Capital
Punishment--What
Would Jesus Do?
Jesus would ask the person
without sin to throw the first stone. The Catechism of the
Catholic Church has a longer response:
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.
--Catechism of the
Catholic Church #2267 |
