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The Catholic Church and the Death Penalty

This agrees with the human morals of respecting everyone human dignity because it is a gift from God and rooted in his love for us. .
             Pope John Paul II shares his belief of the death penalty that in modern society the death penalty should be, "very rare, if not practically non-existent" (Catholic Social Teaching 145). This shows the rarity of the use of the death penalty. According to the Church, the death penalty should be basically non-existent. With that said, there is still a tiny little loop hole that may permit the penalty. That small occasion is when the only way to stop someone from hurting people is by having them executed. Even though there are people out there that show different beliefs about the death penalty, most of the ideas are similar to the Church. "Despite the continuing belief by a majority of Americans that the death penalty is morally permissible, the death penalty has few academic defenders. This lack of academic defenders is puzzling because of the strong philosophical justification the death penalty finds in traditional theories of punishment" (New Criminal Law Review: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal). A lot of people do not support the death penalty even with the strong history that includes the death penalty in many cases. This would seem to attract more defenders but the moral issues around the death penalty surpass the past. However, the majority of America still believes that the death penalty is permissible but the academic defenders of this issue prove to be very few. .
             Things that contribute to people's beliefs about the death penalty differ from their backgrounds. This especially pertains to people's religious backgrounds and what their religion teaches them about the death penalty. "Those who favored the death penalty differed from those who had doubts about the penalty in gender, affiliation, fundamentalism, evangelism, literal Biblical interpretism, beliefs about God's attitudes toward murders, and perceptions of how their religious groups felt about the death penalty" (Law and Human Behavior 2008 Springer).


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