From the Pastor's Desk

There was a time when the Church was involved in burning heretics. That is a long way from the Holy Father’s seeking an end to capital punishment.

Catholics in support of capital punishment are about 70%. The support drops to 44% when there is an option of life imprisonment without parole. It is useful to see justifications of the practice and the assault made on it in our day.

Some Catholics think capital punishment is based on scripture. There are two basic texts cited.

If anyone sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God has man been made. (Gen. 9:6)

The problem with using this text as validation of capital punishment is that it does not appear to be a precept, but a proverb in the same sense as “he who lives by the sword will perish by the sword” or “what a man sows that he shall reap.” The main emphasis is that man has been made to the image and likeness of God and that applies to the criminal who is sentenced to capital punishment. If this were a legal prescription why would Cain not have been slain?

“(F)or it [the state] is a servant of God for your good. But if you do evil, be afraid, for it does not bear the sword without purpose; it is the servant of God to inflict wrath on the evildoer. (Rom. 13:4)

This is not a justification of capital punishment or that the state should engage in bloodshed. It is a symbolic way of expressing the legitimacy of the state’s penal authority with no hint on how it is to be carried out.

Proponents of capital punishment say that it is necessary as a deterrent for others. Studies done in this area are very inconclusive. If it is a deterrent it is a very feeble one. Persons who commit homicide do so under misguided passion or under the influence of alcohol or drugs with scant thought for legal consequences. Former California governor Pat Brown noted that southern states, all zealously applying the death penalty, have the highest homicide rate. In an 1875 study of murder and capital punishment a prison chaplain declared that he had accompanied 167 prisoners to the gallows, 161 of whom had been present at earlier hangings. If the deterrent benefit is not absolutely operative morality and common sense would seem to indicate that the certainty of the right to life of the offender should prevail.

Defenders of the death penalty present it as a cost-effective alternative to life imprisonment. Actually life imprisonment may be cheaper. Estimates for the cost of trials for homicide range from $1.8 and $2.2 million. The latter amount would pay for 55 years of incarceration at the rate of $40,000 per year.

Capital punishment defenders say that it is a matter or retribution. In this case retribution sounds like revenge, a wholly inappropriate reaction in a Christian. Here is a sampling of texts:

Matt. 6:14-15, Mk. 11:25 and Luke 6:37 (If you do not forgive you will not be forgiven)

Additionally we have two examples of forgiveness: by Jesus—Luke 23:24 (“Father, forgive them”) and Stephen—Acts 7:60.

In applying the teaching of the bible to capital punishment we must not be guided by questionable interpretations of two texts while we ignore the whole thrust of the New Testament toward mercy and against revenge. Justice is not wrought by revenge that is legally sanctioned.

The philosopher Immanuel Kant argued in favor the death penalty because the moral order has been upset by a serious crime. That is like arguing that the order of mathematics is unhinged if anyone makes a mistake in calculation.

There are many things against capital punishment. It has failed to meet its stated objectives. It is applied inconsistently and mostly against the poor who cannot afford top-notch lawyers. Many innocent persons have been executed. In its glory days it was applied to those who worshiped God in the wrong way and against innocent women denounced as witches.

The death penalty is an affront to the image and the likeness of God. A diamond remains a diamond even if it is covered with slime. A human is still the image and the likeness of God in spite of his slimy behavior because God make him his image and no one can remove that. If we do violence to the image and likeness of God it is tantamount to disrespect for God himself.

One can use lethal force if this is necessary to preserve one’s own life from an attacker. However, no force may be used which goes beyond protecting one’s life. Thus it would not be permissible to kill an assailant who could be stopped by merely wounding him. More force than necessary partakes of revenge rather than legitimate defense of one’s own life.

Similarly a state may use lethal force to protect itself as in the case of a just war against an unjust aggressor. It may also use capital punishment against criminals who threaten the existence of the state if that is the only way to stop the threat. In modern society it is difficult to imagine how a captured, incarcerated criminal can be a threat to the existence of the state. The same rule of using only that amount of force necessary to protect the state applies as governs individuals under attack. For that reason in modern society there appears to be no justifiable reason for capital punishment. Anything that goes beyond incarceration smacks of revenge.

Some think that the legitimacy of capital punishment is a virtual dogma that cannot be changed. The Pontifical Commission for Justice and Peace asserts, “The Church has never directly addressed the question of the State’s right to exercise the death penalty.” Pope John XXIII wrote, “It is not that the Gospel has changed; it is that we have begun to understand it better.” The death penalty does not square with the gospel of Jesus. The Church should not have accepted uncritically the legal practices of ancient Rome. Christians can scarcely be proud of a culture that features both soaring shrines in which to adore God and ghastly gallows in which to inflict indignities on God’s image and likeness. It took many centuries to recognize the immorality of slavery because it was an insult to human dignity. Now is the time to remove the insult to human dignity that is capital punishment. The Church has come a long way but its members still have a long way to go.

(Printed January, 2003)