S&F-What if I disagree with the Catholic Church?

The Catholic Church has said that the death penalty should be outlawed.  Basically, as I understand it, we on Earth should never sit in judgement on someone's life regardless of what they might have done.

I have to admit I struggle with this.  As I see it if someone chooses to take a life in anger they should give up their right lo live themselves.

And that's hard for me.  I really try to follow the guidelines of the Church.  While I would never take a life and I'm not sure if I could vote to put someone to death if I was ever on a jury and had the power to do so, I have a hard time with allowing a murder to live after they ended the life of another.

So what do I do?  If this was 500 years ago, I might just look to leave the church and form my own religion.  In some way I'd find myself in the same situation as Henry VIII who broke away from the Catholic Church because they wouldn't allow him to divorce.  The founded the Anglican Church.  Or I could see myself as Martin Luther who broke away from the Church founding Lutheran Church because he had issues with indulgences the Church was giving.  These are oversimplifications of the situations, but they are examples of times that people were unhappy with the Church so they looked to reform the Church by separating themselves from it.  There are more examples of schisms in the church, but that's not what I want to reflect on.

So what do I do when my personal feeling disagree with the Catholic Church.  There have been many times over the past few years as I investigated my faith where I either didn't understand the views of the Church or even flat out disagreed.  But I choose to dig deeper into my faith and understand why the Church makes the declarations as they do.  Sometimes I still don't agree.  But then I pray and reflect.  I look to the foundations of my faith and realize that I can live with the difficulties of dealing with some of the things I might not necessarily agree with.  I can do this because I believe in Jesus Christ as our Savior.  That's what's really important.

And that's what I pray for.  I have heard there are 30,000 sects of Christianity.  That's a lot.  This allows people to shop around for a church that they like.  Or the best singing.  Or one that has the best coffee bar in the foyer as they enter (ok, maybe if being facetious with that one).  These churches talk negatively on each other trying to be become the biggest and best church.  Some focus on going after the Catholic Church's adoration of Mary or transubstantiation of the Eucharist as evidence of heresies in their view.

I pray that someday all Christians can look at their similarities rather than their differences.  We are all united in our faith that Jesus was our savior and gave his life for us.  That's what the word Christian means.  The ship has probably long since sailed to unify us under one Church (although I'd love for that to happen), but there is no reason we cannot be united in the foundations of our faith and figure out a way to live together.  God willing we will all be together in Christ someday in heaven.  We just need to figure out a way to get along here on Earth.