Cardinal Gregory urges reflection on ‘weighty moral question’ of capital punishment
April 20, 2022
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CWN Editor's Note: “Taking the life of one who has taken another’s life is most assuredly just another link in the horror of violence of which there is far too much in our world,” Cardinal Wilton Gregory of Washington preached on Good Friday. “The pastors of the church are challenging us all to consider other means to protect society that do not include the destruction of another life.”
“We are not seeking the wholesale release of murderers and dangerous criminals back into society,” he continued. “We are not urging our nation to neglect its obligation to protect its citizens. We are not suggesting that dangerous people are not dangerous people. We are, however, beseeching Catholics everywhere to consider carefully the impact that capital punishment has on us as a society.”
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Posted by: Randal Mandock -
Apr. 23, 2022 2:20 AM ET USA
If there were such a thing in the penal system as isolation of a prisoner from everyone that he could harm, then the Cardinal might have a case to make. However, in the real world of murder by cell-phone command, murder by proxy, murder facilitated by prison personnel, a multitude of crimes that can be committed by an incarcerated person, the prisoner at the head of the chain of vicious criminal acts will forfeit his own life by refusal to desist from such acts. The state ends his crime spree.
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Posted by: miketimmer499385 -
Apr. 20, 2022 4:06 PM ET USA
I can't be the only observer to note the log in Bishop Gregory's eye as he protests the speck of capital punishment that is hardly a dent in the loss of life in, at least, these United States. He blithely expends little visible energy in repudiating the very people responsible for the massive destruction of far more worthy human beings through abortion. As to this topic I recommend "By Man Shall His Blood Be Shed" by Edward Feser and Joseph Bessette.
