Catholic Church has always upheld the death penalty

To the editor:

The Catholic Church has always taught that the state may lawfully take the life of a person as just punishment for a crime. Proof of this perennial belief can be found in Scripture, where St. Paul speaks of the state's right to "carry the sword" (Romans 13:4) and in the writings of the doctors of the church, including St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, who remarks in his "Summa Theologica": "The slaying of an evil-doer is lawful inasmuch as it is directed to the welfare of the whole community."

That this view represents the true teaching of the church was reaffirmed by Pope Pius XII in 1952: "It is then the task of public authority to deprive the condemned man of the good of life, in expiation of his fault, after he has already deprived himself of the right to life by his crime."

Recent statements by Pope John Paul II that the death penalty is "cruel and unnecessary" are not in line with tradition and merely reflect the pope's personal beliefs, which no Catholic is bound to accept. The notion that capital punishment is no longer just in our modern age reveals a harmful spirit of moral relativism, under which the church's teachings must be updated to suit the times, and calls into question the unchanging nature of God.

Embracing this progressivist spirit has induced many to issue mea culpas on behalf of the church's past and resulted in the confusion of beliefs we see today.

BRANDON RUTH

Cape Girardeau