A History of the Catholic Church on the Death Penalty Research Paper

A History of the Catholic Church on the Death penalization - Research Paper ExampleDespite preaching immense love and respect for humanity, Catholicism exhibited entire views on the wipeout penalty. Going back to the earliest times, Christianity adhered to the concept of vengeance instead of forgiveness. An eye for an eye, livelihood for life, limb for limb had been the doctrine of olden times Christianity. This was the doctrine of the churches and all the popes had been following it until The Church create its approved catechism in 1992 for the first time in over four centuries. Pope John capital of Minnesota II described death penalty in these words the right and duty of the legitimate humans authority to punish malefactors by sum of penalties commensurate with the gravity of the crime, not excluding, in cases of extreme gravity, the death penalty. The 1992 text then asserts that the primary effect of punishment is to redress the disorder caused by the offense. Finally, it s tates, If bloodless means are sufficient to defend human lives against an aggressor and to protect reality order and the safety of persons, public authority should limit itself to such means because they better correspond to the concrete conditions of the common good and are more in conformity to the dignity of the human person. The second publication came in Latin in 1997 and to its readers surprise, the second version of catechism contained a significant change in the definition of the death penalty. But nevertheless before that Pope John Paul II issued a letter titled On kind-hearted Life (Evangelium Vitae, 1995). The letter emphasized the importance of the human life and reverence. It also arose many moral issues related to to the death penalty. Although Pope John Paul had been favoring the death penalty as per the Capital Laws in the then(prenominal) this new shift surprised the Churchs followers to a great extent. Finally in the 1997 version death penalty was acceptable o nly in the extreme case of protecting iodin from the aggressor.