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To: dfwgator

I would disagree, as a devout Catholic I am pro life and that includes anti death penalty.


211 posted on 07/26/2006 10:30:01 AM PDT by Hydroshock ( (Proverbs 22:7). The rich ruleth over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender.)
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To: Hydroshock
I would disagree, as a devout Catholic I am pro life and that includes anti death penalty.

From the Catechism:

2266 The efforts of the state to curb the spread of behavior harmful to people's rights and to the basic rules of civil society correspond to the requirement of safeguarding the common good. Legitimate public authority has the right and duty to inflict punishment proportionate to the gravity of the offense. Punishment has the primary aim of redressing the disorder introduced by the offense. When it is willingly accepted by the guilty party, it assumes the value of expiation. Punishment then, in addition to defending public order and protecting people's safety, has a medicinal purpose: as far as possible, it must contribute to the correction of the guilty party.67

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 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 nonexistent."68

So the Church does not rule out the death penalty in principle.

Moreover, while the means exists in many Western countries to incarcerate murderers for life, many convicted murderers are in fact eventually released from prison, thus becoming a threat to the public.

327 posted on 07/26/2006 11:06:12 AM PDT by Aquinasfan (When you find "Sola Scriptura" in the Bible, let me know)
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