Feeling weird about death penalty today

AS I SAID - The Catholic Church is not opposed to the death penalty.

Frankly, I am for the death penalty for first degree. The deliberate planning and carrying out the killing of someone else. Those this John Allen Muhammed killed, believe 10 dead and how many injured and how many in fear don't know, deliberately and with thought carried out his wish to kill and kill and kill. Those who died and were injured did not deserve to die. I am on the side of the victims. A rabid killing machine now gets the only punishment worth calling it a punishment. None of those dead will breathe, see the sun rise, hear a bird sing, love, get mad or anything else because their life was cut short. No, he doesn't deserve prison where he will continue to live, something those he killed will not have the opportunity of doing.

I figure that he is probably dead by my time now -1820. Or 6:20 Pacific. I have no sympathy for a first degree killer and this one reminds me of a rabid dog.

AS I SAID - The Catholic Church is not opposed to the death penalty.

From the Bishop in Washington: lnk

As he says:

In the needles of lethal injection, we see the manifestation of despair. And in this despair, in advocating the use of the death penalty, our society has moved beyond the legitimate judgment of crimes. Brothers and sisters, we are better than this. We are called to be more than slaves to despair; we are called to be heralds of hope!

2267 The traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude, presupposing full ascertainment of the identity and responsibility of the offender, recourse to the death penalty, when this is the only practicable way to defend the lives of human beings effectively against the aggressor.



2266 The State's effort to contain the spread of behaviors injurious to human rights and the fundamental rules of civil coexistence corresponds to the requirement of watching over the common good. Legitimate public authority has the right and duty to inflict penalties commensurate with the gravity of the crime. the primary scope of the penalty is to redress the disorder caused by the offense. When his punishment is voluntarily accepted by the offender, it takes on the value of expiation. Moreover, punishment, in addition to preserving public order and the safety of persons, has a medicinal scope: as far as possible it should contribute to the correction of the offender.67




405. The Church sees as a sign of hope “a growing public opposition to the death penalty, even when such a penalty is seen as a kind of ‘legitimate defence' on the part of society. Modern society in fact has the means of effectively suppressing crime by rendering criminals harmless without definitively denying them the chance to reform”. Whereas, presuming the full ascertainment of the identity and responsibility of the guilty party, the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude the death penalty “when this is the only practicable way to defend the lives of human beings effectively against the aggressor”. Bloodless methods of deterrence and punishment are preferred as “they better correspond to the concrete conditions of the common good and are more in conformity to the dignity of the human person”. The growing number of countries adopting provisions to abolish the death penalty or suspend its application is also proof of the fact that cases in which it is absolutely necessary to execute the offender “are very rare, if not practically non-existent”. The growing aversion of public opinion towards the death penalty and the various provisions aimed at abolishing it or suspending its application constitute visible manifestations of a heightened moral awareness.




Catholic Answers: This Rock: Quick Questions: Death Penalty
Q Why isn't the death penalty included in your "Voter's Guide for Serious Catholics"? Look at the last paragraph of no. 2267 of the</I> Catechism.

A The death penalty did not make the list because it does not involve something intrinsically evil. If that were the case, then the Church would not permit recourse to the death penalty under any circumstances. Instead, we read in the Catechism the following:

AND FINALLY WHAT CARDINAL RATZINGER SAID [our current Pope now]

The Catholic Church And The Death Penalty Ad Te Levávi Ánimam Meam

It has become almost popular lately for some people, usually faithful Catholics, to declare that the Catholic Church is “against the death penalty”. These people treat the death penalty almost as if it were intrinsically evil. And this is just not the case.

It is perfectly acceptable for a Catholic to be a supporter of the death penalty just as it is perfectly acceptable for a Catholic to be against it. However, even if one is against the death penalty it is not permissible to say that the death penalty itself is evil. The way that it is applied by a given government or in a given case may be evil. But, the death penalty itself is not intrinsically evil.

“Not all moral issues have the same moral weight as abortion and euthanasia. There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not however with regard to abortion and euthanasia.”
(Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, 2004 A.D., letter to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, #3 )




The Church has a long history of approving of the death penalty. Most people probably don’t realize that it was legal (but never invoked) in the Vatican City State until it was abolished in 1969 by Pope Paul VI. And, here are just a few quotes from Popes and Saints on the matter:

“The same divine law which forbids the killing of a human being allows certain exceptions, as when God authorizes killing by a general law or when He gives an explicit commission to an individual for a limited time. Since the agent of authority is but a sword in the hand, and is not responsible for the killing, it is in no way contrary to the commandment, Thou shalt not kill” to wage war at God’s bidding, or for the representatives of the State’s authority to put criminals to death, according to law or the rule of rational justice.”
(St. Augustine, City of God, Book 1, Chapter 21)

“The fate of the wicked being open to conversion so long as they live does not preclude their being open also to the just punishment of death. Indeed the danger threatening the community from their life is greater and more certain than the good expected by their conversion. Besides, in the hour of death, they have every facility for turning to God by repentance. And if they are so obstinate that even in the hour of death their heart will not go back upon its wickedness, a fairly probable reckoning may be made that they never would have returned to a better mind.”
(St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles , Book III, 147)
“They deserve not only to be severed from the Church by excommunication, but also severed from the world through death”
(St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica , Pt. II-II, Q. 11, Art. 3).


“Concerning secular power we declare that without mortal sin it is possible to exercise a judgment of blood as long as one proceeds to bring punishment not in hatred but in judgment, not incautiously but advisedly”
(Pope Innocent III, 1210 A.D.)



“Another kind of lawful slaying belongs to the civil authorities, to whom is entrusted power of life and death, by the legal and judicious exercise of which they punish the guilty and protect the innocent. The just use of this power, far from involving the crime of murder, is an act of paramount obedience to this Commandment which prohibits murder. The end of the Commandment is the preservation and security of human life. Now the punishments inflicted by the civil authority, which is the legitimate avenger of crime, naturally tend to this end, since they give security to life by repressing outrage and violence. Hence these words of David: In the morning I put to death all the wicked of the land, that I might cut off all the workers of iniquity from the city of the Lord.”
(Catechism of the Council of Trent, Part III , ordered by the Fathers of the Council of Trent under the authority of Pope Pius IV and published in 1566 by St Charles Boromeo under the authority of Pope St. Pius V)



“It is lawful to kill when fighting in a just war; when carrying out by order of the Supreme Authority a sentence of death in punishment of a crime; and, finally, in cases of necessary and lawful defense of one’s own life against an unjust aggressor.”
(Catechism of Pope St. Pius X , 1905 A.D.)



“When it is a question of the execution of a man condemned to death it is then reserved to the public power to deprive the condemned of the benefit of life, in expiation of his fault, when already, by his fault, he has dispossessed himself of the right to live.”
(Pope Pius XII, Papal Address to the First International Congress on the Histopathology of the Nervous System, #33 , Sept 14, 1952)



AS I SAID - The Catholic Church is not opposed to the death penalty.