Christian loons who support the death penalty.

[Jehanne]

As with Catholicism, this is clearly yet another rupture with the co-called "infallible" teachings of the Catholic Church, because, the Church, clearly, taught that the death penalty was permissible:

http://patristica.net/denzinger/

The DP is permissible only if it is a societal means of self defense. In other words, only if it is a particular society's only way of keeping the lives of its people safe. Nowadays, however, we have prison systems capable of keeping dangerous criminals locked up where they are no longer a threat:

From the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

2267 Assuming that the guilty party's identity and responsibility have been fully determined, the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.

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 to 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 definitely 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 nonexistent."

Catechism taken from the Vatican Website: http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/ar...s2c2a5.htm

I have read the Catechism of the Catholic Church in its entirety.  (Note that the Catechism promulgated under Pope John Paul II is the Second edition, which contained some theological alterations from the first, including, the Church's teachings on the death penalty.)  The text which I highlighted in blue is the theological novelty:

Even in the case of the death penalty the State does not dispose of the individual’s right to life. Rather public authority limits itself to depriving the offender of the good of life in expiation for his guilt, after he, through his crime, deprived himself of his own right to life -- Pope Pius XII