Week 9/3: Chapter 8 Question 2

I went to a Catholic school for six years where we were taught that disrespectfulness, discrimination, disobedience, hurting others verbally and physically, and murder are sins. We were taught that vengeance is not the answer to when people hurt or disappoint us. So, Sister Helen Prejean’s statement does imply that the death penalty should not be implemented.

If someone is a Christian, then he or she most likely believes Jesus’ teaching that murder is murder. It does not matter who is doing it or why but it is still a sin that Christians should not commit or an act that they should not agree with. Jesus “taught us to not return hate for hate and evil for evil,” which suggests that killing a criminal as retaliation goes against this teaching. If a partial purpose of the death penalty is justice or peace of mind for the victims, then implementing the death penalty on the slaughterer should relieve the victims of any hate or anger. Things should lead to fairness and relief after killing that murderer. But does it really bring back peace into the minds of those victims? Is it really justice to kill that murderer? If Christian victims lost their loved ones, according to Jesus’ teachings, they should turn to forgiveness and acceptance and not retaliate in a cruel way. 

I am stressing the words Christian and Christianity on this post because, in the end, it depends on your morals, your faith, your opinion. However, in Christianity, it is immoral to kill a person, no matter how or why. Thus, Sister Prejean’s statement quite clearly implies that the death penalty is inhumane and unnecessary and opposes what Jesus taught his followers.