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Now you have got me curious about TTGC members do you just meet on line at this chat room, or is it in your diocese? You know the famous song "What's it all about Alfie????"

The one I really liked was the St. Thomas Aquinas quote. When you think about it eternity is far more important than anything. So what we do here is VERY important and what we believe and how we act determines our eternal destiny. Even the ancient Greeks understood the eternity of the soul. Heresy kills the soul and so does the spread of heresy. Don’t get me wrong I am not like the sick ladies who knitted in “A tale of two Cities” who laughed and smiles as the aristocracy was being led to get their heads chopped off nor would I have enjoyed see any heretic burn or innocent Saint such as Joan of Arc. St. Joan drew more people to Christ and to the Holy Catholic Church despite the evil Churchman who burned her. Good always triumph’s over evil. This of course gets back to the issue of Capital punishment when anyone talks about how heretics used to be burned. The Catholic Church has never taught Capital punishment is intrinsically evil as is abortion and has always granted the states right to use it under certain circumstances.

In early Catholic Church history, Tertullian, Lactantius, and Pope Leo I (440-461) condemned capital punishment outright.
In contrast, all of the approximately 164 popes who ruled the Papal States (754-1870) included capital punishment as part of their penal systems. There was one exception. Pope St. Nicholas I (856-867) condemned capital punishment outright. But, Pope Sixtus V (1585-1590) made up for all the other popes by ordering the execution of 7,000 bandits over a two-year period. Pope Sixtus V expressed his regret that the number was not larger.
http://www.madisoncatholicherald.org/2002-07-18/editorial.html.

Pope Innocent VIII: However , he dealt mercilessly with a band of unscrupulous officials who forged and sold papal Bulls; capital punishment was meted out to two of the culprits in 1489. see http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08019b.htm.

St. Thomas Aquinas when he wrote: "In this life, however, penalties are not sought for their own sake, because this is not the era of retribution; rather, they are meant to be corrective by being conducive either to the reform of the sinner or the good of society, which becomes more peaceful through the punishment of sinners." Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, II-II, 68, 1; tr. Marcus Lefebure, O.P. (London, Blackfriars, 1975).

Pius XII presented a more explicit defense of the lawfulness of capital punishment. He states that ““as long as a man is without guilt, his life is untouchable,”” and adds that ““God is the sole lord of the life of a man not guilty of a crime punishable by the death penalty.””Pius XII, To the San Luca Medical-Biological Union, (12 November 1944), VI, 191.