The primary scope of any penalty is to redress the disorder caused by the offense. When his punishment is voluntarily accepted by the offender, it takes on the value of expiation. Moreover, punishment, in addition to preserving public order and the safety of persons, has a medicinal scope: as far as possible it should contribute to the correction of the offender.

If bloodless means are sufficient to defend against the aggressor and to protect the safety of persons, public authority should limit itself to such means, because they better correspond to the concrete conditions of the common good and are more in conformity to the dignity of the human person. The Fifth Commandment states: “Thou shall not murder”

Today, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for effectively preventing crimes, the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity, are very rare, if not practically non-existent.

There ultimately remains no moral justification for imposing a sentence of death. Violence begets violence both in our hearts and in our actions.

By continuing the tradition of responding to killing with state-sanctioned killing, we rob ourselves of moral consistency and perpetuate that which we seek to sanction.

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