Everything we do should with criminals should be tempered by mercy and that’s why I’m against the death penalty. So in that I agree with Cardinal Keith O’Brien of Scotland. But Cardinal O’Brien’s defense of the release of the Lockerbie bomber who killed 270 people seems a wee bit overboard if you ask me. OK. Maybe more than a wee bit.

By releasing the Lockerbie bomber (who it turns out wasn’t as sick as we were led to believe) Western civilization told the world that we don’t have the stones to even stand up for our slaughtered dead or even the will to protect the living.

Seriously, if you’re someone considering getting into the jihad business doesn’t this scream weakness to you? The man was complicit in the death of hundreds of people and now he’s doing a victory lap.

The Daily Mail reports:

Scotland’s Roman Catholic leader attacked America’s ‘culture of vengeance’ today as he defended the release of the Lockerbie bomber.

Cardinal Keith O’Brien said despite the ‘gratuitous barbarity’ of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi – who the Scottish Government freed last year on compassionate grounds – ministers were right ‘to affirm our own humanity’.

He accused the American justice system of being based on ‘vengeance and retribution’ and said he was glad to live in a country where ‘justice is tempered with mercy’….

Writing in Scotland on Sunday newspaper, Cardinal O’Brien said: ‘In Scotland over many years we have cultivated through our justice system what I hope can be described as a “culture of compassion”.

‘On the other hand, there still exists in many parts of the US, if not nationally, an attitude towards the concept of justice which can only be described as a ‘culture of vengeance’.’

He added: ‘Scotland’s legal system allowed the Scottish justice secretary to release Megrahi on compassionate grounds, following due process and based on clear medical advice.’

The religious leader urged US Senators wanting to question Scottish and British government ministers to instead ‘direct their gaze inwards’.

Highlighting the 1,226 people executed in the US since 1976, the cardinal added: ‘Perhaps the consciences of some Americans, especially members of the US Senate, should be stirred by the ways in which ‘justice’ is administered in so many of their own states.’…

He concluded: ‘I believe that only God can forgive and show ultimate compassion to those who commit terrible crimes and I would rather live in a country where justice is tempered by mercy than exist in one where vengeance and retribution are the norm.’

I’m all about mercy but this guy shouldn’t be walking the streets. He just shouldn’t.

And the release that was based on “clear medical advice” seems to be a bit of a sham now. Doctors said the terrorist had three months to live. We’re coming up on a year now where he’s had time to be with his family, a mercy he didn’t show to his victims.

What about the mercy for the families of the 270 dead?