Deal Hudson wrote a piece at Inside Catholic this week on Catholics and the death penalty:

As most Catholics know, Church teaching on the death penalty developed under the leadership of Pope John Paul II. His encyclical Evangelium Vitae did not rule out use of the death penalty altogether, as some people think, but stated it should be used only “in cases of absolute necessity,” adding “such cases are rare, if practically non-existent” (56). For John Paul, the dignity of the human person demanded that Catholics look for “bloodless means” to protect the common good from the threat of those who are guilty of taking innocent human life.

Author Dudley Sharp has compiled historical Catholic teaching on the death penalty. See page 2 for quotes. He also wrote:

Often, the death penalty dialogue gravitates to the subject of innocents at risk of execution. Seldom is a more common problem reviewed. That is, how innocents are more at risk without the death penalty.

I’m interested in Catholic thought on the evolving view of the Catholic Church on the death penalty. Is anyone concerned or observing that opposition to the death penalty is taking oxygen from opposition to abortion?  Am also interested in hearing from those who are pro-life and pro-death penalty, pro-choice and anti-death penalty, and all other variations.

Saint Augustine: “… Iinflicting capital punishment . . . protects those who are undergoing capital punishment from the harm they may suffer . . . through increased sinning which might continue if their life went on.” (On the Lord’s Sermon, 1.20.63-64.)

Saint Thomas Aquinas: “… The death inflicted by the judge profits the sinner, if he be converted, unto the expiation of his crime; and, if he be not converted, it profits so as to put an end to the sin, because the sinner is thus deprived of the power to sin anymore.” (Summa Theologica, II-II, 25, 6 ad 2.)

Romano Amerio, Catholic Vatican insider, scholar, professor at the Academy of Lugano, consultant to the Preparatory Commission of Vatican II, and a peritus (expert theologian) at the Council: “The most irreligious aspect of this argument against capital punishment is that it denies its expiatory value which, from a religious point of view, is of the highest importance because it can include a final consent to give up the greatest of all worldly goods.

Sharp commentary:  The moral importance of wanting to make expiation also explains the indefatigable efforts of the Confraternity of St. John the Baptist Beheaded, members of which used to accompany men to their deaths, all the while suggesting, begging and providing help to get them to repent and accept their deaths, so ensuring that they would die in the grace of God, as the saying went.

Some opposing capital punishment ” . . . go on to assert that a life should not be ended because that would remove the possibility of making expiation, is to ignore the great truth that capital punishment is itself expiatory. In a humanistic religion expiation would of course be primarily the converting of a man to other men. On that view, time is needed to effect a reformation, and the time available should not be shortened. In God’s religion, on the other hand, expiation is primarily a recognition of the divine majesty and lordship, which can be and should be recognized at every moment, in accordance with the principle of the concentration of one’s moral life.”

Some death penalty opponents “deny the expiatory value of death; death which has the highest expiatory value possible among natural things, precisely because life is the highest good among the relative goods of this world; and it is by consenting to sacrifice that life, that the fullest expiation can be made. And again, the expiation that the innocent Christ made for the sins of mankind was itself effected through his being condemned to death.”

The Catechism of The Roman Catholic Church (2005): “The primary scope of the penalty is to redress the disorder caused by the offense.” “When his punishment is voluntarily accepted by the offender, it takes on the value of expiation.” 2266
Sharp commentary: This is a specific reference to justice, just retribution, just deserts and the like, all of which redress the disorder.
We must first recognize the guilt/sin/crime of the aggressor and hold them accountable for that crime/sin/disorder by way of penalty, meaning the penalty should be just and appropriate for the sin/crime/disorder and should represent justice, retributive justice, just deserts and their like which “redress the disorder caused by the offence” or to correct an imbalance, as defined within the example of 2260.

“For your lifeblood I will surely require a reckoning…. Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for God made man in his own image.” Genesis 9:5-6 “This teaching remains necessary for all time.” – 2260
Jesus: Now one of the criminals hanging there reviled Jesus, saying, “Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us.” The other, however, rebuking him, said in reply, “Have you no fear of God, for you are subject to the same condemnation? And indeed, we have been condemned justly, for the sentence we received corresponds to our crimes, but this man has done nothing criminal.” Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” (Jesus) replied to him, “Amen, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.” Luke 23: 39-43

Sharp: Mercy, salvation and redemption will not be measured by the method of our earthly death, but by our state of grace in the context of the eternal.
“According to the Humanitarian theory, to punish a man because he deserves it, and as much as he deserves, is mere revenge, and, therefore, barbarous and immoral. It is maintained that the only legitimate motives for punishing are the desire to deter others by example or to mend the criminal. “

“I believe that the “Humanity” which it claims is a dangerous illusion and disguises the possibility of cruelty and injustice without end. I urge a return to the traditional or Retributive theory not solely, not even primarily, in the interests of society, but in the interests of the criminal.”

“The reason is this. The Humanitarian theory removes from Punishment the concept of Desert. But the concept of Desert is the only connecting link between punishment and justice. It is only as deserved or undeserved that a sentence can be just or unjust.”

“My contention is that this (Humanitarian) doctrine, merciful though it appears, really means that each one of us, from the moment he breaks the law, is deprived of the rights of a human being.”

“Thus when we cease to consider what the criminal deserves and consider only what will cure him or deter others, we have tacitly removed him from the sphere of justice altogether….”

” . . . in the process of giving him what he deserved you set an example to others. But take away desert and the whole morality of the punishment disappears. Why, in Heaven’s name, am I to be sacrificed to the good of society in this way?—unless, of course, I deserve it. “

“The punishment of an innocent, that is , an undeserving, man is wicked only if we grant the traditional view that righteous punishment means deserved punishment.”

“But to be punished, however severely, because we have deserved it, because we ‘ought to have known better’, is to be treated as a human person made in God’s image.”

“This is why I think it essential to oppose the Humanitarian theory of punishment, root and branch, wherever we encounter it. It carries on its front a semblance of mercy which is wholly false. “

” . . . the Humanitarian theory wants simply to abolish Justice and substitute Mercy for it. Mercy, detached from Justice, grows unmerciful. “

Sharp: Why do parents punish their children for transgressions? I think it easy to understand sanction of a child, by a parent, is a reflection in love.

They want the child to understand the level of transgression, which is reflected in the degree of sanction (retribution),  that the expected and hoped for result of that sanction is teaching, to encourage sorrow and apology that will be reflected in improved behavior,  that such rehabilitation will result in a better person that will improve the total moral good (rehabilitation and redemption).

Few are so naive as to believe that any or all of these can or will take place in many or most circumstances with criminals within a criminal justice system. It  does, however, recognizes that sanction can be restorative and rehabilitative.

Sharp: Never forget mercy for the innocent: “The Death Penalty: More Protection for Innocents”

[Photo via Inside Catholic]

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