The late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was a Catholic. One of his sons is a Catholic priest. Nevertheless, he believed that the recent popes were not credible when they said that God changed His mind on the death penalty in 1995: "In any case, I have given this new position, if it is indeed that, thoughtful and respectful consideration, and have rejected it.", "The Church’s current position owes more to Napoleon, Hegel and Freud than to St. Thomas and St. Augustine".
https://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionand...penalty/16044/
https://www.pewforum.org/2002/02/04/...l-not-immoral/
Pope Francis also abolished life sentences from Vatican law, even with possibility of parole, on the grounds that they are "a form of death penalty in disguise".
Now the maximum penalty in Vatican City is 35 years. Under such a law, Charles Manson would have been freed in 2004 or sooner if paroled. Nazi genociders arrested in 1944 would have been freed in 1979 or sooner if paroled.
In 2017, Professors Edward Feser and Joseph Bessette published By Man Shall His Blood Be Shed: A Catholic Defense of Capital Punishment, showing, among other things, that the death penalty sanctifies the value of human life — of the victims.
https://www.amazon.com/Man-Shall-His.../dp/1621641260
There are other issues than crime on which the recent papacies are unreliable, most obviously immigration.
Very few people oppose both the death penalty and abortion. They must be roughly 5% of all voters. Everyone can have peculiar opinions, but demographically this positioning is a dead-end.
It is indeed quite laughable to see people supporting abortion for eight-month fetuses invoking the "pro-life" rallying cry to command to their opponents to be against the death penalty for convicted murderers (or to be against Second Amendment rights).
And as sincere as can be one opposition to abortion, one must also take into account that electorally at the national level, that's not a winning theme with independent voters, emphasizing the need for Republicans to campaign on other issues, which include crime and the death penalty.
http://www.cncpunishment.com/forums/...998#post139998
http://www.cncpunishment.com/forums/...l=1#post142434
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