Catholicism and the death penalty

Today a local man received the death penalty for a most heinous crime; in cold blood he killed his wife, his young son and attempted to kill his daughters. The young girls actually played dead to save their lives. In this case, the killer did not deny his crime.

The crime and the loss of life of two innocent people is horrific. The crime also left a huge scar in the community, particularly the neighborhood where it occured. This played out in the middle of the day with neighbors outdoors and children playing or returning home from school. In every way possible it was evil; it was cruel; it was horrific.

I know the pain of the family must be so raw today, as I imagine it is every day. They have had to endure unspeakable grief, inconsolable loss. I, along with the vast majority of the community are praying for them and lifting them up to God.

I was prompted to write this tonight not to defend, in any way, the actions of the convicted killer. As is often the case with capital punishment verdicts, the comments are flowing on local blogs, including those of the local media. The comments from these non-family members focus on revenge, a sense of victory (over the evil killer), of justification. There is very little being written about whether or not the community can only be protected by his own death by lethal injection.

I believe this is why Pope John Paul the Great spoke so often about the death penalty and wrote about it in Evangelium vitae. I realize what I'm about to share is the Catholic perspective. I offer it only to ease the vitriol being spewed by the general public. This is not in any way to be misconstrued as defending the indefensible, giving any justification for the crime, or fully understanding that the real victims here are those who innocently lost their lives, the surviving family members, and the countless friends and relatives of the family; not to mention the community at large.

From the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

"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 agressor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these are more in keeping with the concrete conitions of the common good and more in conformity with 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 as committed an offense incapable of doing harm - without definitively 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 non-existent."

This is from paragraph 2267 and the last sentence is from John Paul II. Read it in it's entirety; ponder it's total message; pray with it.

Again, I'm not arguing with the job of the DA, the difficult task of the jury, or defending in any way the killer. My goal tonight is to share official Church teaching and to make one aware of what motivates someone to pronounce a death penalty as reason to cheer.

Tonight, I simply ask for you to join me in prayer for the family of the innocent victims, the victims as well, for those who had to wrestle with this verdict and that God have mercy on sinners.