A former student of mine works for the Catholic Diocese of Lincoln, Nebraska. He asked me to write a guest column for the diocesan newspaper clarifying what the teaching of the Catholic Church is regarding the death penalty. Since this is a topic of interest to many people, both Catholics and non-Catholics – in the few days since I wrote the column, there has been local and national media coverage of a statement by the Massachusetts Catholic bishops opposing the death penalty for the Boston Marathon bomber – and since along the way I commented on the relationship between the death penalty on the one hand and abortion and euthanasia on the other, I thought I’d share the column here.