The death penalty is justified

[Ray_Scheel]

I am not saying it would be easy, not as easy as ending a life would be. It is sad to see that society has desensitized itself to take the easier way out. We have the resources and abilities to work out a secure system. Since that system would be man made and maintained I’ll admit it would not be infallible. To accept the current system is to accept the proven possibilites of innocent deaths.

I was pointing out that preventing the perpetually dangerous from harming (directly or indirectly) yet more innocent parties is not just difficult, but impossible given the current near universal consensus about human rights extended to prisoners in the “first world” countries and even Catholic teaching about the teaching of prisoners. Simply repeating the platitude about having the “resources and abilities to work out a secure system” is wasted air when one can’t say it with a straight face about the cases already pointed out where that clearly isn’t true with the practical means allowable other than execution.

 

[pnewton]

Jesus could’ve stopped the crucifixion but sacrificed himself for us. My point was if society could’ve made such a grievous error then it is possible we could make such an error again?

No. Killing God was a one time event. Also, it was not an error. It was a planned killing.

 

[wow]

No. Killing God was a one time event. Also, it was not an error. It was a planned killing.

It was a planned sacrifice.

 

[Ender]

This is a new approach to the topic and merits some attention.

I think it’s scandalous that criminals sometimes get off scot-free, because that denies them the right to be punished for their crimes. This is particularly unjust to the sort of people you mention, who are being most unjustly deprived of the right to pay with their lives for their revolting crimes.

(2) Augustine says: "Unless a man restore what he has purloined, his sin is not forgiven. "Since therefore the safeguarding of justice is necessary for salvation, it follows that it is necessary for salvation to restore what has been taken unjustly.*
(2 ad 1) Wherefore when that which has been taken cannot be restored in equivalent, compensation should be made as far as possible*
(Aquinas Summa Theologica II-II 62 - Restitution)

As for repentance - let them repent before they are executed.

*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. *(Aquinas - Summa Contra Gentiles)

Why should repentance save a criminal from death?

*punishment for the vestiges of sin may remain to be expiated or cleansed and that they in fact frequently do even after the remission of guilt (*Paul VI - Indungentiarum doctrina)

The false humanitarianism which - in effect - sees execution as worse than Hell-fire, deserves severe condemnation.

*{Sins} must be expiated either on this earth through the sorrows, miseries and calamities of this life and above all through death,(3) or else in the life beyond *(Paul VI - Indungentiarum doctrina)
*
*Ender

 

[Athanasiy]

There is interesting work of Victor Hugo on this topic , I have read it long time ago in Russian version , I think in English it is called

• ‘The last day of the death sentenced’.

 

[goofyjim]

At the risk of repeating myself, the death penalty may be justified but opposition to the death penalty is equally justified. The Church gives no clear cut direction on the moral response to this question. It leaves us free to make up our own minds.

 

[Cuddy_Duck]

I think the thread necromancy was unrequired.
forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=254502&page=7

 

[JimG]

At the risk of repeating myself, the death penalty may be justified but opposition to the death penalty is equally justified. The Church gives no clear cut direction on the moral response to this question. It leaves us free to make up our own minds.

I agree. It may seem strange to think of capital punishment as a matter of prudential judgment; after all, a human life is at stake. Yet, more often than not, that may be what is involved.

It may even be useful to have the death penalty on the books even if seldom or never exercised. For one thing, it gives prosecutors a plea-bargaining edge. And if not for plea bargains, many crimes would simply go unpunished.