What about Catholic politicians who support the death penalty? Shouldnt they refrain from receiving Holy Communion too?
According to church teaching, the state has the right to protect its citizens from unjust aggressors through use of the death penalty. However, at present the church stresses that non-lethal means namely life-imprisonment are more in keeping with human dignity, thus making reasons for recourse to the death penalty almost non-existent. Still, the church does not deny that the state continues to have the right to impose the death penalty. Furthermore, although the life issues are all interrelated, not all of them are of equal importance. In 1998, the bishops of the United States issued Living the Gospel of Life, a pastoral letter that stated categorically that the right to life carried more weight than other issues because it served as their moral foundation. I still feel that you bishops are meddling in politics. Abortion is a moral, not a political issue. The United States Constitution does not prohibit a member of the cloth from addressing moral issues. If it did, Dr. Martin Luther Ki
