The Catholic Church and Capital Punishment

I read this article in a philosophy course on Ethics. It illmuminates the moral nature of the death penalty and presents a coherent evolution of the Church's stance on the issue without undermining of Sacred Tradition. It is a valuable read; all too often are there situations where one person says, "I can't support him, he's pro-choice," and the counter-reply is, "Well, the other guy is in favor of capital punishment."

Though, I am direly opposed to capital punishment myself, the argument of "proportionalism" in regard to voting for a pro-choice candidate doesn't work in this situation. (And this is coming from a Democrat). The two issues, abortion and capital punishment, are not morally equal. Abortion was legalized in 1973 and since then approximately 50 million unborn children have died in 35 years. Capital punishment was reinstated in 1976 in only 37 states and approximately 1,100 criminals have been put to death. The massive margin between those two numbers demonstrate in one respect [frequency and scope] how abortion immediately trumps the death penalty. Moreover, the Church has consistently taught that the State does not have the right to kill, but it has the obligation to protect (i.e. self-defense) the citizens from harm and if there are no other means of maintaining the common good, the death penalty is morally permissible. Abortion, on the other hand, is the deliberate and intentional killing of unborn human life making it sustinctly murder whereas this is not the case of capital punishment, though it proves unnecessary today [the gravity of abortion is greater, i.e. murder vs. "needless bloodshed" as capital punishment isn't necessarily murder.]

Cardinal Avery Dulles, Catholicism and Capital Punishment