Death Penalty Does Not Add Up

I have long been an opponent of the death penalty - even though my brother was murdered.

I have argued against it on moral and ethical grounds. I have argued that the Church considers it morally acceptable only under certain limited circumstance - circumstances that do NOT exist in the U.S.

None of those arguments seemed to resonate.

I have also argued that keeping a killer in prison for life is cheaper than executing him or her.

Apparently in these tough financial times that argument is finally hitting home.

According to a recent Associated Press article, "an increasing number of (states) are considering abolishing capital punishment in favor of life imprisonment, not on principle, but out of financial necessity."

Didn't some recent President say of other nations something like, "Sometimes money trumps morality"?

We're talking about "tens of millions of dollars" in savings, the article notes.

I believe that life imprisonment gives the killers every possible opportunity to reform and repent - even if it takes decades. And in some cases, it also prevents innocent people from being executed.

So if saving money is the way to get states to stop, fine. I'll live with that.

I believe that morality trumps money.

Catholics Start Anti-Death Penalty Network

A new Catholic organization to end the death penalty was launched January 25 in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

The Catholic Mobilizing Network to End the Death Penalty is a lay-run group that apparently has support from the U.S. Bishops, but will be run independently from the USCCB.

A CNS story says it "will be designed particularly to reach out to young people and Hispanic Catholics on the issue of capital punishment."

The story notes that the Sisters of St. Joseph of Medaille - the congregation of Sister Helen Prejean, who has battled for years against the death penalty - provided the seed money.

I am all for such an effort - even though my own brother was murdered. Just as I oppose unjust war and abortion, I am opposed to the death penalty in the U.S.

And that's in line with what the Church teaches and Pope John Paul II has said.

As the CNS story points out, the Catechism of the Catholic Church says that "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." It quotes Pope John Paul II as saying that "the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity 'are very rare, if not practically nonexistent."

In the U.S, that is the case.

The U.S bishops have also spoken out against the death penalty for decades, in 2005 issuing "A Culture of Life and the Penalty of Death."

In that statement they said ""We renew our common conviction that it is time for our nation to abandon the illusion that we can protect life by taking life. We encourage reflection and call for common action in the Catholic community and among all men and women of good will to end the use of the death penalty in our land. Ending the death penalty would be one important step away from a culture of death toward building a culture of life."

We need to oppose the culture of death in all its manifestations.