And allow me to preempt what I hear constantly from fellow Catholics (not usually on this site), "If you're against abortion, it's cognitive dissonance to support the use of the death penalty..." No. The unborn are guilty of no personal crime, whereas the people I support being strapped into old sparky have all committed brutal crimes.
Here's a Catholic who is frequently on this site.
However, I am a traditional Roman Catholic who attends mass at a traditional Roman Catholic Church where only the Tridentine Mass is said. (I am also a sedevacantist).
I AM FOR THE DEATH PENALTY AND FOR EXPANSION OF IT.
Warehousing perverts, rapists, drug dealers, murderers, etc. is just plain stupid. Why allow them a retirement with meals, television, perversion and recreation when it would be justified to end their lives and speed them on to their final judgment?
If you are dead sure about the guilt and the crime merited the death penalty (Ted Bundy, etc), that is one thing. But we are finding convictions for murder and having the death penalty that were based on bad forensics (bite marks), falsified facts (jail house stories from other inmates) hiding evidence from the defense (other confessions, etc) and just bad defense lawyers.
Since the death penalty cannot be undone once carried out, it should be seldom used and only for the worst of the worst.