Chicago, Ill., Jun 16, 2005 / 22:00 pm
The U.S. bishops have voted to draft a document stating Catholic doctrine regarding the death penalty.
During the spring meeting of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) at the Fairmont Hotel in Chicago, the bishops voted to draft a document that will address the issue of the death penalty. The document will probably be voted on and released in November, during the fall meeting of the USCCB.
According to a bishop who spoke with the Catholic News Agency, the document "will basically state the Catholic doctrine about the death penalty as expressed in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which states that, even if a Catholic can still be in favor of the death penalty, it is very hard to humanly justify it in our country."
The Catechism of the Catholic Church states in number 2267 that "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.”