California judge refuses to revoke release of serial rapist
This may be sufficient evidence to make a prudent judgment that it is now impossible to safeguard the public safety without the death penalty.The Catechism says:
2264 Love toward oneself remains a fundamental principle of morality. Therefore it is legitimate to insist on respect for one's own right to life. Someone who defends his life is not guilty of murder even if he is forced to deal his aggressor a lethal blow:"If a man in self-defense uses more than necessary violence, it will be unlawful: whereas if he repels force with moderation, his defense will be lawful. . . . Nor is it necessary for salvation that a man omit the act of moderate self-defense to avoid killing the other man, since one is bound to take more care of one's own life than of another's." [St. Thomas Aquinas, STh II-II,64,7, corp. art.]2265 Legitimate defense can be not only a right but a grave duty for one who is responsible for the lives of others. The defense of the common good requires that an unjust aggressor be rendered unable to cause harm. 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. [Cf. Lk 23:40-43]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.
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 keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and more in conformity to 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 definitely 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." [John Paul II, Evangelium vitae 56]
Sorry again for what I'm going to say, but: Given a choice between Thomas Aquinas and thousands of years of scripture and natural law on one side, and John Paul II and a century of pious liberal sentiment on the other side, I would pick St. Thomas, citizen ownership of arms, and efficient punishment including the death penalty.
The people who say that yes, the death penalty is not excluded by faith and reason, and yet go on to make its application impossible -- these are the same people who have never met a just war (and set up impossible conditions for concluding it could ever be possible), the same people who nod to the Second Amendment and then regulate to the point of practical impossibility of its individual utilization, the same people who say that yes of course Pam Geller has a First Amendment right to free speech BUT...
That way lies madness, ovens, mass graves.
