If it is your intention to do some witchhunting against yourself or against someone you know, I would strongly caution you against taking the law into your own hands. Remember what the LORD said in Ezekiel 18:21-23, 27-28:
“if a wicked man turns away from all his sins which he has committed and keeps all my statutes and does what is lawful and right, he shall surely live; he shall not die. None of the transgressions which he has committed shall be remembered against him; for the righteousness which he has done he shall live. Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, says the Lord GOD, and not rather that he should turn from his way and live? . . . Again, when a wicked man turns away from the wickedness he has committed and does what is lawful and right, he shall save his life. Because he considered and turned away from all the transgressions which he had committed, he shall surely live, he shall not die.”
Also remember what Jesus said in John 8:1-11 when the scribes and Pharisees wanted to stone to death the woman caught in adultery: “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” And what Jesus then said to the woman: “Neither do I condemn you; go, and do not sin again.”
With this possibility of the redemption of the wicked in mind the *Catechism of the Catholic Church *speaks of the practical obsolescence of capital punishment for any crime in today’s society:
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, nonlethal 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 with 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 definitively 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.
