The Church’s official stance to capital punishment is that it is unacceptable and morally wrong. This fits into the category of murder, which includes abortion, euthanasia, and stem-cell research as a thing that is “inherently evil”. The Vatican states that all human lives are sacred and the fifth commandment says that “You shall not kill”, which should apply to all situations. Pope John Paul II also said, “The cases where it is absolutely necessary to do way with the offender are now very rare, even non-existent practically”. In the United States, bishops and other people from the Church also believe that the death penalty is wrong and counter-productive.
In the United States the Church maintains a strong position on being anti-death penalty. This goes along with the Vatican’s opinion on opposing the death penalty strongly and showing it as a useless ability of government. A Catholic Bishop from Illinois stated, “To take a human life, even that of someone who is not innocent, is awesome and tragic. It seems to us and others that, in our culture today, there are not sufficient reasons to justify the state continuing to exercise its right in this manner”. From these two sources I do agree that the death penalty is wrong, and I think a solution for this would be to ensure that anyone who has killed someone maliciously should have be in solitary confinement in jail until they pass away. I think that this is a fair compromise between death and being let out of jail after a long period of time. I think if this was established, then the government and churches might be on better terms without the fight over death row.
http://www.usccb.org/deathpenalty/dpvatican.shtml
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