He argues instead that the death penalty is okay because most people think it's okay. But relying on popular opinion to determine my values is not how I live my life and not how I hope you live yours. The Christ who changed me by inviting me to be born again does not want me to follow the crowd. Rather I'm to follow the Holy Spirit which blows according to its own compass as the Gospel lesson this morning tells us. But Montini takes on the wrong enemy.
Scientists are easy targets.
They are eggheads and frequently do seem to ignore common sense and to distrust the intuitive imagination of ordinary people. The real questions are posed by faithful Christians like Sister Helen Prejean. She challenges us to oppose the death penalty even for the guilty. The social scientists ask us to oppose the death penalty because it so often wrongly administered. But what Christ asks us to do, if we listen to the Pope, and virtually all leaders of the major denominations, is to oppose the death penalty even for those who are clearly guilty.