Question:
Answer:
The Church considers the death penalty society’s version of self-defense. Just as you have the right to defend yourself from a lethal attack, so too does society have the right to defend itself from murderous individuals.
However, just because someone is guilty does not mean society is free to execute him. Capital punishment is moral in particular circumstances, not all circumstances. Society must be morally certain the individual is guilty of a grave crime and have no other legitimate means of protecting itself. Whether or not there are nonlethal means to protect society is a prudential judgment, and people of good will could have differing views.
Thus the death penalty, by its very nature, can never be always wrong in the same way that we could never say someone would never have to resort to killing in order to protect oneself or others. We can certainly debate appropriate circumstances to take such action and the means to prevent us from going that far, but it can never really be taken off the table, since it is not intrinsically wrong.