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Catholics on Left and Right Find Common Ground Opposing Death Penalty
But last year, seeing the amount of attention that The Register was giving to arguments opposing the death penalty, Mr. Coday came up with an idea: Maybe the two newspapers could collaborate on an editorial calling on Catholics to oppose the death penalty.
What struck me the most was Oklahoma Archbishop Paul Coakley came out strongly against it, Mr. Coday said. And his comments were covered by The National Catholic Register.
Indeed, The Register had covered Catholic death-penalty opposition last May, after the botched execution of an Oklahoma inmate, Clayton Lockett, and again in July, after the protracted execution in Arizona of Joseph R. Wood III, who took nearly two hours to die.
Eventually, Mr. Coday got three other publications, including The Register, to join him. On March 5, Catholic Publications Call for an End to Capital Punishment ran on the websites of The Reporter; The Register; Our Sunday Visitor, which is considered conservative; and the Jesuit magazine America, which is considered liberal. The editorial was written principally by Mr. Coday, with the involvement of the four editorial boards.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/28/us/catholics-on-left-and-right-find-common-ground-opposing-death-penalty.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0
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Catholics on Left and Right Find Common Ground Opposing Death Penalty (Original Post)
UrbScotty
Mar 2015
OP
Fortinbras Armstrong
(4,473 posts)1. Pope John Paul II
Wrote in his encyclical in his encyclical, Evangelium Vitae -- "The Gospel of Life", section 56. After a discussion of self defense, he says
This is the context in which to place the problem of the death penalty. On this matter there is a growing tendency, both in the Church and in civil society, to demand that it be applied in a very limited way or even that it be abolished completely. The problem must be viewed in the context of a system of penal justice ever more in line with human dignity and thus, in the end, with God's plan for man and society. The primary purpose of the punishment which society inflicts is "to redress the disorder caused by the offence." Public authority must redress the violation of personal and social rights by imposing on the offender an adequate punishment for the crime, as a condition for the offender to regain the exercise of his or her freedom. In this way authority also fulfills the purpose of defending public order and ensuring people's safety, while at the same time offering the offender an incentive and help to change his or her behaviour and be rehabilitated.
It is clear that, for these purposes to be achieved, the nature and extent of the punishment must be carefully evaluated and decided upon, and ought not go to the extreme of executing the offender except in cases of absolute necessity: in other words, when it would not be possible otherwise to defend society. Today however, as a result of steady improvements in the organization of the penal system, such cases are very rare, if not practically non-existent.
To sum this up, capital punishment is not intrinsically immoral, but there are essentially no situations in which it is morally acceptable.
Now, Pope Francis is pushing the idea that capital punishment is immoral in and of itself.