Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jun 6, 2022 / 15:56 pm (CNA).
In response to a federal court decision affirming the constitutionality of Oklahoma’s death penalty protocol, Archbishop Paul Coakley of Oklahoma City on Monday called on state lawmakers to end the death penalty.
“No matter the decision of the court on Oklahoma’s protocol, the use of the death penalty only contributes to the continued coarsening of society and to the spiral of violence,” Coakley said in a statement.
U.S. District Judge Stephen Friot, sitting in Oklahoma City, on June 6 ruled against 28 Oklahoma death row inmates’ argument that one of the drugs the state uses in its lethal injection protocol, the sedative midazolam, is an insufficient painkiller which makes the dying process severely and unconstitutionally painful, WRAL.com reported.
The Oklahoman reported that the court decision gives the state the ability to execute each of the 28 inmates over the next two years.
“Taking another life does not ultimately bring closure and peace to those who have lost a loved one, and it goes against the principle of valuing life,” Coakley said.
“Justice is necessary, but it is not enough,” he added. “Mercy perfects justice and brings healing. I urge state leaders to end the death penalty in Oklahoma.”
WRAL.com reported that the inmates’ attorneys are expected to appeal the decision to the 10th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Denver.
Coakley has been an outspoken opponent of the death penalty. In November he praised Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt, a Republican, for his “tremendous courage” in granting clemency to convicted murderer Julius Jones who was scheduled to be executed just hours later.
The court sentenced Jones to death about 20 years ago for the 1999 murder of Paul Howell. Jones maintains his innocence.
Over the centuries the Catholic Church had recognized the death penalty as an extreme but sometimes acceptable response to certain grave crimes. Modern popes, including Popes St. John Paul II and Benedict XVI, have called for an end to the use of the death penalty. In 2018, Pope Francis revised the Catechism of the Catholic Church to state that “‘the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person’ (Francis, Discourse, Oct. 11, 2017), and [the Church] works with determination for its abolition worldwide.”
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Think of the four Texas boys murdered with their grandfather last week by an escaped convict who had been convicted of murder. If he had been executed as he should have been, they would still be alive today. The immigration status of their killer is unclear. We don’t know if he was a second or third generation unassimilated US born Mexican or if he was a legal or illegal immigrant. The media and the bishops certainly don’t care. It is fair to say that the victims in this case and in many others paid with their lives for the leftist criminal justice and immigration policies favored by the entire establishment, including the hierarchy of the Catholic Church.
I will go with St Thomas Aquinas who said that capital punishment is akin to amputating a diseased limb to protect the body. While one can argue that it would be preferable to treat and cure a limb if possible, saying that amputation is evil in and of itself, regardless of how rotten and diseased the limb is and how much danger it poses to the rest of the body, is both irrational and has no basis in Catholic moral teaching.
Archbishop Paul Coakley cannot be judged a progressive because of his opposition to the death penalty consistent with John Paul II, Benedict XVI, as well as Francis. Coakley supported Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò’s testimony on the McCarrick affair and the pontiff, he strongly opposes same sex relationships as destructive to the family. He affirms the Eucharist be denied abortion supporting Catholic politicians.
When we have a good Archbishop we support them. Otherwise by our criticism we support what’s occurring during this pontificate seen in the elevation to the cardinalate men like Cupich, Farrell, Tobin, Gregory while Coakley, Cordileone, Naumann, Paprocki et al are ignored. That, the destruction of the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family, and other policy reveal a purposeful convulsion of Apostolic Catholicism requiring life support. We cannot support by implication, finding fault in faithful hierarchy, what this pontificate envisions as a realistic, enlightened Catholicism.