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Death Penalty; Does the Church forbid the death penalty
Topic Started: Sunday, 4. November 2012, 19:57 (133 Views)
tomais

On my Virginian site,( the U S A );discussion on this subject with of course various and conflicting quotes.
What are the views and opinions and the interpreations on this site?
Tomais
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OsullivanB

CCC
 
Capital Punishment

2266 The State's effort to contain the spread of behaviors injurious to human rights and the fundamental rules of civil coexistence corresponds to the requirement of watching over the common good. Legitimate public authority has the right and duty to inflict penalties commensurate with the gravity of the crime. the primary scope of the penalty is to redress the disorder caused by the offense. When his punishment is voluntarily accepted by the offender, it takes on the value of expiation. Moreover, punishment, in addition to preserving public order and the safety of persons, has a medicinal scope: as far as possible it should contribute to the correction of the offender.67

2267 The traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude, presupposing full ascertainment of the identity and responsibility of the offender, recourse to the death penalty, when this is the only practicable way to defend the lives of human beings effectively against the aggressor.
"If, instead, bloodless means are sufficient to defend against the aggressor and to protect the safety of persons, public authority should limit itself to such means, because they better correspond to the concrete conditions of the common good and are more in conformity to the dignity of the human person.
"Today, in fact, given the means at the State's disposal to effectively repress crime by rendering inoffensive the one who has committed it, without depriving him definitively of the possibility of redeeming himself, cases of absolute necessity for suppression of the offender 'today ... are very rare, if not practically non-existent.'[John Paul II, Evangelium vitae 56.]
"There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance - that principle is contempt prior to investigation." Herbert Spencer
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Rose of York
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Catholic Teaching is that it is permissible in some rare circumstances.

The Catholic Church's stance on the death penalty is its purpose is not punishment, it is the protection of people who would be in danger if the criminal were to be free. Nowadays in most situations there are other means of containing a dangerous person. Where the State is able to provide secure prisons there is no moral justification for executing criminals.
Keep the Faith!

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Derekap
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Whilst I am not in principle against the Death Penalty in cases of murder. I don't think any suggestion of reintroduction in the UK should be entertained. If it were reintroduced the first person found guilty would be almost a martyr. As regards the USA I don't approve of the varying lengths of time (Many years) before the sentence is carried-out - if it is carried-out. It would be better if it were also abolished throughout.
Derekap
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Deleted User
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Best arguments against it are simple--the Guildford 4, the Birmingham 6 and numerous innocent individuals either framed by some corrupt police officers or genuinely charged by good sincere officers who later turned out to be mistaken for one reason or another.

On the practical front, the USA experience suggests that the death penalty does not deter.

John
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tomais

Thankyou All.
Tomais
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paul

interestingly, Christ was executed for fear of causing civil unrest!

Personally, I am for the death penalty. some crimes are so horrific that I believe it unreasonable to expect society to keep the offender in gaol for years until he dies of natural causes. New developments in dna procedures greatly reduce the chances of an innocent man being executed.

I would illustrate nazi perpetrators convicted of war crimes, other despots and those convicted in this country for their horrific murders of innocent children. Crimes such as these cause public horror and appropriate punishment should be metted out by the judiciary. Unfortunately, the judiciary have only the confines, quite correctly, of the law in which they can act.

I was pleasantly surprised to read in my local rag recently that a psychopath was pleading insanity etc and the judge ruled that he was aware of what was right and wrong and convicted him of murder.
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Rose of York
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http://www.murderuk.com/one_off_Ronald_Castree.html

The freeing of Stefan Kisko persuaded me that even for child murder, execution is inappropriate.

Quote:
 
Stefan Kisko, a Civil Servant from Rochdale, spent seventeen years in prison for the murder of Lesley Molseed until scientific evidence showed he could not have committed the crime, evidence that was known to the police at the time but was suppressed and not disclosed to the defence. His conviction was overturned in 1992: He died a year later.

Lesley, aged 11, vanished from her Rochdale home in October 1975. Her body was later found on moors in West Yorkshire.


Fifteen years after Stefan Kisko was cleared another man was convicted of the murder.

Keep the Faith!

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