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CCC 2267:
After acknowledging the state’s right to impose the death penalty against “unjust aggressors,” the CCC goes on to note: “If, however, non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people’s safety from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and more in conformity with the dignity of the human person. “Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an offense incapable of doing harm – without definitively taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself – the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity ‘are very rare, if not practically non-existent.’” (Quote from John Paul II, Evangelium vitae.)
To me this is quite clear, and why many Catholics choose to overlook it is beyond me: While the Church recognizes a state’s right to impose the death penalty because it cannot dictate how a state conducts its affairs, the Church also says that there are other means to control "unjust aggressors."
As for war, there is a Just War theory, the points of which I don't have time to track down at the moment. Basically, it asks questions such as whether the country waging war is is imminent danger from its enemy, and if there is no other way to peaceably solve the conflict. (VERY loose interpretation here, from memory.) For Catholics there is much more of a gray area when it comes to war, I think, than in other areas that involve life and its protection, but generally speaking the Church is also anti-war. Seems like I'm stating the obvious, but there it is.
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