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New USCCB Document on Death Penalty "Giving Cover to Pro-Abortion Politicians"?

By John Jalsevac

November 17, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A new United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) document, entitled "A Culture of Life and the Penalty of Death", overwhelmingly passed earlier this week by a margin of 237-4, strongly encourages U.S. Catholics to work towards the eradication of the death penalty. "Twenty-five years ago, our Conference of bishops first called for an end to the death penalty," says the document. "We renew this call to seize a new moment and new momentum."

While the document quotes the Catechism noting that "the death penalty is not intrinsically evil, as is the intentional taking of innocent life through abortion or euthanasia," the Conference calls into question the legitimacy of the continued use of capital punishment. "Ending the use of the death penalty," say the bishops, "would be one important step away from a culture of death toward building a culture of life." (see the full USCCB document: http://www.usccb.org/sdwp/national/penaltyofdeath.pdf )

Some Catholics and conservatives, however, while agreeing with the conclusions of the document itself, have expressed concern that the Bishops need to address the fact that pro-abortion politicians utilize the issue of the death penalty politically.

In recent years many leftist politicians have, in the guise of a political platform based on "tolerance" and "compassion", called for an end to the death penalty, while vilifying their conservative opponents who have supported its use. In most of these cases these same politicians have been virulently pro-abortion.

Conservative Catholic blogger Domenico Bettinelli, the editor of Catholic World Report, explains his qualms about the USCCB document, saying, "The problem with [the document] is that it muddles people's understanding of the hierarchy of Church teaching."

According to Betinelli the new document, and its vulnerability to misinterpretation, may give "cover to pro-abortion politicians", giving them further fodder to throw at Catholic, pro-capital punishment politicans. "This is how Catholic politicians like Ted Kennedy convince the little old ladies that they're still good Catholics," he continues. "They may be pro-abortion, but that's balanced out by their opposition to the death penalty…It also allows Ted Kennedy to also issue statements claiming that Catholic politicians who are opposed to abortion aren't really pro-life because they are pro-death penalty and then to say, 'See, no politician is 100% with the Church on every issue'."

However, any equivocation between abortion and the death penalty is, according to Catholic teaching, thoroughly false. According to the Catholic Catechism, and the longstanding tradition of the Church, capital punishment is justifiable under certain grave circumstances, and as such Catholic's are free to support its use. Abortion, on the other hand, according to Catholic teaching, is always and everywhere a grave moral evil and punishable by automatic excommunication.

See Bettinelli's blog:
http://www.bettnet.com/

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