusive nature of human dignity." The Hedgehog Review 9.3 (2007): 20+.
Academic OneFile. Web. 9 Nov. 2014.
There seem to be two basic choices about how best to conceptualize morality and its claims on
us. The promotion of the best possible balance of good over bad consequences--and the other is to think
of it in terms of certain fundamental and perhaps even absolute principles. According to Immanuel
Kant, the most prominent philosophical defender of such a view, rights and justice must be based on
the value of human dignity.
Murphy brings in the relation between human dignity and morality. This will help with my
central argument of how morally wrong murder is. The dignity of a human person plays a huge role in
determining why murder is the most cruel sin a human can do because it takes away the life that God
has given them.
Rice, Charles E. 50 Questions on the Natural Law: What It Is and Why We Need It. San Francisco:
Ignatius, 1993. Print. 3 Nov. 2014
The natural law may seem mysterious if we forget that it is built into nature. It is basically the
story of how things work. Mainly deals with humans and how it is our duty to protect and perserve our
life. By taking away of a life is to go against the natural law and is gravely evil. We can distinguish
what is right and wrong with the natural law, and it is our duty to follow the right.
Rice strictly talks about the natural law in this source. Extremely helpful tool that will help me
dig into what the natural law really means and I can relate it back to murder. The natural law will
probably be the meat of my paper and I think it will help me distinguish on a good foundation what
murder really is.
"The Fifth Commandment." Catechism of the Catholic Church. Liguori, MO: Liguori Publications,
1994. N. pag. Print. 3 Nov. 2014.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church provides examples and even contradictions to the act of
murder. It tells of the story of Cain and Abel and how envy took over Cain's heart and he murdered his
brother. It also states that when you are defending for your own life, a necessary lethal blow is not
entirely bad since you were the one trying to be murdered.
This source gives me the other side of my argument, which is murder is necessary sometimes in
preserving out own life. The difficulty is that my paper might not want to contribute the the okay of

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murder. I think this might be a useful source but I might want to add it to a different section of my
paper.
Vacek, Edward Collins. "Moral Action and Christian Ethics." Theological Studies 57.1 (1996): 190+.
Academic OneFile. Web. 9 Nov. 2014.
Vacek presumes that modern philosophy tried to develop ethical theories that would result in
uniquely correct solutions to every moral problem. The main difficulty P. sees with the "modern"
project is that generic moral concepts such as murder are open-textured. As evidence, she discusses
borderline types of killing such as euthanasia and abortion. thus the category of "intrinsically evil acts"
is not so much wrong as misconceptualized.
The intrinsically evil act of murder will help me describe why it is not to be considered as
anything less. Vacek notes that every form of murder is bad such as abortion and euthanasia, which will
give me a clear depiction of how it can branch out. Even the minor types of murder are equal to in
badness as any type of murder is.