(Death, Heaven, Purgatory, Hell)
Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults
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Catholic Catechism passages relating to the death penalty
"New"
(1997) definitive Latin edition of Catechsim
2265. Legitimate defense can be not only a right but a grave duty for one who is
responsible for the lives of others. The defense of the common good requires
that an unjust aggressor be rendered unable to cause harm. For this reason,
those who legitimately hold authority also have the right to use arms to repel
aggressors against the civil community entrusted to their responsibility.
2266. The efforts of the state to curb the spread of behavior harmful to
people's rights and to the basic rules of civil society correspond to the
requirement of safeguarding the common good. Legitimate public authority has the
right and the duty to inflict punishment proportionate to the gravity of the
offense. Punishment has the primary aim of redressing the disorder introduced by
the offense. When it is willingly accepted by the guilty party, it assumes the
value of expiation. Punishment then, in addition to defending public order and
protecting people's safety, has a medicinal purpose: As far as possible, it must
contribute to the correction of the guilty party.
2267. Assuming that the guilty party's identity and responsibility have been
fully determined, the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude
recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively
defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.
If, however, non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people's
safety from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these
are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and more in
conformity with the dignity of the human person.
Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for
effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an offense
incapable of doing harm -- without definitively taking away from him the
possibility of redeeming himself -- the cases in which the execution of the
offender is an abolute necessity "are very rare, if not practically
non-existent." (John Paul II, Evangelium Vitae, 56)