Posted on 07/31/2005 10:03:00 PM PDT by Mary Kochan
The late Pope John Paul II was famously opposed to the death penalty, claiming that the circumstances in which it is appropriate are “practically nonexistent.” Does that mean that on an issue like the death penalty, conscientious Catholics must ignore social science and simply agree with the pope or risk lapsing into dissent?
(Excerpt) Read more at catholicexchange.com ...
Something like that. Possible canidates include the beast from FL who buried his victim alive and the one that killed the whole family and kept the children .... until he was finished with one.
YES!
Recidevism rate =0
Q.E.D.
The difference it makes is punishment for the act.
As far as I know, Catholic Exchange doesn't need to be excerpted. Here's the rest:
Does Capital Punishment Save Lives? Catholics and Opposition to the Death Penalty
“Recent evidence suggests that capital punishment may have a significant deterrent effect, preventing as many as 18 or more murders per execution.”
A Life-for-Life Tradeoff
With that bold assertion begins a March 2005 study from the AEI-Brookings Joint Center for Regulatory Studies. The report’s authors, Cass Sunstein and Adrian Vermeule, performed a comprehensive review of state and federal data and found a striking consistency. From 1997-1999 a death sentence deterred 4.5 murders and an execution deterred three murders. The deterrent effect is also a function of the length of time on death row, with a murder deterred for every 2.75 years deducted from the period before execution.
What’s more, 91% of the states which suspended the death penalty faced an increase in homicides. But in 67% of states, the rate was decreased after reinstatement of capital punishment.
“Capital punishment,” state the authors, “presents a life-life tradeoff, and a serious commitment to the sanctity of human life may well compel, rather than forbid, that form of punishment.”
All of this is of great interest to Catholics. The late Pope John Paul II was famously opposed to the death penalty, claiming that the circumstances in which it is appropriate are “practically nonexistent.” Does that mean that on an issue like the death penalty, conscientious Catholics must ignore social science and simply agree with the pope or risk lapsing into dissent?
Legitimate Diversity of Opinion
It doesn’t. While all Catholics should give due deference to the Holy Father on matters of faith and morals, it is important to (1) examine precisely what he has said on a given subject and (2) determine the voice in which he is speaking.
Let’s address these subjects in reverse order. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith identifies Church teachings according to the following categories: (1) divinely revealed truths, e.g., Sacred Tradition, Scripture, ex-cathedra statements by popes, etc.; (2) non-fallible Church teaching, e.g., teachings of the ordinary Magisterium which merely repeat what has always been taught; and (3) teaching on faith and morals, e.g., presented as true or “sure” even though lacking a definitive pronouncement from the ordinary Magisterium.
John Paul II addressed life issues like abortion, capital punishment and euthanasia in his encyclical Evangelium Vitae. Into which category does Evangelium Vitae fall?
That depends. An explanation from Ave Maria Law School’s Dr. Michael Orsi is worth quoting at length:
[T]here may be different levels of teaching found in the same document. For example, there is no doubt about the non-fallible prohibitions against abortion [nn. 58-63] and euthanasia [nn. 64-67] found in Evangelium Vitae. In these paragraphs, reference to the constant Catholic teaching on these issues is well documented, and the strong words used by the pope leave no doubt as to the binding force of the prohibitions. His advice, however, in the same document that capital punishment "be used rarely if ever used" [n. 56] is a prudential teaching which deserves careful consideration. This is not binding since the long tradition of the Church on this issue allows the state the right to execute criminals for its protection and to exact retribution.
The notion that John Paul II was exercising his nonbinding prudential judgment concerning the death penalty is supported by Cardinal Avery Dulles, who wrote, “[i]n coming to this prudential conclusion, the Magisterium is not changing the doctrine of the Church.” Ditto for noted Catholic apologist Jimmy Akin: “To disagree with the pope on these issues is to disagree with his prudential judgment, not with Church doctrine.”
And none other than Pope Benedict XVI, writing as then-Cardinal Ratzinger, makes a crucial distinction between war and capital punishment on the one hand and abortion and euthanasia on the other:
Not all moral issues have the same moral weight as abortion and euthanasia. For example, if a Catholic were at odds with the Holy Father on the application of capital punishment or on the decision to wage war, he would not for that reason be considered unworthy to present himself to receive Holy Communion. While the Church exhorts civil authorities to seek peace, not war, and to exercise discretion and mercy in imposing punishment on criminals, it may still be permissible to take up arms to repel an aggressor or to have recourse to capital punishment.
So is it fair when progressive Catholics who are squeamish about the Church’s teaching on abortion and euthanasia call their pro-death penalty co-religionists “dissenters” and hypocrites?
Here is Pope Benedict again: “There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not however with regard to abortion and euthanasia.”
When John Paul II invoked a prudential, pastoral voice to address his reservations about the death penalty, his choice of voice was no accident. He recognized that, as a servant and not a master of doctrine, he was bound by the fact that “the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty.” There’s a practical side to these limitations, for when information from a group like AEI-Brookings becomes available it can influence that pastoral voice.
Scripture, Tradition and Experience
If John Paul had seen AEI-Brookings’s report, would he would have written Evangelium Vitae differently? Not necessarily. We know from Scripture and human experience that the death penalty is an effective deterrent. The book of Deuteronomy (17:13), depicts the societal “fear” produced by the death penalty for refusing to obey a priest, and chapter 21 describes how “afraid” the people of Israel will become witnessing the stoning of a “stubborn son.” Personal experience tells us that the threat of a jaywalking ticket encourages the use of crosswalks; why should the threat of the death penalty fail to modify behavior?
But before weighing the effectiveness of the death penalty as a deterrent, one must first establish its justice, i.e., that it is a punishment that fits the crime. As C.S. Lewis observed:
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; instead of a person, a subject of rights, we now have a mere object, a patient, a "case.” (emphasis mine)
Cardinal Dulles quotes Pius XII’s clarification of perennial Church teaching on the role of the state in meting out this justice:
Even when there is question of the execution of a condemned man, the state does not dispose of the individual’s right to life. In this case it is reserved to the public power to deprive the condemned person of the enjoyment of life in expiation of his crime when, by his crime, he has already dispossessed himself of his right to life. (emphasis mine)
The traditional Cathechism of St. Pius X, a popular work described by then-Cardinal Ratzinger as “still valid today,” also addresses this teaching by placing it squarely in the context of justice:
It is lawful to kill when fighting in a just war; when carrying out by order of the Supreme Authority a sentence of death in punishment of a crime; and, finally, in cases of necessary and lawful defense of one's own life against an unjust aggressor.
To reiterate: the reason for focusing briefly here on justice is to make the point that regardless of what beneficial effects (deterrence) might be ascertained through a study of death penalty statistics, that in itself can never be the reason for the death penalty. We must first establish that it is a just punishment, as Catholic doctrine has long held, before we even begin to talk about its value as a deterrent.
That said, a growing body of evidence certainly can influence the Magisterium's social teaching. This is precisely what happened in the run-up to Centesimus Annus, when the abysmal failures of socialism led John Paul II to reaffirm strongly the Church’s condemnation of socialism and to embrace, albeit with important reservations, a market-oriented economic system.
Likewise, conscientious Catholics can use information like that from AEI-Brookings to take an informed decision on the death penalty. If that decision is ultimately to support it, they need not fear having a point of view that is anything less than authentically Catholic.
Put them all in a supermax? You're talking about the ones with the soundproof rooms and the 24/7 surveilance cameras and the whole bit, right? There aren't very many of these.
Nice thought, but in some ways, out of sight is out of mind. I'm not advocating either way.
He did not say that all Capital Punishment was wrong.
In Third World Countries, the society may not be able to put someone behind bars for life. The criminal, in some countries, might bribe his way out, or easily be able to break out.
Mexico is an example -- which is just South of our border.
There was a very famous incident in the last 12 months that a police officer tried to kidnap a little girl. He was caught and set on fire by irrate people -- who were tired of the corruption of the government.
In the Sudan, the police and UN Security forces are engaged in the brutal rapes of women. The women live in fear since the Sudanese police will humilate them further if they report the crime.
Even in the United States, it is sometimes impossible to put some people behind bars (if O. J. Simpson is guilty, then he should be in jail for killing his wife). Sometimes being a celebrity or having millions of dollars to pay lawyers will get people off of murder charges.
People should not be executed as a punishment for their crime if they can be sent to prison successfully, but this can only apply to Western countries that do have reasonable justice systems, and that bribing officials is not possible in the Western Developed Nations.
I think it's absolutely true that more innocent people die when the guilty are spared; even if murderers are not released (and almost all of them are, regardless of their "life" setences), they often kill other people in prison, ranging from guards to other inmates. They are too dangerous to keep alive, IMHO.
But from a general point of view, the death penalty is society's just punishment for someone who has put himself so far outside the social contract that he has permanently revoked his own right to live within society. There is no life that is not lived within human society; he is expelled from society by being put to death.
Interestingly, the pressure to end the death penalty has increased as the belief in the immortality of the soul has faded, along with belief in judgment and Hell.
Once upon a time, it was the duty of the clergy and, in fact, of all Christians, to see to it that the person who was to be executed repented and resolved his situation before death. In other words, death was not the worst thing; damnation was.
But in the new improved version of the faith subscribed to by many people, there is no personal judgment, there is no sin, Hell is closed, and in fact even the immortality of the soul consists in a sort of fuzzy communal happy state sometime in the future. So there is no incentive to convert people on death row or get them to repent; there is no understanding of the immortal soul even of murderers, and the eternal consequences of our acts.
As a result, the death penalty, when not viewed sub species aeternitatis, seems to liberals to be an arbitrary act of the state or the "vengeance" of the families of the victims. Because they have no concept of the soul or sin or evil or eternity, to them the murderer seems simply to be someone trapped by circumstances, and they feel it is unfair of the state to punish someone for things beyond his control. This is why you will see liberals immediately rush forward to explain why murderers - even such as that unbelievably evil man who killed that family and kidnapped two of their children - were "shaped" by outside forces and were really victims themselves.
A little contorted, but that's the liberal mind in a nutshell, and that's what happens when you forget eternity.
And where we have the money to be able to afford the technology needed to build supermax sorts of facilities. They're not cheap by any stretch. The fed only has one and right now the vast majority of people there are terrorists. I'm not sure how many states have them, but I doubt there are that many.
I thought about that in the last few days.
The death penalty underscores the value that a culture places on life. Without it they signal that the everyday, law-abiding, innocent citizen can have his/her life taken, and it isn't any big deal that a little time (prison) and a lot of money (lawyers) can't numb.
Thank you. I am very familiar with the good cardinal's efforts in this matter. Several issues after his article ran, FT ran all the letters of the critics who thought his treatment quite inadequate. I was among those responants to Dulles.
Matthew Tsakanikas and I addressed these issues further, including responding directly to Cardinal Dulles in this article:
Satisfying Justice — The Other Lesson Geoghan Taught Us
https://www.catholicexchange.com/vm/index.asp?vm_id=2&art_id=20566
and here in response to viewer letters about the above:
http://www.catholicexchange.com/vm/index.asp?vm_id=62&art_id=20957
Another point, topher, is that I believe in some states for certain murder charges the jury only has the choice between the death penalty or life in prison with the possibility of parole. IIRC, this is what happened in South Carolina 10 yrs ago when Susan Smith was being sentenced. I guess the jury just couldn't stand to sentence this poor little woman to death, so now she will be eligible for parole in a few decades. I don't know if the law is the same in SC or other states nowadays - I hope it is not. Now if I were on a jury with such a choice (life w/parole or death) I would think that I'd be obligated to opt for death since the life/parole option would neither adequately restrain the person, nor would it be just considering the crime. I wonder if John Paul II was even aware that in the USA "life in prison" rarely means just that. For this reason I think that the DP should be applied more frequently. Even if a murderer spends 20+ years on death row, or ultimately has the death sentence overturned, at least he or she won't be coming up for parole.
I prefer to stick with what the Church teaches -the social justice liberalism is sickening to see here on FR...
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