I wish priests would talk more about these issues in the homily or in bulletins or somewhere! Most people who call themselves Catholic think it is ok to **support the death penalty **or birth control or euthanasia b/c they don’t know any better.
If you have a problem with the Church’s teachings then don’t call yourself Catholic. Our priest today had an AWESOME homily on the dangers of relativism. We are given the Truth, the ONE TRUTH in the Holy Spirit. However everyone is so concerned with being PC and backing down when they are confronted with other people differing from their views. Don’t be silent! Speak up for the Church. We are attacked all the time with lies and people who are ignorant of what we believe and no one stands up to them.
The Church CCC
2264 Love toward oneself remains a fundamental principle of morality. Therefore it is legitimate to insist on respect for one’s own right to life. Someone who defends his life is not guilty of murder even if he is forced to deal his aggressor a lethal blow:
If a man in self-defense uses more than necessary violence, it will be unlawful: whereas if he repels force with moderation, his defense will be lawful. . . . Nor is it necessary for salvation that a man omit the act of moderate self-defense to avoid killing the other man, since one is bound to take more care of one’s own life than of another’s.66
2265 Legitimate defense can be not only a right but a grave duty for one who is responsible for the lives of others. The defense of the common good requires that an unjust aggressor be rendered unable to cause harm. For this reason, those who legitimately hold authority also have the right to use arms to repel aggressors against the civil community entrusted to their responsibility.
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 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 nonexistent."68
Now many will say we have great jail systems. Those that do, have no idea about America’s prison system let alone 3rd world prisons. We forget that correctional officers, prison personel, and other inmates are humans as well, and worth defending from aggressors who still continue to inflict bodily harm in prisons. Many inmates on life live with the mentality of no longer caring of others since they have to spend the rest of their lives in prison. Most people don’t support the death penalty as the only option or only way to deal with crime, thus this would be sin, but most do support it as having it as
an option prefferebly as last resort. Catholics who feel this way are not in irregular standing with the Church or in sin, so for you to call people who have this mentality non-Catholics pretty harsh, and I would suggest reading more about the Catholic faith before trying to speak out like that.
