I'm not quite aware (as I have never studied or at least remember) what our church teaches about the death penalty. So is the Catholic Church against it or for it?

I've heard about people saying that our church is against it, but I have heard lots of things people say about Catholicism and alot of the time they're wrong. I'm sure I could find the answer in my Catechism, but I just now thought of it so I'll ask here.

If we are against it I ask why? The OT has it as God commanded, but is that now fulfilled since Christ came? And what about past wars like, The Revolutionary, Civil, WW1, and WW2? Our country has executed war criminals of those wars, so where they wrong? Don't we have to have law and order? Even if the criminal is forgiven, he still has to pay the pennace or conequence, right?

I'm not saying I believe in the death penalty, I just want to know and understand it. I know God speaks through our church with Faith and morals, so what is it?

-- Jason (Enchanted fire5@aol.com), May 10, 2004

Answers

From the Catechism:

 

2267 Assuming that the guilty party's identity and responsibility have been fully determined, the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.

If, however, non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people's safety from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and are more in conformity to the dignity of the human person.

Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an offense incapable of doing harm - without definitely taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself - the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity "are very rare, if not practically non- existent."

 

-- Bill Nelson (bnelson45-nospam@Hotmail.com), May 10, 2004.

The Catholic Church clearly allows for legitimate authority to impose the death penalty. The Vatican City, itself allowed for the death penalty up until 1969.

The 1992 catechism said, 'The traditional teaching of the church has acknowledged as well-founded the right and duty of legitimate public authority to punish malefactors by means of penalties commensurate with the gravity of the crime, not excluding, in cases of extreme gravity, the death penalty.'

The sentiments of Pope John Paul II were incorporated into the recent CCC. In Evangelium Vitae, March 1995, the Holy Father wrote that execution should be permissible only "in cases of absolute necessity, in other words, when it would not be possible otherwise to defend society." Thus you see the last line of the present CCC #2267 which Bill posted, which says: the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity "are very rare, if not practically non- existent."

Jason also asks: Even if the criminal is forgiven, he still has to pay the pennace or conequence, right? Punishment and expiation for sin/crime has always been a catholic teaching. Read the previous paragraph of the CCC:

2266 The efforts of the state to curb the spread of behavior harmful to people's rights and to the basic rules of civil society correspond to the requirement of safeguarding the common good. Legitimate public authority has the right and duty to inflict punishment proportionate to the gravity of the offense. Punishment has the primary aim of redressing the disorder introduced by the offense. When it is willingly accepted by the guilty party, it assumes the value of expiation. Punishment then, in addition to defending public order and protecting people's safety, has a medicinal purpose: as far as possible, it must contribute to the correction of the guilty party.67

-- Brian Crane (brian.crane@cranemills.com), May 10, 2004.

Brian,

Even the revised Catechism in the late 90's (newer than the one you qoated) adresses this.

But a few of the Catholics will next tell us how " escape proof" prisons are now compared to 196(something) when the Vatican City State had the death penalty as a "mandatory sentence".

-- - (David@excite.com), May 10, 2004.

Karl Keatings E-letter adressing this issue.

http://www.catholic.com/newsletters/kke_040302.asp

Trying to insert link.

Dano

-- Dan Garon (boethius61@yahoo.com), May 11, 2004.

Keep in mind, Keating does not necessarily speak FOR the Church.

God bless,

-- john placette (jplacette@catholic.org), May 11, 2004.

I posted too soon, sorry.

I agree with Keating on this one.

Thanks,

-- john placette (jplacette@catholic.org), May 11, 2004.

I'll step up to the plate and disagree with Keating, then. Keating bases his dissent from Evangelium Vitae based on the notion of "prudential judgment". However, I am not aware of any official teaching by the Church that the prudential judgment of each individual Catholic is just as valid as the prudential judgment of the Pope and the magisterium.

You might just as well say that Kerry is pro-life, because he personally opposes abortion. You see, it's just that in Kerry's prudential judgement, making abortion illegal wouldn't stop abortion, but only drive it underground, so the best way for society to deal with the problem of abortion is to keep it legal.

What Keating is doing is just as much a dissent from the Church teachings as what Kerry is doing. We are just as bound to obey the magisterium whether their teaching involves abstract moral principles (e.g., abortion is murder, death penalty is moral only under certain conditions) or the concrete application of those principles (e.g., societies should deal with abortion by making it illegal, the conditions under which the death penalty is moral are rare in modern society).

-- Mark (aujus_1066@yahoo.com), May 11, 2004.