Catholics and Capital Punishment

Last year, I wrote that then-Attorney General Bill Barr was "no less a Catholic for pursuing the death penalty" against four federal prisoners who had been so sentenced. I wrote the piece in response to public-facing Catholics who claimed that Barr had forfeited his pro-life bona fides by signing off on the executions. Abortion, I argued, kills the innocent, while capital punishment kills the guilty. I claimed that the latter could not be compared with the former.