Well, the USCCB is currently in the middle of a major campaign against the death penalty. There is little doubt where the American bishops stand on this issue.
As sitetest has articulated, this papacy will likely see a de-coupling of capital punishment from real "Culture of Life" issues:
Pope Benedict XVI has weighed in on this subject too. Who must we follow now? Pope John Paul II was offering his personal opinion about the prudential decision of whether recourse to capital punishment is just.
On the other hand, Card. Ratzinger was making a doctrinal statement about the relative moral aspect of abortion versus capital punishment:
"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."
Worthiness to receive Holy Communion General principles
By Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger
Sep 1, 2004, 16:50
Obviously, Pope Benedict XVI is backing away from the stance of his predecessor, and is decoupling the abortion issue from that of capital punishment.
2267 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 are 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 non-existent."
As you can see, the Catechism says that there ARE cases in which the death penalty is an absolute necessity: these would be cases where the only way the authrities can "defend human lives" and "protect people's safety" is to execute the offender. The Catechism adds that in modern society, such cases are vanishingly rare.
So that's not just JPII's opinion, or BXVI's opinion: there may be differences of emphasis, but that's solid Catholic moral teaching: that's Catechism.
As such, it has little or nothing to do with the Oregon bill protecting unborn victims of crime. As I understand it, the OCC wanted an amendment in the bill excludng the possibility of the death penalty; and when the bill was passed without their amendment, they withdrew their support.
This is just political stupidity.
It's akin to taking homicide out of the criminal code altogether, because the dealth penalty wasn't excluded beforehand. Like I said, I'm a opponent of the dealth penalty myself, but on this the Bishops are blundering into the laity's proper spehere of action, and impeaching the laity's competence to make PRUDENTIAL judgments. I repeat: it's the laity's job to get the best bill possible to protect the unborn, under the circumstances.
If I were in Oregon, I'd be trying to get the bishops to radically downsize the OCC-- or at least to fire their incompetent policy-wonk periti.