Exactly 30 years ago, during the sultry summer of 1988, I resigned from my job as a correctional officer at a maximum-security jail in Florida. I had worked there full-time for four years in order to finance my way through college. While in uniform, and as a person of faith, I wrestled with questions regarding criminal justice, the use of force, systemic racism and the death penalty. For that reason, Pope Francis’ recent revision of the Catechism of the Catholic Church on capital punishment definitely captured my attention.
Although I encountered persons who allegedly committed some of the worst crimes imaginable, and while I occasionally had to dodge either fists or feces thrown my way, I am sure I met people who were innocent and awaiting acquittal at trial. Even those who were probably guilty, however, revealed their humanity at times, expressing remorse for the harm they committed against others and society. Quite a few, too, shared their personal, often tragic, story: living in poverty, lacking literacy, being victims themselves of abuse. And when one of my fellow officers proclaimed during roll call that his dream job was to be an executioner, I felt uneasy—especially since this same officer had proudly boasted about his support for apartheid in South Africa at the time.
Critics of Pope Francis accuse him of going against Scripture and tradition on capital punishment, but recent scholarship suggests these sources are not as supportive of the death penalty as often supposed.
Still, like those who are now critical of the change made by Pope Francis, I had assumed capital punishment to be consonant with the Bible and Christian tradition. So, with my B.A. degree in hand, I turned in my badge and moved to graduate school to study theology and ethics, with particular attention to criminal justice issues. My experience as a correctional officer (and later as a reserve police officer) informed my studies—as well as my subsequent research and teaching as a college professor—even as the latter helped me to make sense of the questions that arose from my experience.
An observation made by the 20th-century Protestant ethicist Reinhold Niebuhr in his An Interpretation of Christian Ethics stands out as an example: “Society must punish criminals, or at least quarantine them, even if the executors of judgment are self-righteous sinners who do not realize to what degree they are involved in the sins they seek to suppress.” Indeed, a Niebuhrian “realism” about finitude and sin (not only personal and individual but social and institutional) has informed my research and teaching, making me leery of sentimental and optimistic treatments of a range of moral issues, from war and peace to bioethics and health care, but also with regard to criminal justice and capital punishment.
Critics of Pope Francis’ revision of the Catechism accuse him of going against Scripture and tradition on capital punishment. Recent scholarship on Scripture and tradition, however, suggests that these sources are not as supportive of the death penalty as often supposed. And while a number of the pope’s critics refer to Cardinal Avery Dulles’s invocation of Scripture and tradition to defend its practice, I think his understanding of the liturgy offers a helpful lens for interpreting the revised Catechism’s judgment that capital punishment is “inadmissible.”
The Hebrew Scriptures and Capital Punishment
Catholics are not fundamentalists who view the Bible as God’s literal words that are perennially true for all times and places. Instead, as the Second Vatican Council’s “Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation” put it, Scripture, while inspired by God, was written by human persons during particular times and in specific places; thus, “the interpreter of Sacred Scripture, in order to see clearly what God wanted to communicate to us, should carefully investigate what meaning the sacred writers really intended, and what God wanted to manifest by means of their words.” Although biblical passages contain truths about God, the human condition and salvation, they may also reflect cultural and historical perspectives with regard to some issues: for example, the legitimacy of slavery. Hence, Scripture must be interpreted through methods that consider the original languages, with attention to different genres (poems, laws, letters, et cetera) and historical-cultural contexts and circumstances.
Catholics are not fundamentalists who view the Bible as God’s literal words that are perennially true for all times and places.
Mentions of capital punishment appear mostly in the first five books (the Pentateuch) of the Hebrew Scriptures. It is important to note that murder was not the only offense that warranted capital punishment. As E. Christian Brugger observes in his Capital Punishment and Roman Catholic Tradition, death was the penalty for more than 20 offenses in the Pentateuch, including profaning the Sabbath (Ex 31:14), striking or cursing either of one’s parents (Ex 21:15, 17; Lev 20:9), adultery (Lev 20:10; Deut 22:22) and blasphemy (Lev 24:16). I hope Christians today who regard the death penalty as morally justifiable are not seeking to reintroduce this punitive practice for all or even most of these capital offenses from the Pentateuch.
Perhaps the most frequently recited saying used by supporters of the death penalty is the lex talionis, which appears three times in the Hebrew Scriptures: “If any harm follows, then you shall give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe” (Ex 21:24–27; Lev 24:14–23; Deut 19:19–21). The phrase poetically conveys oral folk wisdom: The punishment should fit the crime. The lex talionis did not require vengeance but aimed at establishing a limit on it and preventing escalation into a blood feud, such as when Lamech boasted about making perpetrators pay seventy-fold (Gen 4:23). Also, these three passages do not actually apply a literal retribution when examples are given to illustrate the lex talionis in practice. For instance, if two men brawl and hit a pregnant woman, different penalties result depending on whether the woman dies or if she is injured but has a miscarriage: a life for a life in the first case, a monetary fine in the second (Ex 21:22–25).
Another Old Testament passage cited in support of capital punishment for a murderer is: “Whoever sheds the blood of a human, by a human shall that person’s blood be shed; for in his own image God made humankind” (Gen 9:6). In contrast to this English translation, however, the Hebrew wording is unclear. It cannot be determined definitively whether it is simply descriptively saying what tends to happen to violent people or instead, as commonly assumed, prescriptively commanding capital punishment. Unlike the lists of laws elsewhere, this passage is a poetically written proverb, akin to that spoken by Jesus in the New Testament when he tells his disciple to put away his sword, “for all who take the sword will perish by the sword” (Mt 26:52). Jesus is not expressing support for capital punishment; he simply states what tends to happen to those who lead violent lives.
Also, like the above lex talionis passages, Genesis 9:6 simply refers to the shedding of a person’s blood without any reference to malicious motive or aggravating (or mitigating) circumstances. Similarly, Leviticus 24:17 and 24:21 merely stipulate that anyone “who kills a human being shall be put to death.” Elsewhere, however, nuance is added, indicating development within Scripture: “If [the killing] was not premeditated, but came about by an act of God,” then the killer may flee for safety at God’s altar; yet, if it was done “willfully” or “by treachery” then the killer shall be taken from that “altar for execution” (Ex 21:13–14; see 1 Kgs 2:28–34).
Notably, passages like Genesis 9:6 reflect how, at the time, the Hebrew people regarded blood as the source of all life, both human and animal. Blood was regarded as sacred, and this was the basis for the Hebrew prohibitions against both the eating of animal blood and the shedding of human blood. Killing a person, therefore, was an offense that demanded ceremonial compensation, a ritual in which the killer is executed for the purpose of expiation. Indeed, anthropologist René Girard argued that capital punishment in passages like Genesis 9:6 was a “mimetic reflex” or a form of sacrificial expiation to placate a God who was believed to have required such practices in order for there to be atonement between the people and God.
The corporate mentality around sin more prevalent at the time lent itself to the idea that a serious offense committed by one person could result in God’s punishment upon the entire community; therefore, some form of ritual cleansing or expiation was required to “purge” the offender and restore the purity or holiness of Israel. Execution by stoning (e.g., 1 Sam 30:6; 1 Kgs 12:18), which was the standard method at the time, was thus, according to the entry on this subject in the Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible, “an action conveying a corporate obligation for removing sin from the community.” Further evidence of this mentality may be found in other passages in the Hebrew Scriptures, including Deuteronomy 17:8-13 and 19:19, each of which contain the word “purge” with respect to removing “the evil” in their midst, as well as in Leviticus 20:1-5 and 21:9 and Numbers 35:33, where “profane” is used to describe how the perpetrator and the community are polluted by the offense.
In Ezekiel 33:11, God tells the prophet, “I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked should turn from their ways and live.”
Although today’s defenders of capital punishment may emphasize individual responsibility for crimes committed, their assumption that the execution of a murderer is required in order to balance some cosmic scale of justice actually echoes that ancient Hebrew sacrificial worldview.
Lest we wrongly assume that the Old Testament is completely supportive of capital punishment, there are passages that instead lean against it. God shows mercy to the Bible’s first murderer, Cain, by sending him into exile and protecting him there (after Cain expresses fear that anyone who meets him might kill him), instead of having him executed (Gen 4:14–15). On this, St. John Paul II emphasized in “Evangelium Vitae,” “Not even a murderer loses his personal dignity” as one made in the image of God. Also, neither Moses nor David were executed for their capital offenses: Moses killed an Egyptian (Ex 2:1–12) and David committed adultery with Bathsheba and arranged for the death of her husband Uriah (2 Sam 11–12:25). In Ezekiel 33:11, God tells the prophet, “I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked should turn from their ways and live.”
It is also unclear how often the ancient Israelites actually executed offenders. After all, the Torah required at least two eyewitnesses to the offense whose testimonies had to be in complete agreement (Deut 19:15–20; Num 35:30; Deut 17:2–7). Close relatives, women, slaves or people with bad reputations were prohibited from serving as witnesses. If a witness were to be judged as giving false testimony with malicious intent, then he would instead receive the punishment that would have been administered to the defendant (Deut 10:16). In post-exilic Jewish society, the Mishnah (the record of authoritative oral interpretation of the written law of the Torah by Jewish religious leaders from about 200 B.C.E. to about 200 C.E.) required 23 judges for a capital case. By the time of Jesus, capital punishment by Jews was nearly impossible to implement, and most penalties could instead be addressed by monetary payments.
The New Testament and Capital Punishment
When passages appear to contradict each other on a moral issue, most Christians go with what the New Testament passage instructs. Likewise, if there are passages in the New Testament that appear to be in tension or problematic (again, wherever slavery, for instance, seem accepted or even approved), Christians interpret them with an eye toward what Jesus Christ taught or did, since the Gospel of John refers to him, rather than to a book, as “the Word” of God (Jn 1:1). Thus, the revised paragraph No. 2267 of the Catechism notes that the “Church teaches, in the light of the Gospel,” that the death penalty is “inadmissible.”
New Testament authors probably saw capital punishment as a given practice at the time, much like slavery, by governing authorities such as the Roman Empire. St. Paul’s warning to Christians in Rome is often quoted by defenders of capital punishment: “But if you do what is wrong, you should be afraid, for the authority does not bear the sword in vain! It is the servant of God to execute wrath on the wrongdoer” (Rom 13:4). Their assumption is that this passage, especially with its words translated as “the sword” and “to execute,” directly refers to and endorses capital punishment. “Execute” here, however, merely refers to “carry out” or “implement.” This verse simply refers to government’s authority to use force to maintain law and order.
The passage’s historical and literary context, too, is important. Paul was not writing to Christians who wielded political authority, for at that time (between 54 C.E. and 59 C.E.) Christians were a minority group, not in positions of power. A few years earlier, in 49 C.E., a tax revolt had led to the forceful expulsion of Jews, including Christians like Priscilla and Aquila (Acts 18:2–3), by Emperor Claudius from Rome. After Claudius’s death in 54 C.E., the edict expelling Jews lapsed, with Jews and Christians returning to Rome during the reign of his successor, Emperor Nero. Paul was discouraging this small Christian community, which was already under some scrutiny for being subversive, from participating in another similar insurrection against Nero’s latest tax, which might provoke soldiers who accompanied toll and tax collectors to use their swords against them.
The cross should remind Christians that we all need mercy and should not be so eager to impose the death penalty on others.
A few other New Testament passages are invoked by supporters of capital punishment. Some claim that Paul recognized certain crimes as warranting the death penalty when he says in his defense before Festus, “If therefore I do wrong and have committed anything worthy of death, I refuse not to die” (Acts 25:11). Some also refer to the penitent malefactor who says about his and the other criminal’s crucifixion, in contrast to Jesus’: “And we indeed [are crucified] justly, for we receive the due reward for our deeds: but this man hath done nothing amiss” (Lk 23:41). However, again, at that time, these persons likely assumed that the practice of capital punishment by the Romans was a given. Indeed, no governments or political authorities at the time had abolished capital punishment, nor would doing so even have occurred to them then.
Some death penalty supporters further assert that Jesus must have believed capital punishment to be morally legitimate because of his acceptance of crucifixion. However, the cross should remind Christians that we all need mercy and should not be so eager to impose the death penalty on others. Indeed, while dying, Jesus forgives his enemies who were crucifying him (Lk 23:34). His doing so is in keeping core Gospel themes of mercy, forgiveness, love, reconciliation and peace. In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus instructs his followers to forgive those who have wronged them and to love and pray for their enemies (Mt 5:44; 6:14–15). Here Jesus explicitly mentions the lex talionis, and he says: “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, do not resist the evildoer” (Mt 5:38–39). In this way, he does not abolish the law of the Torah but fulfills it by redirecting his followers toward its ultimate end or goal (Mt 5:17). Jesus “closed the loophole” by teaching that the lifeblood of every person, including evildoers, belongs to God and is sacred. So, too, does Pope Francis close any lingering loopholes in the Catechism about capital punishment.
Most important, the New Testament letter to the Hebrews states that Jesus “offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins” (Heb 10:12) that “abolishes” the sacrificial sin offerings of the “first covenant” (Heb 10:9). In view of this, another major 20th-century Protestant theologian, Karl Barth, asked, “Now that Jesus Christ has been nailed to the cross for the sins of the world, how can we still use the thought of expiation to establish the death penalty?” If Christians believe that animal and grain sacrifices should no longer be performed to placate God, neither should criminals be sacrificed to satisfy God’s justice.
For us Catholics, the liturgy of the Eucharist especially underscores this point. As Brugger suggests, “The re-presentation in the Eucharist of that timeless sacrifice is an august reminder of the fact that blood (human or otherwise) need no longer be spilt for the expiation of sins.” Similarly, liturgical scholar Kevin Irwin observes that Eucharistic worship offers an experience and understanding of justice that “should be the measure of the world’s and the church’s expectations” and runs counter to the “eye for an eye” retributive justice emphasized in society. The Rev. Raniero Cantalamessa, preacher to the papal household (under Pope John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis), made precisely this connection in some of his Lenten homilies in 2004 and 2005.
If Christians believe that animal and grain sacrifices should no longer be performed to placate God, neither should criminals be sacrificed to satisfy God’s justice.
In his third Lenten sermon from 2005, Father Cantalamessa suggests: “The believer has another reason—Eucharistic—to oppose the death penalty. How can Christians, in certain countries, approve and rejoice over the news that a criminal has been condemned to death, when we read in the Bible: ‘Do I indeed derive any pleasure from the death of the wicked? says the Lord God. Do I not rather rejoice when he turns from his evil way that he may live?’” (Ezek 18:23). While connecting the liturgy of the Eucharist with the Ezekiel passage that circles back to the mercy that was shown to Cain in Genesis, Father Cantalamessa also brings up the Girardian “sacrificial” and “expiatory” aspects of capital punishment: “Something of the mechanism of the scapegoat is under way in every capital execution, including in those endorsed by the law.”
Echoing the letter to the Hebrews on how Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross abolishes all sacrifices, Cantalamessa proclaims: “Jesus unmasks and tears apart the mechanism of the scapegoat that canonizes violence, making himself innocent, the victim of all violence.... Christ defeated violence, not by opposing it with greater violence, but suffering it and laying bare its injustice and uselessness.”
This consideration of the liturgy would make Scripture seem more than inconclusive on the death penalty. Rather, its trajectory would appear to be against it. Reflecting on the liturgy also shifts our attention to the tradition.
Christian Tradition and Capital Punishment
Some critics of the change made by Pope Francis cite Cardinal Avery Dulles’s defense of capital punishment by the state on the basis of the church’s tradition. Yet, in an article on “The Ways We Worship,” Dulles wrote, “Liturgy, however, is recognized as a prime instance of tradition.” He also quoted Yves Congar, who affirmed that “liturgy is the privileged locus of tradition, not only from the point of view of conservation and preservation, but also from that of progress or development.” Dulles added, “Although liturgy does not coincide with the entirety of the Christian life, the whole life of the Christian should be permeated by the spirit of the liturgy.” Perhaps it is in this spirit that we should try to understand the recent developments in Catholic teaching on capital punishment.
Before doing so, though, it is important to recognize, as Brugger observes, that the tradition can be divided into three historical periods with regard to capital punishment. First, during the initial three centuries of Christianity, Christians rejected the death penalty, although they assumed the state could use it. Second, from the fourth to the 19th centuries, Christians accepted or approved of capital punishment (e.g., Aquinas). But during much of this period, a sense of the disconnect between capital punishment and the Mass was present, I reckon, in that clergy were prohibited from executing anyone, and even executioners were required to do penance after conducting an execution. Third, during the 20th and early 21st centuries, opposition to the death penalty gained traction among Christian churches, including Catholicism.
In 1967, Donald Campion, S.J., provided the entry on the death penalty for the New Catholic Encyclopedia, wherein he considered Scripture and the thinking of Aquinas but also observations from the social sciences that ancient cultures used the death penalty “not only to retaliate for murder or treason, but also to appease spirits offended by sorcery, incest, or sacrilege.” Father Campion added, presciently, “Any further Catholic thought on the topic will undoubtedly reflect a new emphasis on the notion of the inalienable rights of the human person as set forth in recent authoritative documents,” such as Pope John XXIII’s 1963 encyclical, “Pacem in Terris.”
The U.S. Catholic bishops went on record in opposition to the death penalty for the first time in 1974. A lengthier statement was issued in 1980, in which the bishops concluded that “in the conditions of contemporary American society, the legitimate purposes of punishment do not justify the imposition of the death penalty.” But the real turning point began with John Paul II’s “The Gospel of Life,” which was issued in 1995. It emphasized human dignity and the sanctity of life as contrary not only to abortion and euthanasia but also capital punishment. During John Paul II’s papacy, a new Catechism was published in 1992 and revised in 1997, wherein development in the teaching about capital punishment became more pronounced.
Father Raniero Cantalamessa, preacher to the papal household: "Christ defeated violence, not by opposing it with greater violence, but suffering it and laying bare its injustice and uselessness.”
Capital punishment is considered in the Catechism’s section dealing with the Fifth Commandment, “You shall not kill,” connected with the subsection on “legitimate defense” (Nos. 2263–2267). That the Catechism deals with the death penalty adjacent to the subsection on “legitimate defense” is significant, since that phrase is also used for other forms of lethal force in recent Catholic teaching, including just war, humanitarian intervention and personal self-defense.
In the 1992 edition, the Catechism referred to capital punishment in No. 2266, which read: “Preserving the common good of society requires rendering the aggressor unable to inflict harm. For this reason, the traditional teaching of the Church has acknowledged as well-founded the right and duty of legitimate public authority to punish malefactors by means of penalties commensurate with the gravity of the crime, not excluding, in cases of extreme gravity, the death penalty.” However, these last 10 words were omitted when the Catechism was revised in 1997—partly due to the influence of Sister Helen Prejean, whose letter about precisely this matter was delivered to the pope on Jan. 22, 1997, seven days before Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger announced that a change would be made in the Catechism to reflect recent “progress in doctrine” about the death penalty.
The 1997 Catechism refers to the death penalty only in No. 2267, which consisted of three paragraphs that permitted “recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.” Because “non-lethal means are sufficient” for protecting society against such a threat, “authority will limit itself to such means, as these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and more in conformity to the dignity of the human person.” The Catechism then concluded that “the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity ‘are very rare, if not practically nonexistent’.”
Pope Francis’ change to No. 2267 of the Catechism now deems that the “death penalty is inadmissible” altogether. It continues the development in teaching that was already underway on this practice. It highlights even more the “increasing awareness that the dignity of the person is not lost even after the commission of very serious crimes.” It also recognizes “the possibility of redemption” for the guilty, which capital punishment prevents.
Prior to Pope Francis’ latest revision to the Catechism, I suggested in a number of places that it might be argued that the Catholic Church, theoretically, permits the killing of an offender who poses a clear and present danger to other persons—if no other non-lethal means are available—as legitimate defense. This, however, would no longer be called capital punishment or a deathpenalty. While I agree with those who say that “what was admissible, at least in some cases, is now simply inadmissible” with regard to capital punishment, I suspect that legitimate defense remains in effect as morally justified on the part of the state.
Donning my “realist” hat again, if an inmate with a record of violent crimes is on the verge of escaping from prison and a correctional officer’s only means of stopping him is to shoot him, then that would be legitimate defense but not capital punishment or the death penalty. As with other examples of legitimate defense, the defender is forced to use lethal force by the circumstances. I do not think that such a case would be “inadmissible” because it would not be “an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person.” A lethal injection or an electrocution, however, does intentionally attack the prisoner and his or her dignity. The prison staff administering lethal injection or electrocution is not without other means to protect society from this dangerous person.
In the end, even if legitimate defense remains a possibility, state-sanctioned executions (whether called capital punishment or the death penalty) are clearly “inadmissible” for the reasons that Pope Francis’ revised Catechism gives. I also believe that this development in church teaching regarding this practice is consonant with both Scripture and tradition, especially given what we practice in the liturgy.
Is this an indictment of centuries of Catholic theologians and I might say Jesuits. I personally am against the death penalty and wrote on it during my Jesuit college education. I was severely reprimanded for my shallow thinking by my Jesuit instructor.
So while I concur with the abandonment of the death penalty, I would not make it one on theological grounds. Especially using such dubious reasons as "should carefully investigate what meaning the sacred writers really intended," This seems like a license to change beliefs whenever one wants by a so called "new awareness." It is a formula for anything goes.
You're absolutely correct. You can't but walk into a contradiction if you accept the word "inadmissible" as people are interpreting it since the actual reality of what occurs around the world is neither consistent nor even applicable to any theory that invalidates its use because of the circumstances that can change at any time especially when civilizations fall.
Really? 1) 5th commandment in Dekalog is "do not murder" and not "do not kill" as the author cites. It is a perfect (and divine) reason that a society has a right to defend itself against the future criminal- it is a natural(therefore, divine) act of justice and not a revenge. Just few recent cases confirms the above. 13 June,2018, nbsandiego.com/news informs on Andrew Urdiales,53,ex-marine, who committed five murders in San Diego and three murders in Chicago where he was caught, imprisoned,released, then he committed another murders and caught again. Now, he got the justice: Capital Punishment. Also: DailyMail, Aug2,2018,"Revealed; The five murderres freed from life sentences ti kill AGAIN". if you cite Scripture, cite also Luke 22:36 "the time to buy a sword" - embarrassing words in the Jesus's mouth-therefore for sure a historical one-for worshipers of a baby Jesus@non-violence St.Francis but the saint was also St.Joan d'Arc. I have just read the memoir of Mr. Hoess,the Commander of Auschwitz in ("Oswiecim w oczach SS/Hoess,Broad,Kremer-"Auschwitz in Eyes of SS),KAW,1980; Rudolf Hoes wrote it while before the trial and execution in Polish prison, from 25 May to 16 April 1947. You read it and see this man is trying to blame..others (Superiors) for the events in Auschwitz! In such situation he was still ..lying to a reader about his "interior suffering". I did not see any kind of repentance but he finally repented and asked for Confession just before the execution. Maybe he changed his mind after writing or still was playing with ..whom?Any way;apply this a new (fancy) interpretation of 5th commandment to Nuremberg's Trial in a thought experiment- will it help you?ps. Do not argue that a state will keep such murderers for ever in a prison! Ask citizens if they would agree to pay taxes for feeding them there!
just - I think- Holy Spirit prompts me to remind about the event in 1Maccabi2:41 when Jewish Soldiers changed the fancy interpretation of "holy Sabbath" of not doing nothing in order not be slaughtered and therefore they decided to take up arms and fight (like in Luke 22:36). I smell, the present "Pastor" will shortly decide to force Christians not to serve in Army and not defend themselves if they are attacked allowing to be murdered and their families. Wake you("pastors") it(thought experiments)?
The problem with outlawing the death penalty is its historical amnesia. For most of the history of the catholic Church, the death penalty has been accepted as an unfortunate but necessary measure by civil authorities. Why was this the general opinion of Church prelates and theologians like Thomas Aquinas? Well the people of God lived in constant danger of thieves and brigands of all sorts and prisons, where they existed at all, were only castle dungeons. With civil society at constant risk from miscreants and no realistic alternative to the death penalty as a deterrent, the Church wholeheartedly endorsed the death penalty. The fight against heresy actually spurred on Church authorities to resort to executions (albeit indirectly by handling the undesirables over to the civil authority). To say the Church was completely mistaken over millennia and to discount the very different times we live in does not inspire confidence in the sweeping judgments of today's Church.
Thank you for this great article that is filled with substance and gives me much to ponder in helping me form my conscience on this most grievous ethical matter.
I admit I am in a bind regarding the death penalty; though I am clear that the Church is right to oppose capital punishment because it is unchristian. Jesus cannot approve of such cruelty and suffering towards another human being created in His image and beloved. I get that. Where I am conflicted is that my conscience is also clear , perfectly clear, that life in prison is evil and that mistreating a prisoner is evil. So the idea that someone can commit the most horrible of crimes and then one day walk the streets enjoying the sunshine or the rain, or be in prison laughing at all the jokes on Saturday Night Live and eating a hamburger with fries and everything on it, after having inflicted horrible suffering and a horrible death on another person, offends me. It is unjust.
The scales of justice, from a purely rational insight, tells me that if you take a life unjustly [not for self defense or accidently, I could even add not in a fit of momentary rage which I can see mitigates] but deliberately and planned out, then it is rational that it is just, it is balanced, that you forfeit your life. You have no right to be here because your victim is not here.I believe this is prior to or independent of any primitive superstitious belief in atonement to God or any community scapegoat sacrifice, or cosmic realignment. This is the scales of justice ,human justice, in balance. This is human fairness. It comes from the very rational knowledge that might does not make right , it is solidarity with the weak over the strong , the victim over the aggressor. The balanced scales say that everyone counts , every one counts equally , not to appease a cosmic system but out of a recognition of human solidarity, an innate moral outrage when an injustice occurs towards another person.This justified outrage cries out for a response. On behalf of the suffering victim , against the violator of that victim.
When the narrative is presented patronizingly and condescendingly that the outrage is "understandingly " belonging to the family members of the victims; that is inauthentic; a distancing of what is justified moral outrage that all humans should partake of when another person is made to suffer and die horribly at the hands of another for no reason but the will of that powerful person. To implicate the family members morally which is what this narrative does , [ the rest of us should not be so outraged to want just redress] it reveals I think a complicity with evil ;might make right; our solidarity and empathy is with the strong, not the victim and not the suffering family or community who are a pesky nuisance we have cojol [sp] to relent in their cries for justice .It adds insult to injury and is inauthentic as it denies the legitimacy of moral outrage crying out for justice by all when someone is murdered . The innocent family member or community crying out for justice have become the scapegoats in this "enlightened" view. It bothers me when anti death penalty advocates place the family victims at the center of this outrage , as the arbiters of justice as if the moral outrage is not universal when someone is murdered in cold blood!
That a murderer is more then just a murderer and should not be condemned or judged for just one act, is especially offensive. Not because a murderer IS JUST a murderer, but again it obliterates the crime; it obliterates the victim , the suffering victim. Of course a murderer does and is other things , good things besides being a murderer , they are humans who like other humans can love their friends , their family, their pets, they may have a great sense of humor, and they may compassion for some people, they may have impeccable political views[lol] etc., but that does not mitigate the offense towards the victim. If anything it is the fact that they are also good that adds to the offense of having chosen to do evil.To even talk about how other then this murder this is a good person, denies the value of the victim. It is another truly offensive part of the anti death penalty narrative. To talk of a premeditated murder as just a mistake , a bad judgement call, just another moral failure like we all as sinners have , is dishonest and devalues the victim. OR it is a sign of complicit [subconscious primitive rebellion against law , against civilization? ] solidarity with the powerful over the defenseless victim. An assent to a might makes right truly barbaric ethos.[IMO] Also when it is presented that the murderer has repented and shown remorse[after the crime] that is not really a mitigating issue. Of course a murderer can and will often show remorse for they are human beings with that capacity. The solidarity with the suffering victim who suffered and died at one point in time at the hands of this person , is not mitigated by the murderers remorse. The offense against the suffering victim still stands which cries out for a response.
The issue of killing in war is also a relevant juxtaposition[sp] with the anti death penalty advocates. I am not a pacifist , people have a right and an obligation to protect themselves and or others from gross injustices by other powers. But it is also offensive how callously the narrative about the killing of people as means to ends, even the deliberately killing of civilians in wars is .Little often no outrage is shown, the flippant ; it was a good war, it was a just war , it was a necessary war, [we don't count the dead when God's on our side] tropes dismiss the horrible suffering and deaths of people, who never murdered any one , but to kill a person who has deliberately murdered another person as a just punishment is regarded as the most outrageous of moral reasonings by non pacifists outraged opponents of the death penalty. This is hypocritical , offensive and invalid.
The only solution I can come up with in my mind as a Christian who also understands that the death penalty is cruel and violates the commandment to not kill others, is that the church is right to condemn capital punishment but the state should keep the death penalty as a sign that we side with the victim and believe in balancing the scales of justice , you take a life [pre-meditatively] and you forfeit you life. We stand with the victim , you don't get to stand if your victim no longer stands just because you had power .This is our value, our sense of justice, of fairness , of right and wrong. keep the death penalty on the books. But I can assent to it not being enforced out of a recognition that though it is deserved though it is warranted by the[human centered] scales of justice, our refusal to be so cruel prevails. But ditch the inauthentic narrative; putting the onus on the family, talking about how remorseful the perp is, how the person is more then that one time "incident" etc., I'm a Christian , I'm a humanist , that's my positions ,as hypocritical as it sounds; keep the law on the books, it a just law, don't enforce it and stop saying the person does not deserve the death penalty.