Posted on 09/30/2004 12:36:06 PM PDT by JeffersonRepublic.com
Cardinal Joseph Bernardin articulated a consistent ethic of life, which included opposition to both abortion and the death penalty, in 1985. Ten years later, in his encyclical The Gospel of Life, Pope John Paul II taught that opposing capital punishment should be part of a pro-life witness for a culture of life that promotes human dignity and solidarity. The National Conference of Catholic Bishops as well as individual bishops across the country have repeated the teaching.
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There is no inconsistency in being against abortion for for capital punishment. Capital punishment, kiddies, is taking the life of convicted murders while abortion is the taking the lives of babies.
It is the liberals that are inconsistent. Amazingly, they allow the mass killing (in the millions) of innocent unborn babies while kicking up a storm to procted the lives of a handful of murdering low-lives. Explain that to me.
If you think that capital punishment is not biblical or that the Catholic Church doesn't approve of it, disabuse yourself of both notions. "Government-sponsored killing", as you call it, not only assures society that this particular criminal will not kill again, but it expresses the retribution of society at the heinousness of certain crimes. Nobody forces anybody to work in the death house; in Texas, the person who pushes the buttons releasing the lethal chemicals volunteers for the job, and there is a rotation.
As to a mistake, I've asked numerous times on this forum for proof that a mistake has EVER been made, and nobody's been able to document a single one. I'd challenge you to do the same.
The criminals should be forced into hard labor. They should repay society with this labor, but not be sacrificed in the electric chair.
Dangerous criminals are not allowed to work in most prisons, as they cannot be controlled adequately.
No state in the union uses the electric chair any longer to my recollection. Lethal injection is an extremely humane way to carry out society's wishes.
There is a huge difference between innocent life taken in abortion and the life of a criminal taken by capital punishment.
I'm also a death penalty opponent. There are certainly some crimes that are fully deserving of death, but there are too many ways for us mere humans to make a mistake in determining guilt.
Heck, we are talking about the same justice system that let OJ walk free, right?
Of course, I support the idea of putting them in a cage where they'll never have direct human contact again so that they'll never hurt another living soul.
The only difference in opinion worth talking about is the difference within the Republican Party. The Democrat position isn't worth discussing.
FWIW, I say kill murderers and sex offenders. But I listen to discussions on the merits of life imprisonment.
68 John Paul II, Evangelium vitae 56. 69 Cf. Gen 4:10.
With all due respect to the Holy Father, this is his opinion.
I have struggled with this question as well and I think it would be great to live in a world where the Death Penalty does not exist. Unfortunately, because of the endless number of appeals for pure evil murdering monsters, all it takes is one wack liberal judge and the murderer will be let out to threaten society once again.
I propose doing away with the Death Penalty, only if, we can really put someone away for the rest of their life and throw away the key and not have to worry. Unfortunately, that will not happen in our litigious society.
The Federal government has the right to kill enemies that are trying to destroy it. The number of Americans who believe that an individual like Zarqawi should not be executed is statistically zero, and that is as it should be. As St. Thomas Aquinas pointed out, society has a right to defend itself.
Whether you like it or not, America has a right to self-defense. The people of the sovereign states have such a right as well.
I don’t think it’s fair to force government workers to kill criminals
No government employee is forced to do so. Executioners volunteer for the duty.
I’m afraid a mistake may happen.
As detection methods improve, the chances of this occurring have declined from extremely unlikely to almost impossible.
If there is any ambiguity, a life sentence is always an option.
The criminals should be forced into hard labor.
There is no such thing as hard labor anymore - only a few locales still have chain-gangs, let alone labor camps.
They should repay society with this labor, but not be sacrificed in the electric chair.
They cannot repay society unless they bring the citizen they murdered back to life.
Republicans should be pro-life.
Doctrinaire opposition to the death penalty is not truly a pro-life position. The Church and basic morality have already refuted the fallacy that murdering an innocent unborn child and executing a guilty murderer are not moral equivalents.
An executioner is not a de facto excommunicant. An abortionist is. Why is that?
Not only is there a qualitative difference but one hell of a quanitative one as well. I believe there have been approximately 1000 executions in the US since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty while there will be over 3000 abortions today alone.
I don't like murder either. If a murderer goes to prison and kills a prisoner or a guard, what do you do? Put him in prison?
I don't trust the government to do anything right - including the death penalty. We have to exceptions though for terrorists though.
Have you considered how much better the world would be if everyone agreed with you about everything all of the time? I have. My conclusion was that that everyone should agree with me, not you, about everything all of the time.
A nation whose legal system can produce things like Roe v. Wade, a Clinton presidency, and an OJ jury has no business even putting people in jail, let alone executing them.
Bernardin had a ton of education and no common sense, like most priests.
It's as simple as this: You don't kill babies and you don't baby killers.
There have been problems with capital punishment, like convicting innocent people. We should only execute those for whom guilt is indisputable, i.e., multiple-witnessed murders. For them, the appeals process needs to be shortened so that the sentence occurs much closer to the crime than at present.
The investigation costs for death-sentence cases were about 3 times greater than for non-death cases.
The trial costs for death cases were about 16 times greater than for non-death cases ($508,000 for death case; $32,000 for non-death case).
The appeal costs for death cases were 21 times greater.
The costs of carrying out (i.e. incarceration and/or execution) a death sentence were about half the costs of carrying out a non-death sentence in a comparable case.
Trials involving a death sentence averaged 34 days, including jury selection; non-death trials averaged about 9 days.
There are 30,000 murders a year. There are only about 50 executions.
I'm with you. The government has already proven that it is incompetent in nearly everything it does - I don't see how that doesn't carry into the justice system. Far too many police and prosecutors have been caught suppressing evidence and failing to disclose information to defendants and their attorneys. I don't trust any of them. Far too many innocent people have been sent to death row for me to agree with capital punishment.
So if we raise the cost of life in prison to exceed capital punishment, you'll support the death penalty?
No I still feel that death penalties are barbaric - who are we to end a life in custody when God may have further plans for that person. The costs involved are just another point to be considered.
Then what will you do if the murderer kills in prison? Imprison him some more?
And over a million abortions...
With these sort of numbers, I can live with ignoring the "threat of capital punishment" for a while longer while the battle for the unborn is more immediate.
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