The Catholic Church and the Death Penalty

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thistle said:
You mean you only looked at the post immediately prior to yours???
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No. I mean I did not look at the time stamp of each post but the one I did notice was quite recent so I did not think much of it. Not only that but I saw the thread in the “Latest Threads” column that shows on the left of the forum page. It is entirely reasonable to assume a “Latest Thread” is not dormant. I assume this is how you came to read the thread also. Please accept my deepest, most sincere apology for offending your internet forum sensibility.
 
madavis said:
Why does the Church stand against the death penalty?
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The Catholic Church does not stand against capital punishment. The Actual teaching of The Church (as opposed to the opinions of some theologians and prelates) is that the punishment for crimes is up to the prudential judgment of competent civil authorities.
 
The power of life and death is permitted to certain civil magistrates because theirs is the responsibility under law to punish the guilty and protect the innocent. Far from being guilty of breaking this commandment [Thy shall not kill], such an execution of justice is precisely an act of obedience to it. For the purpose of the law is to protect and foster human life. This purpose is fulfilled when the legitimate authority of the State is exercised by taking the guilty lives of those who have taken innocent lives.

In the Psalms we find a vindication of this right: “Morning by morning I will destroy all the wicked in the land, cutting off all evildoers from the city of the Lord” (Ps. 101:8).

(Roman Catechism of the Council of Trent, 1566, Part III, 5, n. 4)

Even in the case of the death penalty the State does not dispose of the individual’s right to life. Rather public authority limits itself to depriving the offender of the good of life in expiation for his guilt, after he, through his crime, deprived himself of his own right to life.

(Pope Pius XII, Address to the First International Congress of Histopathology of the Nervous System, 14 September 1952, XIV, 328)
 
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