The Silent Death of the Death Penalty
There has been a silent shift among Catholics and maybe even conservatives more broadly on the question of the death penalty. While the death penalty had been a contentious issue in the 70s and 80s with Michael Dukakis having sunk his campaign with not answering YES! unequivocally when asked in a debate on whether he would favor its use in the circumstance of his wife being raped and killed, and then saying that that's why grieving family members shouldn't be in charge of the legal system. The Death Penalty is now one of those supplementary issues ranking somewhere between nuclear arms reduction and environmental conservation, all important issues yes, but issues that have fallen away from the public consciousness. I have found, however, that there is a new talk of the death penalty less of an actual debate about the issue itself but more of a supplementary rhetorical device when someone is debating abortion. A progressive might say t...