Why are Paul's writings in the Bible?

[Ahriman]

Well, first it needs to be written down. But more importantly, the Catholic church doesn't need to add anything more to the Bible when it nevertheless upholds various holy writings/instructions besides what's in the Bible. For the Catholic church, and the Christian church in general, the Bible is a historical collection of works upheld as sacred, but not a still evergrowing body of godly instructions. The Bible canon has long been established, it's history now.

If anything the Bible canon is effectively shrinking.  The 1992 edition of the Catechism of the Catholic Church (pp. 2267) said:

If bloodless means are sufficient to defend human lives against an aggressor and to protect public order and the safety of persons, public authority should limit itself to such means, because they better correspond to the concrete conditions of the common good and are more in conformity to the dignity of the human person.

This made the capital punishment commandments in the Bible more like suggestions.  Then in 2018 we got this revision:


Consequently, the Church teaches, in the light of the Gospel, that “the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person,” and she works with determination for its abolition worldwide.  

That makes capital punishment commandments of none effect.  Naturally, Trump Catholics think Pope Francis is the devil.

The death penalty gives criminals a cheap ticket out of the suffering of being alive. It's better than they deserve. I'm in full support of getting rid of it.