Diocese of Reno
Statement on Capital Punishment
The U.S. Catholic bishops have been calling for an end to the use of the death penalty for over 25 years.
Our nation should forego the use of the death penalty because:
The sanction of death, when it is not necessary to protect society, violates respect for human life
and dignity.
State-sanctioned killing in our names diminishes all of us.
Its application is deeply flawed and can be irreversibly wrong, is prone to errors, and is biased by
such factors as race, the quality of legal representation, and where the crime was committed.
We have other ways to punish criminals and protect society.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church states further:
"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 an unjust aggressor. If, however, non-lethal means are sufficient
to defend and protect people's safety from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these
are more in conformity with the dignity of the human person. Today, in fact, as a consequence of the
possibilities which the state has for effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an
offense incapable of doing harm—without definitively taking away from him the possibility of redeeming
himself—the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity "are very rare, if not
practically nonexistent." (no. 2267)
Taken from: the USCCB document “A Culture of Life and the Penalty of Death” December,
2005 and from “The Catechism of the Catholic Church, first revision”.