I know Bush is NOT a Catholic (His brother Jeb is, he married a Catholic) but the Catholic Doctrine is like most Christian Religions on this subject, it accepts the Death Penalty if that is the only way to protect society, BUT given today's society and its access to prison system to keep such people from doing further killings, there is NO justification today.
Note the Catholic Church would permit Execution IF THAT IS THE ONLY WAY TO PROTECT SOCIETY. Basically if the Choice is to leave free a person who will kill again OR execute him, the Church will support executing such a person. But notice the exception, it is narrow and implies situations where there is no other way to protect society. The classic situation is War Time. A soldier while fighting starts to murder Civilians, but the army is in retreat, they can NOT send him to the rear, for all the rear can do is set him free to kill civilians again. In such a situation then that Soldiers execution is permitted under Catholic Doctrine (Notice in most combat situation you can send the soldier to the rear for trial and imprisonment, and that is what should be done, but in a retreating army that is NOT always possible, thus the right to protect society must come first. The other classic example is an attempted Coup. The Coup fails, what do you do about the people who participated in it? Sentence of life imprisonment is only effective if the possibility of another coup (one that is successful) is remote, if there is a good chance of a subsequent successful coup the only effective punishment is execution. I know Chavez did NOT execute the plotters of the coup against him, but that shows how little he is afraid of such a coup, other rulers with less hold on their government may have to take a harsher stand, but I only mention it as an example of the exception of the Catholic Doctrine that bans the death penalty based on Christian Teachings.
As to the Old Testament, that was time period without any other way to protect society other then execution. Prisons, as we understand them to be, is a product of the 1800s, prior to about 1830 Felons were either executed OR sold out for use as labor while being held (In fact in the 1600s and 1700s, since it was ILLEGAL to ship convicted Felons outside of the Felon's country, people charged with Felonies would opt to be sold as indentured servants BEFORE they would be officially charged and the proceeds of the sale would go to the victim or the victim's family, thus the felon could be shipped to the American Colonies, by the 1790s England decided to start to ignore International law that forbade shipping felons overseas and started to ship them to Australia, notice that America tended to get less CONVICTED Felons compared to Australia but the total number of Felons may have been about the same, the records are unclear given HOW Felons could and did opt out of the Criminal Justice system in the 1600s and 1700s if it was possible). A secondary factor in the 1600s and 1700s was the shear number of crimes subject to the Death penalty. The problem was, such crimes were subject to the death penalty, but most people caught opt out of the system before indictment by paying off the victim (the money for often came from selling yourself as in indentured servant). The shear number of crimes punishable by death seems to be more to force such criminals, when caught, to opt for transportation to the Americas. The actual transportation of Criminals to Australia (i.e. AFTER Conviction) started in the 1790s at the same time the British Parliament started to reduce the number of Capital Offenses (For example pickpocketing was a capital offense in the 1700s). With the decision you can export your felons in violation of International Law, the need for death Penalties to convince people to opt for indentured servitude BEFORE conviction died out. By the 1790s it was possible to shipped convicted felons overseas without their permission so the laws giving people that option if exercised BEFORE being charged was deemed no longer needed and was abolished.
It has always amazed me WHY some laws are changed and why. Pick Pocket and other offenses of a misdemeanor nature were made capital offense when you needed the felon co-operation to ship him or her overseas. The Capital nature of the Crime was held over his or her head until they agreed to the shipment overseas. When the Cooperation was no longer needed (i.e. 1790s) such crimes were removed from the list of Capital Crimes. The same with the Death Penalty, it is on its way out for we no longer need it to keep potential murders away from the rest of society. The invention of the prison system provided a way to secure such people from society. The first state to abolish the Death Penalty, Michigan, abolished the death penalty in 1847 and did it in its Constitution which lay the state legislature can NOT pass any death penalty laws. but about 20 years after the invention of the modern prison system).
More on the "Pennsylvania System" of Prisons started in the 1820s:
http://www.prisonsociety.org/about/history.shtmlhttp://www.correctionhistory.org/html/chronicl/state/html/nyprisons.htmlThe heart of the Pennsylvania System, Eastern Penn:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_State_Penitentiaryhttp://www.easternstate.org/history/index.phpAl Capone and Willie Sutton both stay at Eastern State (Capone for only a year, he was caught carrying a pistol in Philadelphia without a permit, sentenced to one year. This was the first step in the Federal plan to get him for Income tax, tie him up for a year on a minor charge, attack his source of cash and then go after him for Income tax). Another inmate was Willie Sutton, the us bank robber of the 1920s and 1930s who allegedly said the following when ask "Why did you rob banks?" responded by saying "That is where the money is" (Sutton later denied it, but he had used similar comments elsewhere). And let us not forget Eastern State's state most famous inmate, #2559, sentence by Governor Pinchot of Pennsylvania to life imprisonment at Eastern State in 1924. Pep "the cat murdering dog" (There is a debate if the Black Labrador Retriever even killed anything let alone a cat, the story appears to be a public stunt by the prison after Pinchot had left his dog Pep stay at Eastern State to help the morale of the prisoners, that fits Pinchot's character as does his cooperation with the story about Pep was sentenced to life imprisonment for killing his wife's cat (Pinchot had earlier in his life help save the White House Christmas Tree when Theodore Roosevelt said he will NOT have one in the White House for it was a symbol of the destruction of American Forests. Alice and the rest of Roosevelt's Children appeal to Pinchot, then head of the Federal Forest Service to convinced their father to have the tree. Pinchot, who had just finished a world wide tour of how other countries handled their forests, told TR that TR's plan NOT to have a Christmas Tree would defeat Pinchot's plan to save and revive the American Forests. Pinchot pointed out the only way to save the forest is if the owners of the forest saw value in the trees that made up the forest. Christmas trees, even is raised on tree farms, were better then leaving the hill side barren of any and all trees. Furthermore given that most Christmas Trees are ready for harvest within 5 years of being planted, it offered a relatively quick return to the owners of the land. Thus Christmas trees were NOT symbols of the destruction of American Forests but a Symbol of its rebirth and reuse.
Now Pinchot saw Christmas Trees as only part of his plan to revive the American Forests, but he knew he had to get American Businessmen on the side of protecting forest and the only way to do that in the early 1900s was to show American Businessmen that saving forest was economically advantageous to them. Pinchot also wanted to buy up as much of the abandoned Forest lands as he could so that he could then try to revive them. The National Forest system is his creations as much as anyone else. As Governor he arranged for the purchase of the land that would become Allegheny National Forest in Pennsylvania AND the development and purchase of other abandoned forests to be set up as State Forests (And set up a procedure where the local Governments gets tax revenue for having such state forest's in their municipality, which meant such local government saw such state forest as an economic assets to themselves, NOT just an asset to the state).
Pinchot is NOT favored today do to his emphasis on commercial use of Forests, but Commercial viability was what was watch word of the day and he used it to save the forests. Today many conservations prefer John Muir, for Muir absolute desire to preserve things, a position Pinchot opposed. The problem was there was NO support for such absolute preservation in the Congress at that time (1900-1912) and even Pinchot's position of careful use of the forest was opposed by the majority in Congress (See the Midnight Forest,
http://www.fs.fed.us/gpnf/ for details) who passed a law to strip TR of the legal right to designate Federal Forests do to what businessmen considers Pinchot's excessive preservationism.
More on Pinchot:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gifford_Pinchothttp://www.fs.fed.us/gpnf/More on the "Midnight Forests":
http://www.ocala.com/article/20071230/NEWS/712300346/1001/NEWS01What a post, Death penalty to Eastern Penn Penitentiary, to Pep its most famous prisoner, to Christmas Trees and ending with the National Forest Service. it is strange how things are inter connected in our lives.
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