Missionaries of the Sacred

I rejoice that on 18 December. . .the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted a resolution calling upon States to institute a moratorium on the use of the death penalty, and I earnestly hope that this initiative will lead to public debate on the sacred character of human life. (Pope Benedict XVI, Address to the Diplomatic Corps Accredited to the Holy See for the Traditional Exchange of New Year Greetings, January 7, 2008, #11)

In our efforts to pursue and develop a culture of life, we now look at the institution of the death penalty and our penal system.

One of my particular ministries of social justice is a pen-pal ministry, in which I exchange letters with prisoners. Several of these pen pals are on death row or have been on death row, but now sentenced to life in prison.

After a 5-year moratorium, the United States reinstated the death penalty (capital punishment) in 1976, proclaiming it constitutional under the 8th amendment.¹ Since this date, there have been over 1150 executions of prisoners. The latest was on March 2nd in the state of Texas. In 2009, 52 prisoners were put to death; 24 of these were from the state of Texas. Texas continues to remain the leading state for enforcing the death penalty with over 400 victims since 1977.² Fifteen states do not have the death penalty: Alaska, Hawaii, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont ,West Virginia. and Wisconsin. The District of Colombia does not have the death penalty.³ Presently there are over 3,000 prisoners on death row.⁴

In our efforts to pursue and develop a culture of life, it seems that the death penalty is one more practice, which is contrary to the sanctity of human life. Capital punishment is an action where death is used to resolve the moral problems of crime and violence. It is a vehicle of violence, which adds to the already staggering violence which permeates our world. The death penalty communicates the disvalue that there is no place for love, compassion and pardon.

The Christian community in the first three centuries primarily held to the sentiments of nonviolence. Violence and killing were incompatible with the values of Jesus. When Christianity was made the official religion of the Roman Empire in 323 the Church began to approve the killing of persons for reasons of justice. St. Thomas Aquinas, in the 13th century, permitted the death penalty for security and protection of the common good.⁵ This thought was normal in the Church among many for the following seven centuries and unfortunately continues today in the 21st century. It is interesting to note, however, that there was always present within the Church, a large number who maintained that killing another, even if he/she were a criminal, is an immoral act. St. Ambrose in the 4th century, e.g. wrote, “God who preferred the correction rather than the death of the sinner, did not desire that a homicide be punished by the exaction of another.”⁶

The Catholic Church holds to the development of doctrine. Through the centuries, the Catholic Church has always reflected on its faith and image as the sacrament of Christ on earth and what it means to be a human being. Each century the Church has striven to understand Jesus and His will. This process is accomplished through prayer and reflection on the gospels and the Moral Tradition of the Church. In each era, the Church must respond to the questions: Who is the human person? What maximizes the greatest well being for the proper development of humankind? Through weighing and accessing present moral issues, the Church always seeks to desire and search for truth, to love goodness and to avoid evil so that the message of Jesus may enlighten consciences for modern times.

With the above in mind, the Church has established today that the death penalty is not a viable solution for the progressive development of the sanctity of human life and human rights. The human being who from the moment of his/her conception is created in the image and likeness of God, has dignity, inviolability and holiness, as well as value and worth. The human person never loses this inviolable holiness. Respect for human dignity is a birthright. Human life is a gift of God and it must be safeguarded and protected at every moment in the life of an individual.

The death penalty compromises this profound value: the inviolable dignity of the human person. Proponents of capital punishment seek to escape this principle. In truth, the death penalty does not provide for the ending of the culture of violence and culture of death. It affirms the message that it is morally correct to kill a criminal because he/she killed another person. Indeed, capital punishment is part of a dynamic process, which dehumanizes. Actions that dehumanize lead to more actions of dehumanization.

I would like to quote the words of Pope John Paul II, “The history of our time has shown in a tragic way the danger which results from forgetting the truth about the human person.”⁷ The death penalty does not respect human rights. It is an action of the State which denies the value that all persons, without exception, are equal in dignity and worth. The death penalty infringes on the sanctity of human life and usurps the power given only to God, the absolute authority over life and death. Modern sensibilities point to an urgent desire for a more civilized society. Subjective thinking and feeling cannot be used for judging what is good or bad. This cannot be the criteria for the progress of a society. There is a higher order and law which all persons must obey: “We must obey God rather than men.” (Acts 5:29)

The right to life is not a choice. We must embrace the totality of human life, which includes the protection of people wounded by sin and who need the compassion and forgiveness of God. God is merciful even when he punishes, “put a mark on Cain, lest any who came upon him should kill him.” (Genesis 4:15) He thus gave him a distinctive sign, not to condemn him to the hatred of others, but to protect and defend him from those wishing to kill him, even out of a desire to avenge Abel’s death. Not even a murderer loses his personal dignity and God himself pledges to guarantee this. And it is precisely here that the paradoxical mystery of the merciful justice of God is shown forth. (Evangelium Vitae (EV), #9)

Love is the fundamental principle of morality.⁸ There is no justice without love. The unique message of Christianity is love and reconciliation with one’s enemies. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says,

But I say to you, whoever is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment. . . I say to you, offer no resistance to one who is evil…You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.” But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your heavenly Father. . . (Matthew 5:22, 39, 43)

The death penalty violates this fundamental instruction of Christ. The followers of Jesus in the first century were of this same sentiment: “Be mindful of prisoners as if sharing their imprisonment and of the ill-treated as yourselves…” (Hebrews 13:3) Of course, with appropriate justice, punishment is necessary for the protection of citizens and to maintain peace. But a distinction must be made between an error that was committed--which must always be repudiated—and the person who never loses his/her dignity even though some of his/her ideas and actions may be flawed. Thus, those prisoners condemned to death still maintain their right to life by their God-given dignity and worth. While punishment is necessary under just law, taking a life for a life only perpetuates the cycle of violence. Rehabilitation and humane unconditional life-imprisonment are moral alternatives, which will help protect society from violent offenders of human life and the public order. They are instruments, which conform to the moral order for a culture of life. They lessen the fuel for revenge and aversion.

Those who thirst for revenge may experience the illusion of satisfaction, but this never lasts long. The short-term effects of the death penalty may satisfy the human impulse to seek revenge, but its long-term effects add to the suffering of the loved ones, of offenders and victims alike. Therefore,

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 more in conformity with the dignity of the human person.⁹

In recent years, in the United States, there have been “growing doubts about the fairness, effectiveness and impact of capital punishment [and] increasing unease about its use.”¹⁰ Support for the death penalty among Catholics has decreased significantly. Most Catholics believe that the practice of capital punishment is inconsistent with the sanctity of human life.¹¹

The resurrection of Jesus is a victory and declaration of life over death. This life is not only the life after death. Life after death is not our only hope. Jesus’ Resurrection is an affirmation of life as it is lived in the here and now.¹² The reign of God is in the here and now in Jesus:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord. (Luke 4:18-19)

Christ’s message is not a message of hostility, vengeance and hatred. His is a proclamation of love and life. The message of Jesus is a “Gospel of mercy, which is addressed to the actual person and sinner that we are, to help us up after any fall and to recover from any injury."¹³

Br. Warren Perrotto, MSC

Justice and Peace Coordinator

1. http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/part-i-history-deathpenalty
2. http://www.people.smu.edu/rhalperi/
3. http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/states-and-without-death-penalty
4. http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/death-row-inmates-state-and-size-death-row-year
5. Summa Theologica, II-II, q. 64, a.2.
6. St. Ambrose, Cain and Abel, in Criminal Justice and the Catholic Church. By Andrew Skootnicki. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefeld Publishers, Inc., 2008, p. 131.
7. Pope John-Paul II, Respect for Human Rights: The Secret of True Peace, January 1, 1999, #2.
8. Cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, #2264
9. Catechism of the Catholic Church, #2267. This same number, however, acknowledges that the Church does not exclude resource to the death penalty, “if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human life against the unjust aggressor.”
10. United States Catholic Conference of Bishops, (USCCB) A Culture of Life and the Penalty of Death, 2005, p. 8.
11. Ibid., p. 10.
12. Cf. Guadium et Spes, #14.
13. Address of His Holiness, Benedict XVI to Participants in an International Congress Organized by the John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family, April 5, 2008.