Innocent Blood?
Re: Texas may have put innocent man to death, panel told

Although Catholic teaching holds that the death penalty is not intrinsically evil and may be justified in some times and places, the chilling details of the above story lend support to the noble efforts reported on in this earlier story: U.S. Bishops to Launch Campaign to End Death Penalty*.

If Cameron Todd Willingham is indeed innocent, as he maintained until his death, I pray that he is now enjoying eternal bliss with his daughters.

Here's what the CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH says on the death penalty:

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 are 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 non-existent."

*I wouldn't object if an exception were made allowing child-rapists and -killers to be hanged.