One of the many excuses many conservative American Catholics make for blowing off the Church\u2019s teaching about the death penalty and the call of the last three popes to abolish it is the Good Thief Argument. Briefly, it goes like this: The inspired word of God tells us that the death penalty is just when the Good Thief declares \u201cwe are receiving the due reward of our deeds\u201d.<\/p>\n
What the argument overlooks, of course, is that what the Bible asserts is that the Good Thief said it, not that he was correct in saying it. The fact that the Good Thief thought his punishment just in no way obliges us to think him right.<\/p>\n
And, in fact, almost nobody (including people who support the death penalty and appeal to him really think that). Why? Because conservative American Catholic death penalty supporters also tend to be the most vocal in condemning the barbaric cruelty of Our Friends the Saudis and other Bronze Age Islamic regimes who routinely practice crucifixion as a form of capital punishment.<\/p>\n