Capital Punishment

The Church Cannot Reverse Past Teaching on Capital Punishment

09/08/2016 at 8:43 PM By Mary Anne Hackett
BY EDWARD FESER AND JOSEPH M. BESSETTE, SEPTEMBER 8, 2016 Pope St. John Paul II was well-known for his vigorous opposition to capital punishment. Yet in 2004, then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger—the pope’s own chief doctrinal officer, later to become Pope Benedict XVI—stated unambiguously... read more

CHICAGO ARCHBISHOP: CRUSHING BABIES’ SKULLS ‘NO LESS APPALLING’ THAN CAPITAL PUNISHMENT’

08/07/2015 at 8:47 PM By Mary Anne Hackett
By Thomas D. Williams, Ph.D, 7 Aug 2015 In a signed op-ed in the Chicago Tribune, Chicago Archbishop Blase Cupich listed a series of social ills that he says people should find just as appalling as the gruesome ripping apart of unborn children and the sale of their organs by Planned... read more

Is the Church Against Both Abortion and the Death Penalty?

06/19/2015 at 12:04 AM By Mary Anne Hackett
Written by Luiz Sérgio Solimeo, American Society for Tradition, Family & Property It is not a rare thing for Catholic prelates to assert definitively that the Church opposes capital punishment. Some even liken the death of a defenseless aborted baby to that of a criminal duly judged by a... read more

Give Us Barabbas!

05/05/2015 at 2:38 PM By Mary Anne Hackett
Why do so many liberals who oppose capital punishment support abortion? By Jason Scott Jones, Published on May 4, 2015 At age 17, I lost my unborn daughter to a coerced abortion, and that experience enflamed in me a passion as deep as a fire in a coal mine: to defend the human person from... read more

The Pope’s unconvincing arguments against the death penalty

04/04/2015 at 12:40 AM By Mary Anne Hackett
By Phil Lawler, Catholic Culture.org Full disclosure: I oppose the use of the death penalty in America today, for prudential reasons that I may explain in another essay. When Pope Francis said execution is always inadmissible, I was not dismayed by his conclusion. But I was dismayed by the logic... read more

The Traditional Case for Capital Punishment

03/17/2015 at 4:17 PM By Mary Anne Hackett
By Fr. C. John McCloskey, March 16, 2015 A group of Catholic publishers recently issued a joint statement urging an end to capital punishment. I have great respect for all of them – I have written for all of them at one point or another. I disagree with them on this issue, however. And it may... read more

Bishops use Supreme Court case to call for death penalty abolition

01/30/2015 at 5:06 PM By Mary Anne Hackett
Washington D.C., Jan 28, 2015, CNA/EWTN News Several bishops in the U.S. have welcomed the Supreme Court’s decision to re-examine death penalty protocols, and have called for the abolition of the death penalty. “We pray that the court’s review of these protocols will lead to the... read more

Pope: All Christians Must Oppose Death Penalty, Life Imprisonment

11/02/2014 at 10:29 PM By Mary Anne Hackett
By Tristyn Bloom, 10/23/2014 Speaking to a delegation from the International Association of Penal Law, October 20, Pope Francis condemned not only the death penalty, but life imprisonment, calling it a “hidden death sentence.” “It is impossible to imagine that states today cannot make... read more

Pope Francis Opposes Capital Punishment; Calls Life Sentences for Violent Criminals “A Hidden Death Penalty”

11/02/2014 at 10:17 PM By Mary Anne Hackett
By Kathy Schiffer, October 25, 2014 Speaking October 23 to a delegation from the International Association of Penal Law, Pope Francis called life sentences “a hidden form of capital punishment.”   The Pope expressed his hope that believers will oppose life-long incarceration, just as... read more

Death penalty repeal dead

11/08/2012 at 8:14 AM By Catholic Citizens of Illinois
The following comes from a November 7 story on SFGate.com. Proposition 34, an initiative to repeal California's seldom-used but politically potent death penalty law, was defeated when a majority of voters said they favor capital punishment. With 98 percent of the vote counted Wednesday... read more

Pope, Bishops Seek Clemency for Death Row Inmate, Urge Caution Due to Prisoner’s Inadequate Trial

09/10/2010 at 6:33 PM By Catholic Citizens of Illinois
Benedict XVI has joined with several Catholic bishops to request clemency for Gregory Wilson, a prisoner scheduled for execution in a few days. The Catholic Conference of Kentucky reported that Archbishop Joseph Kurtz of Louisville and Marian McClure Taylor, executive director of the Kentucky... read more

ALEXANDRIA, Va.

05/04/2006 at 3:30 PM By Catholic Citizens of Illinois

A new United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) document, entitled “A Culture of Life and the Penalty of Death”, overwhelmingly passed earlier this week by a margin of 237-4, strongly encou

11/21/2005 at 4:59 PM By Catholic Citizens of Illinois

Catholic teaching on the death penalty is best understood by viewing it through two lenses: what it is; and what it is not.

10/21/2005 at 4:56 PM By Catholic Citizens of Illinois

An imprisoned Saddam in an Iraq still under reconstruction would likely pose a threat to public safety.

01/10/2004 at 3:59 PM By Catholic Citizens of Illinois

Individuals are not to take revenge.

01/08/2004 at 9:58 PM By Catholic Citizens of Illinois

Tom Roeser knows that the Catholic Church has long held that the death penalty is moral, and he references Aquinas, as well as the Waldensian heresy, during which a death penalty opposing sect was act

01/20/2003 at 10:10 PM By Catholic Citizens of Illinois

“Catholic doctrine remains what it has been: that the State, in principle, has the right to impose the death penalty on persons convicted of very serious crimes.

04/26/2001 at 10:16 PM By Catholic Citizens of Illinois

The Joliet Diocesan paper, the Explorer, like many papers across the country, has managed to convince Catholics that the death penalty is immoral, unjust and against Catholic doctrine.

07/01/2000 at 10:21 PM By Catholic Citizens of Illinois