St. Joseph Church
Bristol, Connecticut
Deacon Robert M. Pallotti
Pastoral Minister
Roman Catholic
Teaching on the Death Penalty:
A Concise Survey
"First, societal conditions...create a
range of threats to human life. The issues of abortion, capital punishment, modern
warfare, euthanasia, and socio-economic issues of justice all pose distinct challenges to
protecting human life and promoting human dignity....The premise of the consistent life
ethic is that a relationship exists among these issues.
Second, in analyzing the nature of these threats to life, the
consistent ethic proposal draws upon the structure and key concepts of Catholic moral
theology....[It] is designed to test the Catholic moral vision in terms of two questions:
which issues are defined as moral concerns, and how moral principles are used across a
spectrum of issues. It is also designed to provide a means for the Catholic community to
engage the broader civil society on these same issues."
Rev. Bryan Hehir, Consistent Ethic of Life
Among the most controversial issues confronting Western and
global culture is the continued practice of the death penalty. In the United States, the
only remaining Western democracy that maintains the right of the state to put someone to
death, the death penalty has become a very contentious issue. In the Roman Catholic Church
the New Catechism and the U.S. Catholic Bishops have called for end to the use of
the death penalty for serious crime, yet a significant majority of Roman Catholics in the
United States favor the use of the death penalty.
Concise Historical and Theological Survey
The methods for carrying out the death penalty are many:
hanging, firing squad, strangulation, drowning, stoning, burning, drawn and quartered,
slicing, arena, crucifixion, gassing, electrocution and lethal injection are among the
most frequently mentioned in history. Christian theological thought on the death penalty
has undergone struggle and change over the centuries. While the biblical commandment,
Thou
shalt not kill always exercised considerable influence on Christian teaching, the
realities of the human sin and the need for defining what real justice meant led to forms
of acceptance of the death penalty during the patristic period and up to more recent
times.
Biblical Foundations
Throughout the centuries the Christian discussion concerning the
morality of the death penalty sought to find support or refutation of the legitimacy of
the death penalty. In Genesis 9:6 it states:
"If anyone sheds the blood of a
man, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God has man been made."
Scripture scholars tell us that this selection from
Scripture was not meant to promote the death penalty but to emphasize the sacredness of
human life !
In the Law of Moses fifteen different crimes are singled out for the
death penalty. Yet rabbinic reflection in the Talmud reveals restraints concerning the
actual use of the death penalty. An accused murderer could only be convicted if two
witnesses testified against him or her. Furthermore, no person could be convicted by the
use of circumstantial evidence or hear say evidence. As a result, there was a
decreased frequency of the application of the death penalty in Israel.
In the New Testament those who sought to justify the death penalty
would often refer to Paul's letter to the Romans 13. In this citation from scripture Paul
reminds the early members of the church in Rome that they are under the rightful authority
of the state. However, a close reading of the text reveals that Paul's primary concern was
to help Christians to appear to be good and productive citizens of Rome, not enemies of
the state. This citation in Romans was not an attempt to support the death penalty. Also,
in another citation from the New Testament Matthew 9:13 and Matthew 5:1-12, Jesus calls
upon his followers not to exact revenge.
"The admonition to love even one's
enemies emerges as a profound trajectory within the New Testament. Jesus' own life and his
endorsement of suffering love unto the cross further accentuate a heightened awareness of
the dignity of human life." (1)
The Christian discussion concerning the morality fo the death
penalty revolved around the struggle between retributive justice and restorative
justice. The former is interested in punishment for the offense through consequences
that may be extreme. The latter is concerned with correction, yet not without
consequences. The latter is concerned with redemption of the individual, not merely with
punishing the individual.
The patristic period of the church (150-500 A.D.) continued the
moral discussion concerning the death penalty. In some cases the patristic fathers agreed
with the use of
the death penalty. This was especially so with St. Augustine.
However, the fathers and St. Augustine still struggled to assert the commandment,
Thou
shalt not kill.
"....the reality of human sin
complicated the maintenance of this ideal from the very start. Side by side with the ideal
of not killing stood specific exceptions in the scriptures, sometimes ordering the killing
of certain malefactors in the community. No one struggled with this dilemma more
consistently and under more difficult circumstances than St. Augustine. While his late
concession to the use of state coercion against dissenters tarnished his name, his
persistent example as a Christian churchman, opposing all recourse to the death penalty in
practice, advocating clemency in every case, was often forgotten....Once Christianity had
become the state religion, the imperial values articulated in Roman law tended to
overwhelm gospel values.... Less and less attention was paid to that most troublesome of
the teachings of Christ: the prohibition of the taking of revenge."
(2)
The argument for the use of the death penalty in the Christian
tradition developed along the following lines:
- The authoritative power of the state is affirmed in the New
Testament in Romans 13 to promote the common good and citizen security. The endorsement of
the death penalty falls under the "lex talionis", "an eye for an eye."
- The death penalty will serve as a deterrent to
"would-be" capital offenders.
- The death penalty is an exercise in judgment and not hatred.
In the words of Pope Innocent III:
"We assent concerning the power of
the state that is able to exercise a judgment of blood, without mortal sin, provided it
proceed to inflict the punishment not in hate, but in judgment; not incautiously, but
after consideration. (3)
Contemporary Teaching
Much has changed over the centuries concerning the Roman Catholic
Church's position concerning the morality of the death penalty. This is reflected in the
U.S. Catholic Bishops statements on the death penalty. These statements place emphasis on
three major points:
- The death penalty fails to have a deterrent effect on the
committing of captial crimes.
- It dehumanizes society by legitimating violence as a way of
dealing with capital offenses. It fails to understand societies complicity in the
tolerance and maintenance of social systems that are violence-producing.
- The death penalty does not reflect the consistent biblical
trajectory of forgiveness, hope and redemption. (4)
The U.S. Catholic Bishops understand that the abolition of the death
penalty would mean:
- That it would communicate an awareness that the "cycle
of violence" can be broken. Emphasis can be placed on restorative justice rather than
on retribution. The rights of justice may require "life sentences" for the
perpetrators of murder.
- Abolition supports the "seamless garment" or pro-life
ethic which is consistent with the church's position on abortion, euthanasia,
and
the defense of innocent life.
- Abolition promotes the awareness that God is life's
sovereign. Such a recognition provides a check on human power to take life.
- The example of Jesus calls for a rejection of the death penalty.
In 1995 Pope John Paul II echoed the concerns of the U.S.
Bishops in his encyclical,
The Gospel of Life. In this letter he called for the
practical
elimination of the death penalty. This is also stated in the New Catholic Catechism. (cf. On the Death Penalty: Clarification in the Definitive Edition of
the Catechism)
The Roman Catholic discussion on the morality of the death penalty
can best be understood as one that attempts to promote a consistent pro-life ethic across
the moral spectrum. This consistent life ethic has emerged in a century where human
technological progress has gone hand in hand with the invention of more lethal and
efficient ways of killing people--this Pope John Paul II refers to as the culture of
death. The insistence on the pro-life ethic is in concert with Pope John Paul II's
call to build a civilization of love. This will only happen when the sacred dignity
of each person is protected, honored and nourished throughout all stages of human becoming
Footnotes
(1) Judith A. Dwyer, ed., The New Dictionary of Catholic Social
Thought (Collegeville, Minnesota: Michael Glazier, The Liturgical Press, 1994), pp.
109-111.
(2) James J. Megivern, The Death Penalty: An Historical and
Theological Survery (New York: Paulist Press, 1997), p. 50.
(3) Dwyer, op. cit., p. 110.
(4) ibid., p. 111.
Compiled by Deacon Robert M. Pallotti, D. Min.
Created 11/24/1998
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