|
|
Why does the Church oppose the Death Penalty
|
 |
Why does the Church Oppose the death penalty? The Catholic hierarchy of the Philippines has taken a consistent stand against capital punishment. As early as 1979, the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) endorsed a bill entitled "An Act Abolishing Death Penalty". In 1987, the bishops welcomed the provision in the New Constitution that abolished death penalty. Subsequently, the CBCP reiterated its position during the debates that eventually led to the Philippine Congress restoring the death penalty for heinous crimes in 1993. The Catechism for Filipino Catholics, prepared by the Philippine Bishops and approved by the Holy Sec. Considers it " a serious Christian task to work precisely toward changing social conditions" leading to the abolition of the death penalty. The CBCP position is not a purely doctrinal stand, it is a pastoral one. But like all pastoral stands. It is based on Church doctrine, prudently applied by competent pastors in the setting which they intimately know.
|
General Position of the Catholic ChurchThe Magisterium is unequivocally pro-life and merely tolerates the resort to capital punishment in extreme cases. It does not support its imposition in the contemporary setting and prefers bloodless means of defending society. It emphasizes the "corrective" rather than the "vindictive" aspects of punishment. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) in No. 2267 tolerates capital punishment as a last resort, and even then there must be important safeguards to prevent injustice. In point of fact, the Magisterium considers justifiable recourse to capital punishment as " practically non-existent". Pope John Paul II's important encyclical evangelium vitae which denounced the present "culture of death". Elaborates more on the Church's pro-life position regarding capital punishment it states: "This is the context in which to place the problem of the death penalty. On this matter there is a growing tendency, both in the Church and in civil society, to demand that it be applied in a very limited way or even that it be abolished completely. The problem must be viewed in the context of a system of penal justice ever more in line with human dignity and thus, in the end, with God's plan for man and society. The primary purpose of the punishment which society inflicts is to redress the disorder caused by the offense Public authority must redress the violation of personal and social rights by imposing on the offender an adequate punishment for the crime as a condition for the offender to regain the exercise of his or her freedom. In this way, authority also fulfills the purpose of defending public order and ensuring people's safety, while at the same time offering the offender an incentive and help to change his or her behavior and be rehabilitated. "It is clear that for these purposes to be achieved the nature and extent of the punishment must be carefully evaluated and decided upon, and ought not to go to the extreme of executing the offender except in cases of absolute necessity in other words when it would not be possible otherwise to defend society. Today, however, as a result of steady improvements in the organization of the penal system. In any event, the principle set forth in the new Catechism of the Catholic Church remains valid; if bloodless means are sufficient to defend human lives against an aggressor and to protect public order and the safety of persons, public authority must limits itself to such means, because they better correspond to the concrete conditions of the common good and are more in conformity with the dignity of the human person." (No. 56).
|
|
|
| JOIN MAILING LIST |
 |
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
| Letters to the Editor |
|
|
|
|
| Letters by Sr. Pilar |
|
|
|
|
| Love Life TV |
|
|
|
| MAGAZINE |
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
| HOT TOPICS |
|
|
|
|
|
| ANTI LIFE ISSUES |
|
|
| |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
