Worthiness to Receive Holy Communion. General Principles by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger
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3. 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 penalty, but not however with regard to abortion and euthanasia.
The campaign by some of the liberal democrat bishops continues. Their strategy is clearly to misrepresent the church's teaching on the death penalty in order to help fight gains by the GOP among Catholics.
Good news.
McCarrick turns 75 today:
http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/index.ssf?/base/news-1/112074203633830.xml&coll=1
If the U.S. bishops want the death penalty used rarely, if ever, then perhaps they would enjoy working on getting a judiciary actually willing to sentence to people to life in prison. Contrary to some opinions, we don't have a system that protects the innocent by removing the unjust aggressor from society permanently. They have the cart before the horse.
ping