Capital Punishment and the Roman Catholic Church

The Roman Catechism: Translated and Annotated in Accord with Vatican II and Post-Conciliar Documents and the New Code of Canon Law by Robert I Bradley, S.J. and Eugene Kevane. Boston, Massacusetts: St. Paul Editions 1984.

Pages 410-411

THE FIFTH COMMANDMENT "You shall not kill!" ( Ex 20:13 )

4. Another Exception: Capital Punishment

"Even among human beings there are some limitations to the extent of this prohibition of killing. The power of life and death is permitted to certain civil magistrates because theirs is the responsibility under law to punish the guilty and protect the innocent.

"Far from being guilty of breaking this commandment, such an execution of justice is precisely an act of obedience to it.

"For the purpose of the law is to protect and foster human life.

"This purpose is fulfilled when the legitimate authority of the state is exercised by taking the guilty lives of those who have taken innocent life.

"In the Psalms we find a vindication of this right:

Morning by morning I will destroy all the wicked in the land, cutting off all the evildoers from the city of the Lord (Ps 101:8)"

For a current, succinct history of the Roman Catechism by the late Father John A. Hardon, S.J., click on:

www.therealpresence.org

Then, click on Hardon Archives. Next on Catechism and catechesis(4).

In the summary of Fr. Hardon's original article, The Catholic Lifetime Reading Plan, the good father quotes Pope John Paul II as saying that "the Council of Trent .. lies at the origin of the Roman Catechism, which .. is a work of the first rank as a summary of Christian theology [and] gave rise to a remarkable organization of catecises in the Church."

Now: The Koran, as quoted in the National Geographic, January, 2002:

Whoever killed a human being, except as punishment for murder or other villainy in the land, shall be deemed as though he had killed all mankind. Koran V:32