Today my father expressed the opinion that Jared Loughner, the Tucson shooter, ought to be sentenced and put to death. My dad is a 4th degree Knight of Columbus, strongly anti-abortion, and as traditional a Catholic as you could find, but the death penalty is the one area where he staunchly stands apart from official teaching. As he explained it, society should not have to provide room and board for the rest of Jared Loughner’s life.
Yes, the Catechism of the Catholic Church (#2267) states “…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.” Yet in 2005 the American bishops launched the Catholic Campaign to End the Use of the Death Penalty. The bishops stated that “the use of the death penalty is unnecessary and unjustified in our time and circumstances.”
My father seems to feel that these statements by the bishops leave him enough room to continue to be an advocate for capital punishment while remaining a Catholic in good standing. Readers, what do you think? Please comment.
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