Chicago, 17th June 2005 (CNA)
- The U.S. bishops have voted to draft a
document stating Catholic doctrine regarding the
death penalty.
During the spring meeting of the United
States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) at
the Fairmont Hotel in Chicago, the bishops voted
to draft a document that will address the issue of
the death penalty. The document will probably be
voted on and released in November, during the fall
meeting of the USCCB.
According to a bishop who spoke with the
Catholic News Agency, the document "will basically
state the Catholic doctrine about the death
penalty as expressed in the Catechism of the
Catholic Church, which states that, even if a
Catholic can still be in favor of the death
penalty, it is very hard to humanly justify it in
our country."
The Catechism of the Catholic Church states
in number 2267 that "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.”
Nevertheless, it also says that if
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 are more in
conformity to the dignity of the human
person."
Currently, 29 states in the U.S. have a
moratorium on executions or have carried out three
or fewer executions in the last 30 years.
Only nine states have averaged one
execution per year since the death penalty was
reinstated in 1976, and only four states — Texas,
Virginia, Oklahoma, and Missouri — have averaged
two or more executions per year during that time.
Texas has averaged four or more executions per
year in the past three decades.
Kansas, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York
and South Dakota have had no executions in the
past 30 years, even though they have had the death
penalty during at least part of that
time.
Twelve states do not have the death
penalty.
