AT-RISK CHILDREN SOCIAL STATMENTS - ROMAN CATHOLIC

Criminal Justice

Human life is sacred because from its beginning it involves "the creative action of God."
"You shall not kill" is a divine commandment. God is the absolute Lord of the life of the human being. The inviolability of human life reflects the creator's inviolability. God is the goel, the defender of the innocent (cf. Gn 4:9-15). Only Satin can delight in the death of the living. –The Gospel of Life, Pope John Paul II, 1995
From http://www.osjspm.org/cst/ev_el.htm


We believe that both victims and offenders are children of God. Despite their very different claims on society, their lives and dignity should be protected and respected. We seek justice, not vengeance. We believe punishment must have clear purposes: protecting society and rehabilitating those who violate the law. –From Responsibility, Rehabilitation, and Restoration: A Catholic Perspective on Crime and Criminal Justice. http://www.osjspm.org/cst/q_crimjust.htm


Human dignity is not something we earn by our good behavior; it is something we have as children of God. We believe that because we are all created by God, “none of us is the sum total of the worst act we have ever committed….As a people of faith, we believe that grace can transform even the most hardened and cruel human beings.” . –From Responsibility, Rehabilitation, and Restoration: A Catholic Perspective on Crime and Criminal Justice. http://www.osjspm.org/cst/q_crimjust.htm

http://www.osjspm.org/cst/cappun.htm

We maintain that abolition of the death penalty would promote values that are important to us as citizens and Christians. First, abolition sends a message that we can break the cycle of violence, that we need not take life for life, that we can envisage more humane and more hopeful and effective responses to the growth of violent crime.

Second, abolition of capital punishment is also a manifestation of our belief in the unique worth and dignity of each person from the moment of conception, a creature made in the image and likeness of God. It is particularly important in the context of our times that this belief be affirmed with regard to those who have failed or whose lives have been distorted by suffering or hatred, even in the case of those who by their actions have failed to respect the dignity and rights of others. It is the recognition of the dignity of all human beings that has impelled the Church to minister to the needs of the outcast and the rejected and that should make us unwilling to treat the lives of even those who have taken human life as expendable or as a means to some further end. 

Third, abolition of the death penalty is further testimony to our conviction, a conviction which we share with the Judaic and Islamic traditions, that God is indeed the Lord of life.

Fourth, we believe that abolition of the death penalty is most consonant with the example of Jesus, who both taught and practiced the forgiveness of injustice and who came "to give his life as ransom for many." (Mark 10:45) In this regard, we may point to the reluctance which those early Christians who accepted capital punishment as a legitimate practice in civil society felt about the participation of Christians in such an institution and to the unwillingness of the Church to accept into the ranks of its ministries those who had been involved in the infliction of capital punishment.

http://www.nccbuscc.org/sdwp/criminal.htm#scriptural

Our society seems to prefer punishment to rehabilitation and retribution to restoration thereby indicating a failure to recognize prisoners as human beings. We believe in responsibility, accountability, and legitimate punishment.

At the same time, a Catholic approach does not give up on those who violate these laws. We believe that both victims and offenders are children of God. Despite their very different claims on society, their lives and dignity should be protected and respected. We seek justice, not vengeance. We believe punishment must have clear purposes: protecting society and rehabilitating those who violate the law.

The Old Testament provides us with a rich tradition that demonstrates both God's justice and mercy. The Lord offered to his people Ten Commandments, very basic rules for living from which the Israelites formed their own laws in a covenant relationship with God. Punishment was required, reparations were demanded, and relationships were restored. But the Lord never abandoned his people despite their sins. And in times of trouble, victims relied on God's love and mercy, and then on each other to find comfort and support (Is 57:18-21; Ps 94:19).

Just as God never abandons us, so too we must be in covenant with one another. We are all sinners, and our response to sin and failure should not be abandonment and despair, but rather justice, contrition, reparation, and return or reintegration of all into the community.

In our day, we are called to find Christ in young children at risk, troubled youth, prisoners in our jails and on death row, and crime victims experiencing pain and loss.

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Bulletin Inserts
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Indigent Defense (.pdf)
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