Since St

Since St. Peter's times to the present reign of Pope John Paul II, there's no record in the archives of the Vatican that the Roman Catholic Church has a doctrine against the death penalty. Why then is the Pope and bishops adamant in going against the death penalty in those countries of the world that legislate it?
The reason the Roman Catholic Church is so against the death penalty is obviously based on Pope John Paul II's position against it. In his encyclical, "Evangelium Vitae," the Pope claims that societies "ought not to go to the extreme of executing the offender except in cases of absolute necessity; in other words, when it would not be possible otherwise to defend society." In his Papal Mass at the Trans World Dome in St. Louis, Missouri, in the United States on January 27, 1999, the Pope preached that "The dignity of human life must never be taken away, even in the case of someone who has done great evil." In this same homily, the Pope declared that the death penalty must be ended because it is "cruel and unnecessary."
But is there a "doctrine" of the Roman Catholic Church against the death penalty today as a result of Pope John Paul's pronouncements? The clear answer is that there's no doctrine in the Roman Catholic Church against the death penalty. Despite his strong belief and declarations against the death penalty, the Pope has never said it "ex cathedra," meaning by his authority on faith and morals in which both the clerical members and the laity are bound to obey and respect it as doctrine of the Church under the penalty of excommunication.
In going through historical records, it is to be noted that the Catechism of the Council of Trent (1545-1563) expressly stipulates that, "The just use of this power, far from involving the crime of murder, is an act of paramount obedience to this (Fifth) Commandment which prohibits murder."
Every Cardinal Dulles, the lay theologian of the United States, before he received the "red hat" wrote that "The Catholic magisterium does not, and never has, advocated unqualified abolition of the death penalty. I know of no official settlement from popes or bishops, whether in the past or in the present, that denies the right of the State to execute offenders.... Like the pope, the (US) bishops do not rule out capital punishment altogether.... In coming to his prudential conclusion, the magisterium is not changing the doctrine of the Church. The doctrine remains what it has been: That the State, in principle, has the right to impose the death penalty on persons convicted of very serious crimes... Thus the principle still leaves open the question whether and when the death penalty ought to be applied."
What then is the Pope's stance on the death penalty called if it is not a Church doctrine? It is simply called a "prudential judgment," not a doctrine. As such, it is still open to continued discussions and debates. The laity and those in consecrated life, are "clothed" with a canonical proviso similar to a "constitutional right" to openly agree, disagree, or point out to the Pope, cardinals, archbishops, bishops, priest and deacon or to any Roman Catholic the legitimate teachings of the Church.