The teaching of the Catholic Church categorizes capital punishment as a form of "lawful slaying", a view defended by theological authorities such as Augustine and Thomas Aquinas. Augustine felt that the death penalty was a means of deterring the wicked and protecting the innocent. In the Middle Ages, Thomas Aquinas reaffirmed this position. (See also Aquinas on the death penalty). More recently, Pope John Paul II appealed for a consensus to end the death penalty on the ground that it was "both cruel and unnecessary."