That's directly contradicting Catholic doctrine, though. I can understand the sentiment, although for me it's actually the opposite (I'm more uncomfortable with the death penalty than I am with abortion- I can't say I know for sure when life begins, and I DO know that other religions specifically contradict that it begins at the moment of conception. But there's no doubt that a person, no matter how horrible, who is being sentenced to death IS a person, is a life. And we have made mistakes. We have put innocent people to death. There's almost never "beyond a SHADOW of a doubt" certainty of their guilt, and I don't know if I can accept that the death of a thousand guilty people makes up for killing one innocent person. And that's without all the blatant racism that's involved with the US execution system). But Catholics will say in one breath that they have to accept all Catholic doctrine, and then in the next act like abortion is a more important issue than the death penalty. The term "pro life" does not only mean abortion. You are not pro-life in the definition of the term if you only oppose abortion.