When I was in high school in 1965, the priests taught that the death penalty was a proportional response to a crime of murder. The death penalty, killing in a war, and self defense were the allowed killings. Pope Pius XII taught it was ok, as did St Augustine, St Thomas Aquinas and other Catachisms. Even Pope J P II taught in Evangelium Vitae that the death penalty is not wrong per se, like abortion and euthansia are. HE didnt like it, so the Catachism was changed. Now…which do I believe, 1,980 years of Catholicism, or the anti death penalty stuff pushed on us since around 1980? I go with the magisterium and the Popes of prior 1980 years. Its a prudential judgment anyway, as stated by Pope Benedict the 16th. …“3. Not all moral issues have the same moral weight as abortion and euthanasia. For example, if a Catholic were to be at odds with the Holy Father on the application of capital punishment or on the decision to wage war, he would not for that reason be considered unworthy to present himself to receive Holy Communion. While the Church exhorts civil authorities to seek peace, not war, and to exercise discretion and mercy in imposing punishment on criminals, it may still be permissible to take up arms to repel an aggressor or to have recourse to capital punishment. 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.” priestsforlife.org/magisterium/bishops/04-07ratzingerommunion.htm
You mean to tell me that if we had caught Hitler, we would be wrong to try him and execute him for killing 6 million people. No…you can keep the anti death penalty stuff !
On the surface this seems like a reasonable argument but I don’t find it convincing. How many people who are alive today will be dead tomorrow? If God can deal fairly with others who were not given a lifetime to repent why would we assume that this is necessary in the case of criminals? It’s not as if they were tried one day and executed the next; the Beltway Sniper was just executed - seven years after his crime spree. Thomas Aquinas was not overly impressed with this argument:
“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.”
Then they put the needle in. What a horrible way to die, especially for those afraid of needles. Do they tie you down?
If you believe this to be a horrible situation you should probably stay away from the children’s ward of any hospital where for many this is a daily occurrence.
In all of these debates what is being lost is any sense of horror at the crime. Yes, murderers are still people, but in remembering their humanity we cannot lose sight of the humanity of their victims, which, quite frankly, is constantly overlooked. This does not appear to be God’s view.
The enormity of this sin is manifest from many and weighty passages of Holy Scripture. So much does God abominate homicide that He declares in Holy Writ that of the very beast of the field He will exact vengeance for the life of man, commanding the beast that injures man to be put to death. And if (the Almighty) commanded man to have a horror of blood,’ He did so for no other reason than to impress on his mind the obligation of entirely refraining, both in act and desire, from the enormity of homicide. (Catechism of Trent)
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