We seriously discuss sending humans to Mars. We supposedly are the most-educated and best-resourced society on earth. Granted, the prison system in this country is in a mess. Prisons exist for the purpose of taking criminals out of circulation. This is disputed.Īnother justification for capital punishment, proceeding from government’s responsibility to protect its citizens and its good order, is that killing convicted criminals removes them from society, so they cannot repeat their crimes. It has also often been assumed that killing a convicted criminal deters others who might contemplate similar crimes. How? Killing the criminal does nothing to bring victims back to life. It is said that perhaps killing the criminal brings justice to the victims. It also alludes to research among experts in crime prevention and punishment regarding various possibilities.įor example, let’s say someone murders an innocent person in cold blood. The Catechism refers to the development of respecting human life and gives an awareness that even the lives of condemned criminals are entitled to respect. Laws make the taking of human life all right. It accepts the extreme and downplays the value of life. Furthermore, it at least subtly leads to more problems for society. The Church takes exception to capital punishment in general because killing a criminal, even a properly convicted criminal, serves no purpose. Public authority can meet its obligation without killing criminals, and if anything else - given they can accomplish the goal of safeguarding the people - executions should not be applied. The core of the Church’s position is that alternatives are at hand to deal with horrendous crimes. Thousands of papal denunciations condemning terrible crimes exist to prove this point. Never has this opposition, in the least, excused or downplayed serious crime or violence. The American bishops have also opposed capital punishment for decades. The governor obliged.įollowing this example, when Pope Francis addressed the United States Congress in 2015, he asked these federal lawmakers to abolish the death sentence.
Mel Carnahan, now deceased, to commute the sentence.
Louis in 1999, he learned that a convict, coincidentally, was scheduled to be killed at that same time. John Paul II was one of the most determined opponents of the death penalty in modern times. It continues to say that capital punishment is not the way to provide this safeguard therefore, given the fact that other options exist, the death penalty should not be invoked, as priority should be given to the value of human life. The paragraph also insists that civil authority has the duty to safeguard its population from unwarranted threats to life and personal rights.
Regarding capital punishment, it states that “the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person” (No. The Catechism of the Catholic Church is the authoritative synopsis of Church teaching. What is the Church’s thinking about the death penalty? American Catholic leaders have protested, and these protests puzzle and even annoy many ordinary Catholics. The federal government has announced that it will adopt a more determined recourse to the death penalty for terrible crimes.