[xone]

So when did this change? Were there no prisons before when the Catholic church used the practice? Also, the words 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.

add an element to Paul's words recorded in Romans where that determination belongs to the legitimate authority.

[Mrs. Don-o]

The emphasis, I think, is that the state has the right and the duty to protect society--- and ever member in it --- from aggression. If the aggressor cannot be stopped without killing him, then you can justly kill him. But if he can be stopped by non-lethal force, then the state should use that non-lethal force (the force involved in imprisonment.)

I personally doubt -- and as a Catholic, am permitted to doubt --- the "prudential" part that says that modern societies can now effectively do this. We have all seen how difficult it is to get a real life sentence that cannot be overturned by appeal, by resentencing, by parole, by escape, but a judge letting people go to relieve overcrowding or for some other bogus reason.

No to mention that convict-against-convict aggression is extremely common, which ought to result in a lot more capital sentences, since such reoffenders have demonstrated that imprisonment alone is not sufficient to restrain them.

Bottom line, the Catholic Church will not, and cannot, say that executions are never just, or equate the just application of the death penalty with murder. The death penaly, even if very rare, must always be an option if it is the only way to protect society (even prison society) from the continuing predations of violent offenders.