Tag Archives: Death Penalty

The End of the Death Penalty?

Church and State, Church Authority, Defending the Faith, Politics, Pope Francis, ,

Today the Vatican announced that Pope Francis had approved a change to the Catechism of the Catholic Church regarding the use of the death penalty.  The specific paragraph in the Catechism, no. 2267, had included an important qualifier admitting that the State may validly have recourse to its use: “the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty.”  The modified version has removed this important qualifier and now says the death penalty is “inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person and she works with determination for its abolition worldwide.”  While this may seem like a relatively small change, at least doctrinally speaking, it is more important than one might think.

The Snowball Effect

First, it means that the preceding paragraph (no. 2266) also will need to be modified.  Legitimate public authority no longer has the right and duty to inflict proportionate punishment to the offense.  I have written about this in greater detail earlier this year, but to summarize, by saying that there are no crimes deserving of death, you ultimately invite injustice through arbitrary punishment.  As I put it back in March, “To say that a mass murderer deserves the same punishment (life imprisonment) as say a rapist is to ultimately destroy the principle of proportionality.  That a mass murderer gets only life imprisonment would suggest that a rapist who, “at least didn’t kill someone” should get less.  This leads to a sort of arbitrariness in punishment, including excess or even no punishment at all.”

This one change creates a snowball effect that can only become an avalanche of change.  The Church’s divinely inspired teachings can be likened to a seamless garment so that if you tug at the smallest string of doctrine the entire thing unravels.  Necessarily the Church’s teaching will then have to change regarding the rights and duties of the State, followed by the rights and duties of the individual and so on.  Before long we are left with a pile of string.

More importantly, the change also signals to the Faithful that the Pope is wrong.  Mind you, I am not saying this particular Pope is wrong (yet) but the Vicar of Christ is, in a very real way, one voice throughout the centuries.  Numerous Popes have taught that there are valid applications of Capital Punishment (including Pius V and his Catechism of the Council of Trent, Pius XII, John Paul II, Benedict XVI and all the Popes who, as head of the Papal States, exercised their right and duty in executing criminals as a means of retributive justice), even if they exercised prudential judgment as to when it should be applied.  Now we begin to see why this is about more than just the death penalty.  Either all of these Popes taught error or this particular Pope is now teaching error by abolishing the death penalty.

In what now appears to have been a prophetic utterance, the future Pope Benedict XVI, as Prefect for the Congregation of Divine Faith under St. John Paul II, once said:

“[I]f a Catholic were to be at odds with the Holy Father on the application of capital punishment… he would not for that reason be considered unworthy to present himself to receive Holy Communion. While the Church exhorts civil authorities… to exercise discretion and mercy in imposing punishment on criminals, it may still be permissible… to have recourse to capital punishment. There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about… applying the death penalty…”

Given this and the fact that the new version appears to be literally wiping out tradition (recall the paragraph in question makes reference to “the traditional teaching of the Church”), we should be inclined to side with the litany of saints and previous Popes who thought that Capital Punishment could be a just, and therefore licit, means of punishment.  In short, by calling the death penalty “inadmissible” the Pope is contradicting Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture.  Rarely used? Fine, that is a prudential matter.  Absolutely immoral or inadmissible?  This is too far, contradicting Tradition and leads to injustice.

It IS all about the Dignity of the Person

The Scriptural justification is particularly relevant in this case because it directly contradicts the wording of the new No. 2267.  While setting up His covenant with Noah, God says “Anyone who sheds the blood of a human being, by a human being shall that one’s blood be shed. For in the image of God have human beings been made” (Gn 9:6).  Obviously it is problematic (at best) to say that God has commanded something that the Pope is now calling immoral.  But that is not really the biggest problem with the now “inadmissible” nature of the death penalty.

Vatican spokesman Greg Burke when speaking of the new wording said “the key point is really human dignity.”  But dignity is a two-edged sword of sorts.  Notice that the Lord tells Noah that it is because murder is an affront to man’s dignity as made in the image of God that men should have recourse to the death penalty.  In other words, rather than being an attack on the dignity of the person, the death penalty affirms it.  It affirms the dignity of the victim.  You cannot speak of the dignity of the offender while at the same time ignoring the dignity of the victim.  Eventually you do violence to the notion of human dignity until it becomes a term devoid of any real content.  To say that a human person is so valuable that the only proportionate punishment for killing him is to forfeit your own life (the most valuable thing you own) is a great testament to the dignity of the human person.

Perhaps not as obvious is the fact that the death penalty also affirms the dignity of the offender as well.  Edward Feser goes into more detail on this in his book By Man Shall His Blood Be Shed, but his point is rather salient.  Capital punishment treats the offender not as a victim of his own rage, but as a free moral agent (i.e. made in the image of God).

Mr. Burke is right, the key point is human dignity, but not in the way he meant it.  To fully take the death penalty off the table ends up degrading the value of human life.  It is false then to deem the death penalty inadmissible in all cases and contrary to the Gospel—the power to take the life of a criminal comes from above (c.f. Jn 19:11).  Anyone who says otherwise is contradicting Sacred Scripture and Tradition.

On Not Walking the Extra Mile

Church and State, Culture, ,

As the archetype of all spiritual masters, Our Lord left a rule of life for His followers.  This rule of life finds the bulk of its content in the Sermon on the Mount.  There is hardly any aspect of life that isn’t touched by Jesus’ prescription for happiness.  The bar is set ridiculously high to prove both its practical impossibility and His power to transform us.  Those who set out under their own power quickly find His maxims unlivable.  But this is not the only reason why many find it unlivable.  It is also unlivable when, although with the best of intentions, Christians treat it not as a rule of life, but as a social blueprint.

An example may help better illustrate what I mean.  When addressing the issue of retaliation, Our Lord tells His followers: “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, offer no resistance to one who is evil. When someone strikes you on [your] right cheek, turn the other one to him as well.  If anyone wants to go to law with you over your tunic, hand him your cloak as well.  Should anyone press you into service for one mile, go with him for two miles.  Give to the one who asks of you, and do not turn your back on one who wants to borrow” (Mt 5:38-42).  There are a multitude of ways in which this new law manifests itself in the lives of individual Christians, but it all boils down to how we are to respond when we are victims of evil.  We may, like Our Lord (Jn 18:23) and St. Paul (Acts 16:22) choose not to turn the other cheek, but only if we are prepared to absorb the evil rather than respond in kind.  How this plays out in the day to day is left to the discernment of each Christian man and woman.

Our Lord’s Blueprint

What Our Lord was not offering a plan for social justice.  All too often these verses and others like them (except oddly enough the ones on divorce) are quoted in support of a political agenda.  These verses are meant to be a plan of life for the individual Christian.  This is not to imply that there is not a social dimension to living in accord with them, but it is not Our Lord’s blueprint for society, but His recipe for leaven.

A society made up of Christians who are willing to turn the other cheek, go the extra mile or lend without condition is a society that will be animated by charity and forgiveness.  But society itself has no cheek to turn.  It may be governed by men living out the Beatitudes, but their rules of governing must be based in service of the common good.

Jesus was not condemning “an eye for an eye.”  Many people go far beyond what Our Lord was saying.  In a qualified, that is a non-literal sense, there is nothing unjust about it.  The principle represents a sound basis for the foundation of any society.  Offenses must be punished and any punishment that is just must have the proper degree of proportionality to it.  A society that offers no resistance to evil is sure on the path to anarchy.  To attempt to apply Our Lord’s personal principle to society as a whole makes Christians look foolish no matter how well intentioned.  Non-Christians conclude then that the Gospel is not only unlivable, but unreasonable as well.

Punishment

There is a second aspect of this as well that is important to mention because it does apply to society.  We should never respond to evil with evil.  This is worth mentioning because, although punishment may be perceived as an evil by the one punished, it is not evil in itself.  In fact, it is a good for both society and the individual when it is carried out in a just manner.  In other words, to expect society to “turn the other cheek” in the face of evil is actually responding to evil with evil.

This habit of socializing the personal permeates much of the discourse of priests and prelates for hot button issues like the death penalty and immigration.  Jesus telling us to “turn the other cheek” is not an argument against the death penalty, no matter how Christian society is.  “Welcoming the stranger” may be the basis for allowing any immigrants, but it can never be used as an argument against specific policies.  The examples could be multiplied but each time they are invoked the power of the Gospel to be leaven is greatly minimized.

Defending Death?

Church and State, Church Authority, Culture of Life, Human Dignity, ,

In a previous post, two of the most common arguments for abolishing the death penalty, were examined and put to rest.  In the midst of this presentation, I promised to return to the topic because the arguments themselves are predicated on a fundamental misunderstanding of the reasoning behind the Church’s position, a position she has held from her beginnings.  When asked where the Church stands on Capital Punishment, most would put forward the “self-defense” defense, a position based upon John Paul II’s explanation in Evangelium Vitae and later included in the Catechism:

“If, however, non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people’s safety from the aggressor, 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. Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an offense incapable of doing harm – without definitely taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself – the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity ‘are very rare, if not practically nonexistent.’” (CCC 2267)

In summary, provided that the threat to society from the person can be neutralized, then the death penalty should not be used.  Given greater and greater security measures, we should expect that the death penalty will eventually be done away with.  Or so the argument goes.  This may come as a surprise to many, but “self-defense” has never been the primary reason why the Church has allowed recourse to the death penalty.  And if it was, this would represent a novelty (i.e. a change in something belonging to the Tradition of the Church).  Instead the Church has taught from the beginning that the death penalty was a valid means of punishment.

“From the beginning?”

Within the classical tradition, punishment has three distinct purposes.  The primary end is the re-establishment of justice.  When a crime is committed, the order of justice is upset and is only restored when a proportionate punishment is given to the offender.  This is why the punishment must always be carried out according to the judgment of a competent authority.  The other two purposes serve only secondary roles.  First, the punishment must be ordered to the correction of the offender himself, that is, it is medicinal in some way to the person who committed the injustice.  Finally, it must serve a social purpose, primarily as a deterrent and isolation of the offender.

We can examine Capital Punishment in light of these three ends to see if it can be applied.  It bears mentioning that this is a different question as to whether it should be applied in a given situation.  This is a question that only the competent authority whose role it is to promote and protect the common good.  We are interested here only in the question of why in principle the death penalty is not immoral.  That being said, we can examine the primary end, namely the re-establishment of justice.  Does the punishment fit the crime?

Almost on an intuitional level we must admit that there are some crimes that are so heinous that the only fitting punishment is death.  If this sounds like vengeance then that is because it is.  Vengeance corresponds to the innate desire for justice that is written into human nature and it is a good thing when it is exercised according to justice.  This is why punishment should always be carried out by the competent authority.  If “all authority comes from above” (Romans 13:1) and “vengeance is mine, says the Lord” (Dt 32:35) then it is the competent authority that carries out the punishments of the Lord.

Even if you are willing to concede this, you might answer “no, there is no crime for which the fitting punishment is death.”  The problem with this position is first that it contradicts Sacred Scripture.  In the midst of His covenant making with Noah, the Lord says “Anyone who sheds the blood of a human being, by a human being shall that one’s blood be shed. For in the image of God have human beings been made” (Gn 9:6).  This is the principle of proportionality.  A principle that even Our Lord did not abrogate in the Sermon on the Mount in which He addresses His individual followers to avoid unjust anger and vengeance while at the same time commanding them to “render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s.”  There should be no vigilante justice, only those for whom the competence rests (c.f, Romans 13:1-4).  Our Lord teaches how we should respond as victims to violence, not as punishers.  It is with this awareness that the Church has always taught that society may have recourse to the death penalty as a punishment; from St. Paul to Augustine to Aquinas to Pope Innocent III to Pope Pius IX to Pope Pius XII to Benedict XVI.

The second problem is more one of common sense.  To say that a mass murderer deserves the same punishment (life imprisonment) as say a rapist is to ultimately destroy the principle of proportionality.  That a mass murderer gets only life imprisonment would suggest that a rapist who, “at least didn’t kill someone” should get less.  This leads to a sort of arbitrariness in punishment, including excess or even no punishment at all.  We cannot eliminate per se Capital Punishment as a proportional punishment.

Although it is not immediately obvious, Capital Punishment also serves the second purpose of punishment.  It serves a medicinal as well.  St. Thomas says that the death penalty leads to either repentance or puts an end to their sin, both of which are good for the person.  Death is not the worst thing that can happen to us—hell is.  Repentance obviously leads the person away from hell, but keeping a person from sinning even more keeps them from further punishment in hell

Finally, how the death penalty serves a deterrent.  This also needs to further explanation.  Many people take this to be an empirical claim and think that the number of murders is no less in places where there is recourse to the death penalty.  But the claim is more about the law as a great moral teacher.  As a deterrent the death penalty is not a part of someone’s calculation, but represents an overall hatred of murder.  Most people would not commit and murder and one of the reasons why they have such distaste for it is the horror of the death penalty.  Rather than being an affront against human dignity, it actually shows the great worth of human life.  Recall the reason that God gave Noah as to why he should use capital punishment—“in the image of God have human beings been made” (Gn 9:6).

A Novelty?

It was mentioned above that the “self-defense” defense would represent a novelty in the Church’s teaching and would be a break with unbreakable Tradition.  “Still”, one might say, “the Catechism says what it says.”  That is true, except that the paragraph must be read from within its proper context.  The teaching on the death penalty is presented from within the context of punishment, that is, as Capital Punishment.

“The efforts of the state to curb the spread of behavior harmful to people’s rights and to the basic rules of civil society correspond to the requirement of safeguarding the common good. Legitimate public authority has the right and duty to inflict punishment proportionate to the gravity of the offense. Punishment has the primary aim of redressing the disorder introduced by the offense. When it is willingly accepted by the guilty party, it assumes the value of expiation. Punishment then, in addition to defending public order and protecting people’s safety, has a medicinal purpose: as far as possible, it must contribute to the correction of the guilty party.” (CCC 2266)

This is merely a summary of the principles of what we said above.  What follows then in the next paragraph is meant to be an application of those principles based on the Holy Father’s prudential judgment.  He thinks that given the current state of the penal system, the ends of punishment—proportionality, expiation and deterrence— can be met with something like life imprisonment, rendering the only issue being whether or not society can be protected from further violence by the perpetrator.  As proof that this is a merely prudential application we need only look to the comments of the future Pope Benedict XVI when he said “While the Church exhorts civil authorities to seek peace, not war, and to exercise discretion and mercy in imposing punishment on criminals, it may still be permissible to take up arms to repel an aggressor or to have recourse to capital punishment. There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not however with regard to abortion and euthanasia” (Worthiness to Receive Holy Communion: General Principles Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Prefect for the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith).  It is both permissible to have recourse to capital punishment and to disagree with how it is applied.  The principle is set but how it is applied, like many things related to the moral teachings of the Church, is debatable.   Put another way, that it can be used as punishment is not debatable, when it should be used is.  As an aside, I should mention as well that, despite taking a lot of flak for it, Edward Feser offers an excellent explanation of why this is an imprudential judgment in his new book By Man Shall His Blood Be Shed: A Catholic Defense of the Death Penalty.

In conclusion, the Church has repeatedly affirmed the validity of the death penalty as a moral option for punishing violent offenders.  Despite a move towards a more merciful approach, this particular doctrine will not and cannot change.  The death penalty should always be on the table.