His Eminence Cardinal McCarrick, our Archbishop, has asked his priests to preach today on the “Catholic Campaign to end the Death Penalty.” This Campaign of the US Bishops marks the 25^th anniversary of their first comprehensive statement on the topic issued in 1980.

            I want to approach this question by asking and trying to answer three questions.

What is the Church’s teaching today on the death penalty? Is that teaching as binding upon Catholics as the teaching against abortion, murder, suicide and euthanasia? How does the Church respond to the arguments in favor of the death penalty?

First, what is the Church’s teaching today on the death penalty?  Let me read for you paragraph 2267 of the Catechism:

“Assuming that the guilty party's identity and responsibility have been fully determined, the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.

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 are more in conformity to the dignity of the human person.

Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an offense incapable of doing harm - without definitely 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.’”

In other words, while, as the then Cardinal Ratzinger said, the Catechism invokes “principles which do not exclude absolutely capital punishment”, it “gives very severe ‘criteria’ for its moral use.” Ratzinger then said, “It seems to me it would be very difficult to meet the conditions today.”

This doctrine of the Catechism satisfies neither those who would want the Church to condemn outright the principle of the death penalty nor those who would want her unconditionally to support it.

One advantage of this is that the Church’s teaching, if faithfully represented, cannot be manipulated by political agendas. The Church is speaking for God, not for Caesar.

Is that teaching as binding upon Catholics as the teaching against abortion, murder, suicide and euthanasia?

These last crimes are taught by the Church always to be grave moral disorders, therefore, they are absolutely unjustifiable in any circumstance.

Pope John Paul II, in his encyclical on the “Gospel of Life” goes so far as to invoke the supreme authority given to him by Christ to condemn these acts.

Condemnation of the acts, of course, is not necessarily condemnation of those who perform them. Indeed, the very purpose of condemning the acts is so as to call those who perform them to salvation.

Therefore, a Catholic is obliged and bound in conscience to accept that teaching.

When, however, it comes to the death penalty, the Pope does not invoke the same level of teaching authority. Indeed, albeit for extremely rare circumstances, the Church still recognizes that the State might be justified in a moral use of the death penalty.

So, if the Pope teaches that the death penalty can be morally justified on the very rare occasion (and that presumes that the right person has been apprehended and their responsibility has been fully determined), he cannot at the same time bind the Catholic’s conscience to reject the death penalty on principle as a grave moral disorder.

However, the Pope makes it very clear that today, in view of the means at society’s disposal, even the moral use of that principle ought to be abandoned.

Perhaps it can be put this way: because I have a gun, and on principle it is okay to have a gun, it is far better that I never use it to kill, unless in some extreme circumstance I am duty bound to use it to defend myself or my family.

Therefore, while the Pope does not oblige the Catholic conscience to reject the principle of the death penalty as a grave moral disorder in the same way it should reject abortion, etc., he does oblige that conscience to accept that that principle should never need to be used - and to act to that end (prayer, learn Catholic social teaching, teach it to others, advocate its basic reasonable principles to elected officials – these are the actions suggested by the Bishops’ campaign).

How does the Church respond to the arguments in favor of the death penalty? I will paraphrase what the US Bishops said in their 1980 statement.

The three classical arguments in favor of it are: reform, deterrence and retribution.

 Reform or rehabilitation would imply that, in the face of certain death, the criminal would turn away from his sin. But God does not need such a threat to change hearts, and how can the criminal develop a new way of life and contribute to society if he is to be killed?

As for deterrence, while it certainly prevents the condemned from further crime, it is far from clear that it prevents others. Many crimes are committed with a cold calculation which is unlikely to be influenced by a remote threat of death.

The comparatively small number of executed criminals in relation to the thousands of murders committed every year suggests that the death penalty is not at all an effective deterrent.

Certainly, society must be protected and self-defense is a duty as well as a right, but, in modern times, it is very doubtful that the death penalty, often imposed only years after a crime has been committed, is an effective means of the defense of self, family or society.

 Retribution is the restoration of the order of justice violated by the criminal’s action. This does indeed justify punishment, but not the death penalty. Punishment must have moral goals in mind and not revenge.

Punishment’s aim, in keeping with the criminal’s human dignity, should be to transform the criminal into a just citizen, not merely crush his moral and physical existence.

The satisfaction of vindictive desires, while surely understandable, is nevertheless inhumane and unchristian.

As St. Thomas Aquinas put it: "In this life, penalties are not sought for their own sake, because this is not the era of retribution; rather, they are meant to be corrective by being conducive either to the reform of the sinner or the good of society, which becomes more peaceful through the punishment of sinners" (Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, 11-11, 68, 1; tr. Marcus Lefebure, O.P. (London, Blackfriars, 1975)).

In conclusion, a genuine Catholic attitude towards the death penalty is not the enemy of society but seeks to render it more humane. The human dignity of the criminal must never be violated or forgotten.

Where possible, and it may not always be possible, the criminal’s punishment should seek to reform him and reintegrate him into society as a full citizen who will contribute to the common good of all.

This approach is surely that of Jesus who came, not to condemn, but to save and to admonish the sinner: “Go, and sin no more.”

Msgr. Peter Magee

Sunday, October 23^rd, 2005

Annunciation Parish, DC: 10.00 am