Our Catholic Perspective

THE DEATH PENALTY

Archbishop Wilton Gregory invites the Catholics of North Georgia to reflect on Catholic teachings about capital punishment.

The Death Penalty Today• While most nations no longer allow

capital punishment, the world leaders in execution today are China, Iran, North Korea, Yemen and the United States.

• Over 3,000 people currently await execution in America.

• About 100 of those men (and one woman) are on Death Row in Georgia.

Rally before the Troy Davis execution

But here and in the other 33 states which still use the death penalty, the topic remains highly controversial.

Frequently Cited Pros and Cons

PRO• Protects society against

dangerous criminals• Deters prospective

lawbreakers• Brings closure to family

of victims• Insures justice

CON• Arbitrarily applied• Discriminates by

race and class• Risks possibility of

executing innocent people

• Costs are prohibitive

How do we decide?

• As Catholics we are guided by the moral compass our faith provides us.

• We look to Scripture, to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and to the teachings of our pope and our bishops.

• Fortunately, all these sources have offered us important insights on the death penalty.

Let’s begin with Blessed John Paul

On his visit to St. Louis in 1999, the pope confronted the issue in a state where a condemned man faced impending execution. Capital punishment, the Holy Father declared, was “both cruel and unnecessary.”

His 1995 encyclical, The Gospel of Life, explained the pope’s reasoning:

“Public authority must redress the violation of personal and social rights by imposing on the offender an adequate punishment for the crime,” he wrote, but “ought not go to the extreme of executing the offender except in cases of absolute necessity: in other words, when it would not be possible otherwise to defend society.”

However, in a modern “system of penal justice ever more in line with human dignity and thus, in the end, with God's plan for man and society,” he insisted, “such cases are very rare, if not practically non-existent.”

Section 2267 of The Catechism of the Catholic Church reflects this teaching:If . . . 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 are 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 non-existent."

But doesn’t the Bible say . . . ?

Let’s not forget:Jesus put this Old Testament saying in a new context for us:

You have heard that it was said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. But now I tell you: do not take revenge on someone who wrongs you. (Mt 5:38-39)

You have heard that it was said, “Love your friends, hate your enemies.” But now I tell you: love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may become the children of your Father in heaven. For he makes his sun to shine on bad and good people alike, and gives rain to those who do good and to those who do evil. (Mt 5:43-45)

How is it possible to live up to such lofty ideals?

Let’s turn again to Pope John Paul

In The Gospel of Life, he reminds us of the concept of human dignity, the basis of all Catholic moral teaching:

“Not even a murderer loses his personal dignity,” the pope explains, and in the Old Testament story of Cain and Able, “God himself pledges to guarantee this” by marking Cain with a sign to protect him from anyone who might seek his death. As St. Ambrose put it, “God, who preferred the correction rather than the death of a sinner, did not desire that a homicide be punished by the exaction of another act of homicide.”

“No one so low he cannot change”

The pope’s words are echoed by a man who discovered his own dignity late in life: convicted murderer Larry Bellmore, an inmate on Death Row in Indiana until his execution was commuted to a long-term prison sentence.

But without the death penalty, how can we protect the innocent?

In times past, when barbarians were literally at the gates, “the traditional teaching of the Church” as the Catechism acknowledges, did “not exclude recourse to the death penalty” if it was “the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.”

Fortunately, we now have better ways to protect society

For dangerous murderers at risk of killing again, every state except one allows for sentences of life without the possibility of parole in high-security prisons.

Is that really justice?

Yes, says Pope Benedict, very much like the justice God uses in dealing with us.

“Justice for us is 'what is due to another', while mercy is what is given out of goodness. And one thing seems to exclude the other,” the Holy Father told a group of prisoners in Rome. “But God is not so: in Him justice and charity coincide: there is no just action that is not also an act of mercy and forgiveness and at the same time, there is no merciful action that is not perfectly just.”

Justice that restores and heals

Notice that what brings peace to these victims of violent crime is not vengeance but the forgiveness that Jesus taught us by word and example.

Their experiences confirm the words of our bishops in their 2005 statement calling for an end to the death penalty:

No act, even an execution, can bring back a loved one or heal terrible wounds. The pain and loss of one death cannot be wiped away by another death.

Not only is an ethic of vengeance harmful to victims, the bishops explain, it is also harmful to the good of society as a whole:

When the state, in our names and with our taxes, ends a human life despite having non-lethal alternatives, it suggests that society can overcome violence with violence.

Our bishops titled their 2005 statement “The Culture of Life and the Penalty of Death” because they see the two alternatives as incompatible:

The pursuit of the common good is linked directly to the defense of human life. At a time when the sanctity of life is threatened in many ways, taking life is not really a solution but may instead effectively undermine respect for life.

Building a Culture of Life

What do our bishops ask of us?• Pray for victims of crime and their families, those who have been

wrongly convicted, and those awaiting execution.

• Learn about Catholic social teaching, U.S. criminal justice policies, and the policies in your state.

• Educate people your parish or community about Catholic social teaching and the criminal justice system.

• Advocate by contacting your elected officials. Discuss Catholic teachings on the death penalty and what steps could be taken at the state or national level to curtail or end its use.

• Change the debate and decisions on the use of the death penalty by building a constituency for life, not death.

In close collaboration with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Catholic Mobilizing Network (CMN) proclaims the Church’s unconditional pro-life teaching and its application to capital punishment and restorative justice. Want to be part of that much-needed change to a culture of life?

Join fellow Catholics in working cooperatively with other Georgians of good will who seek an end to the death penalty. At the end of today’s discussion, we’ll tell you all the details.

How can we do all that?

http://gacadp.org

Credits

• Video clips of Pope John Paul II and of “Ron” and “Becky” were excerpted from Talking About the Death Penalty, a video from the Florida Catholic Conference available at http://www.flacathconf.org/lifeanddeath/deathpenalty/index.php

• The video clip of Larry Bellmore was excerpted from The Death Penalty: No Justice, No Healing, No Closure, a video from the Indiana Catholic Conference available at

http://catholicsmobilizing.org/1452/the-death-penalty-no-justice-no-healing-no-closure/