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Church Teaching
and the Death Penalty This transition has consisted in a movement from justification and acceptance of the death penalty for a series of serious crimes to a state of questioning the exercise of the state's right to inflict capital punishment, to rejection of that right in principle. It is possible to trace four distinct attitudes in Church teaching on the topic of capital punishment or the death penalty. First, the Church experienced an initial period of over two hundred years when Christians refused to kill in the military, in self-defense, or in the judicial system. This phase does not prove formal rejection of the death penalty as such but it does show the early Christian communities refusing to take human life in any circumstances out of their fidelity to the teaching and example of Jesus. This period when the predominant Christian attitude was "Christian pacificism" prevailed until the recognition of the Church as a public institution by the Emperor Constantine in 313. It involved toleration rather than acceptance of the death penalty as well as of slavery. This is of significance to contemporary Christians who oppose warfare and wish consistently to defend human life because of its sacredness in a variety of distinct but related areas, of which the death penalty is but one. Pacifists today reject the view that the early Christians who initially were outside the social mainstream had to abandon their pro-life attitudes when they entered into public life. On the contrary, the early Christians appear to have seen themselves driven by fidelity to the teachings of Jesus. The second attitude, and this is still the approach of the papal magisterium, involves acceptance by the Church of the state's right to inflict capital punishment but this acceptance is somewhat indirect. For example, clerics were forbidden to be part of administering the death penalty. Groups, like the Waldensians, who rejected the state's right to inflict the death penalty, were condemned for their position. But there is no official teaching mandating the death penalty and no positions adopted that could be seen as committing the Church to the death penalty irrevocably. St. Thomas Aquinas' defense of the death penalty is well known. The common good is of greater value than the particular good of an individual. Therefore the particular good of the individual may be sacrificed to the common good. The life of certain pestiferous individuals hinders the common good, which is the concord of human society. Such individuals, therefore, must be removed by death from society. St. Thomas argued in favor of capital punishment using the analogy of amputating a diseased limb for the well-being of the whole body. Thus, Aquinas treats the State as an organic body from which a diseased member may be amputated for the good of the whole. Today, however, this argument is not convincing because the common good can be secured without inflicting death. A third attitude involves acceptance of the state's right to inflict capital punishment but a simultaneous challenge to the exercise of the right on moral and religious grounds. In this country that challenge has come principally from the U.S. Bishops speaking as citizens and pastoral leaders of Catholics but appealing to all persons of good will. Appeals for abolition have come as well from other religious leaders, from some theologians and from a wide variety of committed groups both within and outside the Church. A fourth attitude, and one gaining ground today, involves denying the right of the state to inflict the death penalty, denying not just the mode or manner of exercising the right but the right itself. This stance is implicit in the position of the U.S. Bishops and momentum for this approach is gathering in many groups such as Amnesty International. More general support is being gathered to achieve complete abolition of capital punishment. The Pope's message has generated much discussion. Even though it falls short of absolute condemnation, it is moving in that direction. It is clear that, for these purposes (public order and safety and rehabilitation of offenders) to be achieved, the nature and extent of the punishment must be carefully evaluated and decided upon and ought not to 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. Today, however, as a result of steady improvements in the organization of the penal system, such cases are very rare, if not practically nonexistent. Source of Church Teaching Some people justify retaining the death penalty because the OT did prescribe and mandate death for a very large variety of offenses. However, each biblical text needs to be examined in its historical context. The rabbinical qualifications and restrictions also need to be considered. For example Jewish laws of evidence were very strict: there had to be two eyewitnesses whose position with respect to the criminal was very precisely specified: they had to stand one on either side. No hearsay evidence was allowed in death penalty cases. The eyewitnesses were obliged to have warned the perpetrator before the crime was committed. It is also important to note that a court which handed down a death penalty more than once in seventy years was considered a bloodthirsty court. By the time of Jesus, it would seem that in Jewish practice the death penalty was very seldom carried out. Those who appeal to the Old Testament for support of the death penalty probably would not want the death penalty inflicted for crimes such as disobedience to parents, adultery, breaking the Sabbath, or any of the other reasons for which it was prescribed. The New Testament does not prescribe or mandate the death penalty for any crime although some argue that in Romans 13 Paul justifies it. This is arguable because Paul certainly justifies the right of the state to punish, but not necessarily to take a life as "God's avenger." Jesus himself seems to reject the death penalty in practice in the case of the woman taken in adultery. He also challenges us to love our enemies. In his life Jesus stood for forgiveness, healing, reconciliation. In his own death, by capital punishment, he prayed for his executioners and said they knew not what they did. In 1974 the U.S. Bishops issued a one sentence statement opposing capital punishment because there was opposition within the conference to a lengthier statement. In 1976 the U.S. Catholic Conference released a study paper prepared by the Pontifical Commission for Justice and Peace which supported a pastoral approach. "... For the ethical values and because of the lack of probative arguments to the contrary, the abolition of capital punishment is to be favored." The Commission suggested that the U.S. Bishops approach the issue within the context of "respect for life," a position consistent with their opposition to abortion. In 1980 the Bishops issued "Statement on Capital Punishment" which has become their most celebrated statement on the death penalty. Since then there have been numerous statements from individual bishops, from several state conferences of bishops collectively, and from the national conference urging the abolition of capital punishment. In these documents, the bishops speak as citizens and as pastoral leaders. They fully acknowledge the complexity of the issue and the legitimate differences of opinion that exist both in the Church and in the wider society. They issue an invitation for prayerful reflection on and reconsideration of this emotional, volatile, and critical issue. They always show deep concern for the victims of crime and their families and for the safety of law-enforcement personnel and for social well-being. In their 1980 "Statement on Capital Punishment" they anticipate the positive effects of their policy: "We maintain that abolition of the death penalty would promote values that are important to us as citizens and as Christians." They express their opposition to the death penalty against a background of cogent arguments: First, abolition sends a message that we can break the cycle of violence, that we need not take life for life, that we can envisage more humane and more hopeful and effective responses to the growth of violent crime. It is a manifestation of our freedom as moral persons striving for a just society. It is also a challenge to us as a people to find ways of dealing with criminals that manifest intelligence and compassion rather than power and vengeance. We should feel such confidence in our civic order that we use no more force against those who violate it than is actually required... Second, abolition of capital punishment is also a manifestation of our belief in the unique worth and dignity of each person from the moment of conception, a creature made in the image and likeness of God... It is particularly important in the context of our times that this belief be affirmed with regard to those who have failed or whose lives have been distorted by suffering or hatred, even in the case of those who by their actions have failed to respect the rights of others. It is the recognition of the dignity of all human beings that has impelled the church to minister to the needs of the outcast and the rejected and that should make us unwilling to treat the lives of even those who have taken human life as expendable or as a means to some further end. Third, abolition of the death penalty is further testimony to our conviction which we share with the Judaic and Islamic traditions, that God is indeed the Lord of life. It is testimony which removes a certain ambiguity which might otherwise affect the witness that we wish to give to the sanctity of human life in all its stages... We do not wish to equate the situation of criminals convicted of capital offenses with the condition of the innocent unborn or of the defenseless aged infirm, but we do believe that the defense of life is strengthened by eliminating exercise of a judicial authorization to take human life. Fourth, we believe that abolition of the death penalty is most consonant with the example of Jesus, who both taught and practiced the forgiveness of injustice and who came "to give his life as a ransom for many" (Mk. 10:45). In this regard we may point to the reluctance which those early Christians who accepted capital punishment as a legitimate practice in civil society felt about participation of Christians in such an institution and to the unwillingness of the church to accept into the ranks of its ministers those who had been involved in the infliction of capital punishment. The bishops also express concern about "...the widespread belief that many convicted criminals are sentenced to death in an unfair and discriminatory manner...." There is a general presumption that if specific evidence of bias or discrimination in sentencing can be determined for particular cases, higher courts will not uphold sentences of death in these cases. But we must also acknowledge that while our legal system does provide counsel for indigent defendants, it also permits those who are well off to obtain the resources and the talent to present their case in as convincing a light as possible. This creates the potential for great inequities. The legal system and the criminal justice system exist in a society which bears the effects of racism. The number of those condemned to die are disproportionately black. Forty-seven percent of the inmates on Death Row are black, whereas only 11 percent of the American population is black. The Bishops regard as unacceptable that racist attitudes and the social consequences of racism should influence the determination of who is sentenced to die in our society. With these and similar arguments the Bishops urge Catholics and all others to oppose the death penalty. Evidence suggests that capital punishment fails as a deterrent and can not rehabilitate. Because we have alternative means to protect society, we ought to oppose the death penalty in principle and in practice because it feeds vindictive attitudes, contributes to the spiral of violence, detracts attention from the socio-economic reforms, and denies the power of God's forgiveness. Crime and punishment must be dealt with realistically in a comprehensive framework of social justice for all and consistent with the example of Jesus. RECOMMENDED READINGS Pope John
Paul II, Evangelium Vitae, 1995.
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The
1990s dramatically point up that Church teaching on the death penalty
has been in transition. The Catechism of the Catholic Church published
in 1994 observed that "if bloodless means are sufficient to defend human
lives against an aggressor and to protect public order and the safety
of persons, public authority should limit itself to such means." (2267)
In his encyclical The Gospel of Life published in 1995, Pope John
Paul II removed this public safety qualification and declared that in
a modern society capital punishment can scarcely ever be condoned (56).
Respect for human life precludes such practices today.
