Death Penalty arguments fact check

Mark Shea begins his call to end the Death Penalty with the usual manner: suggesting those who disagree are conservatives who yearn with unbridled lust for the increase in human slaughter.  Mark feels no compunction about judging those who disagree with him, as I found out when he informed me I only want to increase human slaughter.  FWIW, I really don't ask when I get to kill, nor do I wish to increase human slaughter.  For the record.

Anyway, Mark appeals to the Catechism for explaining the call to end the Death Penalty:

And by no small coincidence, that is what the Catechism (2267) says too: 

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 non-existent.”

Problem is, this line:

Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for effectively preventing crime

Which we can then follow with this headline:

2 North Carolina Prison Workers Killed in Fiery Escape Attempt

That does not seem like the State has effectively prevented crime.

The fact that the Catechism under Pope John Paul II was published near the zenith of crime in America, but the low ebb of crime in Europe, suggested that it was far too reliant on a regional, and temporary, social development.  And not only that, but it ignored the part of the development (the State's ability to prevent crime while crime was exploding across the United States), that seemed to contradict the very statement.

Of course my problem isn't with Pope Francis saying we should put the kibosh on the Death Penalty.  My problem is this idea that the Church only taught that because, unlike us today, it was just all legalism and obsessed with power.  You know, not awesome like we are.  That smacks far more of modern progressivism than anything linked to a historic understanding of the Church and the development of doctrine.  In fact, it sounds awfully Protestant, if you get down to brass tacks, and I don't mean that as an insult.

So to clarify, most who are troubled by the Church's move to change its teaching likely do not want to slaughter  babies, throw grannies off of cliffs, or toss banana peels in front of nursing homes.  Most seem to be troubled by the fact that, in the end, the Church is changing because of external pressures from decidedly non-Christian perspectives, rather than expanding on, and developing, the doctrine within the context of its own Faith tradition.

As a final note, Mark's reader Thomas Tucker gets it.  If somehow this is just a development of doctrine, that happens.  But if Pope Francis is saying what he appears to be saying, that the Death Penalty was always wrong, then he is changing Church teaching.  And what is more, he's saying the Church was always wrong - at least until now.  And that is more than problematic.