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Essay on The Paper can Closely Examine a Particular Challenge Facing the Catholic Church today
Debate over capital punishment is not confined to very violent societies such as the U. S. and South Africa. It has surfaced recently in the Philippines where President Fidel Ramos has made the reinstatement of capital punishment part of his anti-crime program. This requires a change in the 1986 Constitution, which abolished the death penalty, a change which was opposed by the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines in a statement issued on 24 July 1992. This statement, which strongly reflects the influence of the 1980 statement of the U. S. Catholic bishops, provides a useful starting point for seeing how this issue is now approached in Catholic teaching.
Because of the long history of church acceptance of the death penalty and because of the explicit scriptural authorization of the death penalty, it is not possible for the Philippine bishops to argue that the death penalty is inherently and necessarily a violation of the biblical commandment against killing or that it is an intolerable violation of human rights. Rather, they have to offer a more complex argument which is more prudential than demonstrative but which illuminates connections between capital punishment and other contemporary concerns of the Church. Their line of argument falls into three parts: (1) a critical assessment of arguments for the death penalty, (2) a setting forth of objections to the death penalty, and (3) the recommendation of alternative ways to bring crime under control.
The Philippine bishops by affirming that "the abolition of the death penalty by the 1986 Constitution was a very big step towards a practical recognition of the dignity of every human being created to the image and likeness of God and of the value of human life from its conception to its natural end." Three aspects of this preliminary judgment are noteworthy......
