LIFE OR DEATH

With the execution of Timothy McVeigh capital punishment has occupied a good deal of the press and our attention. The problem with the McVeigh case is that it is an easy one for the pro-capital punishment groups. His crime was horrific, certainly if anyone deserved the death penalty McVeigh did. Unlike most death penalty cases, McVeigh is white, had good lawyers, and admitted his crime. The arguments most often made against the death penalty concern its racial disparity, the lack of competent legal council for most cases, and the possibility of a mistake. These factors were clearly not present in this case. But are those the only arguments to be made against capital punishment? What does the Church have to say and why?

Pope John Paul II writes in his encyclical letter The Gospel of Life (Evangelium Vitae): "This is the context (the need to render an unjust aggressor harmless) in which to place the problem of the death penalty. On this matter there is a growing tendency, both in the Church and in civil society, to demand that it be applied in a very limited way or even abolished completely." (#56) The Holy Father goes on to say that the only legitimate reason for imposing the death penalty is that there are no other means available to safe guard society. He adds: "Today however, as a result of steady improvements in the organization of the penal system, such cases are very rare, if not practically non-existent." It is important to note that the Pope is speaking to the entire world, not just North America. The CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH: Second Addition reiterates the words of the Holy Father: "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 with the dignity of the human person. Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibility which the state has for effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an offense incapable of doing harm – without definitively 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." (CCC #2267)

Left out of the discussion of the death penalty in both the Pope’s encyclical and the Catechism are the usual arguments made in favor of capital punishment: that it is a deterrent and that it is just punishment. These, according to the official teaching of the Church, are not valid reasons for executing a criminal. Many, in defense of capital punishment claim to be following the biblical injunction "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth." This is in the law of Moses from the same section that list those who come under the death sentence: adulterers, blasphemers, the incestuous, those who seek fortune tellers and mediums, homosexuals. Jesus speaks directly to this injunction: "You have heard the commandment, ‘An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.’ What I say to you is: offer no resistance to injury." (Matt.5:38-39) Jesus is telling us that we can do better. The Church is telling us we must do better.

The dignity and sacredness of human life is such that we must not kill even when one has taken a life himself. The death penalty, carried out in the name of the people, diminishes us all. When the state executes a criminal we all become complicit in the degrading of all human life. Killing the criminal becomes a simple (in thought only, it is incredibly complicated in practice) solution to our fears of becoming victims of crime. We seek simple solutions and killing becomes one of them. This is also the same reasching for a quick remedy that gives way to the killing of unwanted babies, the elderly or the infirm. It has been said that the McVeigh execution was at least humane because it was accomplished so antiseptically. This only further erodes the sacredness of life by treating a person as if he was a dog being put to sleep. Whether it is a beheading or a lethal injection, the result is the same, death. Whether it is called capital punishment, termination of pregnancy, or euthanasia, the result is the same, death. We have decided that what God has created no longer has value, either because it is not wanted by the right person, it has become unproductive and burdensome, or it has committed a crime. In all cases we have put value not on the life itself, but in our own reaction to it. We have stripped life of its sacredness by deciding its values based on its relationship to others. One who is not loved and wanted has no value. One who has become burdensome has no value. One whose life no longer is free of pain or is no longer productive has no value. One who has sinned no longer has value. This latter goes so far as to deny the very possibility of redemption. As Jesus said to the people who were about to stone the woman caught in adultery, "Let the man among you who has no sin be the first to cast a stone at her." (John 8:7) Jesus is not saying that the ones who had not committed adultery may cast the first stone, but only those who had no sin at all. That is because Jesus offers to all the gift of redemption. He takes upon himself the sins of all. The execution of a person denies that person any further possibility of repentance. We have then ventured into God’s prerogative.

As John Paul says: "With regard to things, but even more with regard to life, man is not the absolute master and final judge, but rather–and this is where his incomparable greatness lies–he is the ‘minister of God’s plan.’ Life is entrusted to man as a treasure which must not be squandered, as a talent which must be used well. Man must render an account of it to his Master." (Evengeliium Vitae #52)