On the Roman Catholic Tradition and Capital Punishment

The best treatment of the Roman Catholic tradition and capital punishment with which I am familiar is this book, written at Oxford under the supervision of John Finnis:  E. CHRISTIAN BRUGGER, CAPITAL PUNISHMENT AND ROMAN CATHOLIC MORAL TRADITION (Notre Dame, 2003) (here).  Brugger makes a powerful case that by the papacy of John Paul II, the Tradition had developed to the point where capital punishment is morally beyond the pale not merely as a prudential matter but as an entailment of the premise that one may never intentionally destroy a human life--full stop.  No "innocent" in front of "human life".  And, of course, although there is a "doctrine of double effect" justification for some killing in self-defense or in a just war, there is, as Brugger carefully explains, no DDE justification for capital punishment.

For my own position--or at least for what was my position a few years back--see my "Capital Punishment and the Morality of Human Rights," 44 Journal of Catholic Legal Studies 1 (2005) (based on a lecture I was privileged to give at St. John's University School of Law  in October 2004).  That paper is downloadable here.