The death penalty in Catholic teaching and medicine: intersections and places for dialogue.
Current debate on the death penalty in public and professional spheres is seen as divisive in nature, disallowing the possibility of common agreement. The history of views of the death penalty within the Catholic Church illustrates centuries of tensions and ambiguities as well as a current posture that manages to hold these tensions while advocating a strong position. That history of church views itself contains allusions to and intersections with medicine. There is something tangible to be gained in understanding religious views on the death penalty, in the debates both within medicine and in the public sphere. An argument is made for sufficient overlap of contemporary purpose between the goals of church and medicine to warrant further dialogue in enhanced and deliberative democratic processes.
Norko
Michael A
MA
Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, USA. michael.norko@yale.edu
D002203:Capital Punishment / Q000266:history*; D002410:Catholicism / Q000266:history*; D032781:Codes of Ethics; D005060:Europe; D005555:Forensic Psychiatry / Q000941:ethics*; D049668:History, 15th Century; D049669:History, 16th Century; D049670:History, 17th Century; D049671:History, 18th Century; D049672:History, 19th Century; D049673:History, 20th Century; D049674:History, 21st Century; D049690:History, Ancient; D049691:History, Medieval; D006801:Humans; D012068:Religion and Medicine; D014481:United States