Archbishop Edwin O'Brien testifies about the moral concerns of the Death Penalty

Testifying in the state capital for the first time since his Oct. 1, 2007, installation as head of the Baltimore Archdiocese, Archbishop O'Brien said Catholic opposition to the death penalty is consistent with the church's respect for the sanctity of human life. He quoted from Pope John Paul II's 1995 encyclical, "The Gospel of Life," which calls for the defense of life from conception to natural death.

"Woven into the fabric of the (pope's) exhortation was an appeal to end capital punishment -- to stand against the killing of even those who have committed murder and, in so doing, have affronted God's dominion and denied their own and their victims' God-given humanity," said Archbishop O'Brien, who was accompanied by Bishop Eugene Sutton of the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland and Bishop John Schol of the United Methodist Church of Maryland.

Pope John Paul taught that "bloodless means" of punishment should be employed to protect society, the archbishop said, noting that such means exist in the form of modern prison systems.

Aside from interfering in the life process, denying a criminal the opportunity to repent is what drives the opposition to the death penalty. There are circumstances in which a criminal is can be influencing others from prison to commit crimes and in those circumstances, the penalty is righteous.

As always, the Catechism is our means of discernment. At the end of the day, it is not prohibited as abortion is prohibited.

For this reason, those who legitimately hold authority also have the right to use arms to repel aggressors against the civil community entrusted to their responsibility.

2266 The efforts of the state to curb the spread of behavior harmful to people's rights and to the basic rules of civil society correspond to the requirement of safeguarding the common good. Legitimate public authority has the right and duty to inflict punishment proportionate to the gravity of the offense. Punishment has the primary aim of redressing the disorder introduced by the offense. When it is willingly accepted by the guilty party, it assumes the value of expiation. Punishment then, in addition to defending public order and protecting people's safety, has a medicinal purpose: as far as possible, it must contribute to the correction of the guilty party.⁶⁷

2267 Assuming that the guilty party's identity and responsibility have been fully determined, 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.

The death penalty is over-used and abused. Kudos to +O'Brien for addressing the Commission from the right perspective.