My God, I've never heard Bork utter something so stupid in all my life!
1. The Catholic Church cannot make JP2's opinions against the death penalty doctrine! Doctrine must be eternal and infallible. The Pope has no authority to define as doctrine that which contradicts previous popes, nor that which is temporal prescription.
2. If there was an alternate universe where objection 1 did not exist, Scalia STILL would have no reason to allow the Pope's decision to sway his vote. The law is the law, and Catholic doctrine would hold that Scalia would be bound to uphold the law as a judge. As a LEGISLATOR he would be bound to vote against the death penalty -- in this alternate reality -- as part of his moral discretion, but that is a completely different matter.
3. Pope John Paul II made abundantly clear, with then-Cardinal Ratzinger authoring the statement, that the Catholic Church's position on the death penalty was based on the assertion that it did not seem an efficacious response to the present circumstances, given that the rule of law was not presently threatened. Basing it on an evaluation of circumstances of which the Pope is inexpert establishes that those who are expert must exercise their own judgment.
I might add that since that formulation, the West has been targeted by jihadists with the explicit purpose of threatening the rule of law. Whether or not the Pope has recognized the fact, the current situation is exactly that which Pope John Paul II declared merited the death penalty: the need to preserve the rule of law from disorder.
Whoa! Whoops... Bork was representing an opinion he was about to shoot down!
"the West has been targeted by jihadists with the explicit purpose of threatening the rule of law."
And Benedict XVI seems to understand the Islamic threat better than John Paul II. Benedict is the right pope for this time.