Everyone seems to know of the Catholic Church’s adamant stand against capital punishment. We have read in many press reports that the Pope’s encyclical Evangelium vitae had condemned capital puishment along with abortion and euthanasia. All are aware of the appeal of the “seamless garment of life” which was woven and distributed principally by the Archbishop of Chicago, Joseph Cardinal Bernardin. It condemns with one broad stroke abortion, euthanasia, exploitation of the poor, the arms race, and capital punishment.
It would appear from her past and present teaching that the Catholic Church has condemned capital punishment. In fact, it would seem that the practice is entirely incompatible with the teachings of the Founder of the Church Himself. Jesus said, “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, do not resist one who is evil. But if any one strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. 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.”
Thus it appears that the Church is entirely opposed to capital punishment. Consequently some Catholics were perplexed, dismayed, and even angered to read in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which was promulgated by the highest authority, that the Church holds that the state has the right to impose the ultimate punishment.
The catechism takes up the question of the death penalty under the section entitled “Legitimate Defense.” In paragraph 2266, we read:
Preserving the common good of society requires rendering the aggressor unable to inflict harm. For this reason the traditional teaching of the Church has acknowledged as well-founded the right and duty of legitimate public authority to punish malefactors by means of penalties commensurate with the gravity of the crime, not excluding, in cases of extreme gravity, the death penalty.
While some Catholics were dismayed at this teaching, others were comforted to see restated what they had always understood the Church’s teaching to be. However, confusion was reintroduced into the picture from an unlikely source. At a Vatican press conference on the occasion of the promulgation of the Evangelium vitae, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and indefatigable champion of orthodoxy, said that the encyclical’s teaching on capital punishment constituted a true development of doctrine and that the Catechism would have to be changed to reflect it!
In this time of confusion, then, it is important to look at what has been unchanging in Catholic teaching and practice with regard to the death penalty. It can be simply stated: the Church has always taught that the state has the right to impose capital punishment, but has increasingly taught that it ought not make use of that right.
In 1980 the National Conference of Catholic Bishops issued their Statement on Capital Punishment. Many who have not carefully read the document think that it has condemned the death penalty in principle. This, however, is not the case. The bishops rather asked that the punishment not be employed.
The bishops articulate quite clearly their belief that the state has the right to impose the death penalty. They acknowledge “the fact that Catholic teaching has accepted the principle that the state has the right to take the life of a person guilty of an extremely serious crime, and that the state may take appropriate measures to protect itself and its citizens from grave harm.” The bishops then go on to raise the question as to whether the use of capital punishment is justifiable under present circumstances. They conclude that it is not. However, they do not deny that the state has the right to administer the ultimate penalty.
In keeping with Catholic tradition, the pope in Evangelium vitae does not declare capital punishment intrinsically immoral. The College of Cardinals issued the encyclical in response to a specific request in 1991 for a document on issues that touch on the value of innocent human life such as abortion and euthanasia.
The pope solemnly presents three particular teachings in the encyclical applying full magisterial authority to their articulation. He first gives a general norm, which will be further specified. He writes, “By the authority which Christ conferred upon Peter and his successors, and in communion with the bishops of the Catholic Church, I confirm that the direct and voluntary killing of an innocent human being is always gravely immoral.” He then goes on to give two specifications to this more general norm; one condemning abortion and one condemning euthanasia. In the encyclical the pope addresses other threats to human life but presents only these three norms with the full teaching authority of his office.
The encyclical was not issued to address the specific topic of capital punishment, although that subject could hardly be avoided in an encyclical on life issues. The pope’s repugnance at the use of this punishment is quite clear but he never teaches that its use is intrinsically immoral.
The pope speaks of the permissibility of performing an act, which results in the indirect loss of the life of another when the act is one of legitimate defense. But he goes beyond the matter of individual self-defense and quotes the Catechism on those who have responsibility for others: “Legitimate defense can be not only a right but a grave duty for someone responsible for another’s life, the common good of the family or of the state.” The pope says that this “is the context in which to place the problem of the death penalty.”
The pope speaks of public authority having responsibility for the common good which legitimizes its use of coer cion to punish evildoers and to protect the innocent. “Public authority must redress the violation of personal and social rights by imposing on the offender an adequate punishment for the crime.” But he insists that the punishment of criminals “ought not to go to the extreme of executing the offender except in cases of absolute necessity: in other words, when it would not be possible otherwise to defend society.”
Here it can be seen that the death penalty and abortion and euthanasia fall into different categories. The pope did not write that we should not “go to the extreme” of killing the innocent unborn or the ill “except in cases of absolute necessity.” The prohibitions against abortion and euthanasia are rightly presented as absolute, exception-less norms. There is, however, no prohibition against capital punishment as such.
It must be noted that what the encyclical declares to be intrinsically immoral is the direct taking of innocent human life. The modifiers in such moral statements are not merely decorative but are critically important for the understanding of the norm. What is perhaps most important in this norm on killing is the adjective “innocent.” The encyclical frankly does not declare all killing to be immoral. Such a teaching would have radically departed from Catholic tradition, which has always allowed killing in the context of a just war and in capital punishment. The encyclical declares the direct killing of the innocent to be immoral.
“Innocent” is not a term of sentiment, such as, “Look at that sweet, innocent, little girl.” It refers to one who is free from juridical guilt, in other words, one who has not been found juridically guilty of a crime. The term can also be applied to those who have not been legally commissioned to use lethal force in war. Non-combatants are “innocent” and may not be subjected to direct attack when two nations are engaged in hostilities. It does not mean that all non-combatants are morally innocent. They may indeed be moral scoundrels. Their “innocence” means that they are immune to physical attack.
What the pope and the Catholic tradition have consistently condemned is the direct taking of innocent human life. Those not covered in the category of “innocent human life” are criminals and combatants. The other important modifier in the teaching is “direct” since one has always been permitted to perform a good and necessary action even though it could be foreseen that it would result indirectly in the loss of innocent life.
The Church has, for example, allowed the removal of a cancerous uterus from a pregnant woman in order to save the life of the mother. The Church does not permit the direct killing of the innocent unborn to save the mother’s life, because the unborn has done nothing deserving of death. But the Church will permit the removal of a diseased organ, the uterus, for example, even though it can be foreseen that there will be an indirect loss of the life of the child. Of course even those actions, which result indirectly in the loss of innocent human life should not be done without very grave cause.
However, the tradition has taught that the state has the right directly to take the life of one found guilty of a grave crime.
But how can we, as Christians, exact capital punishment when we are enjoined not to hate our enemy and to turn the other cheek? St. Thomas Aquinas points out that it is not enough simply to look at what Jesus says in one place. It is necessary to look at all his teachings. And not only in His teachings, but also the way in which He lived. For example, when Jesus was struck on the cheek before the High Priest, He did not turn the other cheek but rather rebuked the one who had struck Him. “If I have spoken wrongly, testify to the wrong; but if I have spoken rightly, why do you strike me?”
What Jesus teaches us in the passages quoted earlier pertains to the interior disposition, which we must have toward those who abuse or malign us. We should never hate them. We must always love them, even when we may have to claim our rights as Jesus did before the High Priest. We must always desire the good for our enemy, which is the true meaning of love.
Jesus’ admonitions do not mean that those in public office should never act against evildoers, for then justice would never be carried out, injustices never redressed, stolen property never returned. The social order would quickly disintegrate. I may choose to turn the other cheek, but those in civil authority cannot presume to turn my cheek—they must protect me.
The proper application of the teaching of Jesus can be understood by looking at the full teaching of Scripture. Again, certain passages would seem to contradict the right of the state to exact the death penalty: “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” In fact, St. Paul himself quotes this verse in his letter to the Romans. However, just three sentences later, Paul clarifies this passage and articulates the principal New Testament teaching which lays the foundation for the use of coercive force by civil government. Paul writes:
Let every person be subject to the higher authorities, for there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been established by God… For rulers are not a cause of fear to good conduct, but to evil. Do you wish to have no fear of authority? Then do what is good and you will receive approval from it, for it is a servant of God for your good. But if you do evil, be afraid, for authority does not bear the sword without purpose or in vain; the authority is the servant of God to inflict wrath on the evildoer.. . for the authorities are ministers of God.
Paul’s letter quite clearly states that vengeance does belong to the Lord. However, the ministers of God’s vengeance in the temporal order are those who are in positions of secular authority.
Ultimately there is no justice other than God’s justice. A law of the state which does not reflect the moral law, or which would violate the moral law, is no law. Civil authorities not only have a right but an obligation to pass just laws and to use coercion in the temporal order for the sake of the common good. Civil authorities may not make use of physical coercion unless there is a prior “moral coercion.” In other words, temporal authority may make use of its powers of coercion only in service to the moral good.
The pope recognizes this legitimate power of the state. That is why he is so incredulous when he sees the power of the state being withdrawn from the protection of the innocent unborn and used to protect the perpetrators of their murder. In Evangelium vitae the Pope declares that in the modern liberal democracies “crimes have assumed the nature of rights.” Nations have reverted “to a state of barbarism.” The betrayal of a divine trust by the modern state has exposed the innocent to the gravest threats and has left the wicked go unpunished.
Only public authority may rightly impose a penalty upon an evildoer. Only the state acting as God’s agent for justice may impose the ultimate penalty of death on a malefactor.
As St. Thomas points out, “Persons of rank having public authority alone, and not private individuals, can lawfully put evildoers to death.” St. Thomas sees the use of capital punishment as virtually an act of self-defense carried out for the preservation of the community by those who are responsible for it. St. Thomas writes, “as it is unlawful to take a man’s life, except for the public authority acting for the common good… it is not lawful for a man to intend killing a man in self-defense, except for such as have public authority, who, while intending to kill a man in self-defense, refer this to the public good.”
The medieval society of St. Thomas’ day may have been brutish requiring harsh measures by those in authority to rid the land of ruthless lawlessness. However, in Evangelium vitae the pope seems to argue that such a traditional justification for capital punishment no longer pertains since our wealth and resources provide us with other ways of defending ourselves from violent assault, which do not require the killing of malefactors. That may be true for the situation in the United States and the other developed countries, but Catholic moral teaching is universally applicable. The Holy Father does leave open the possibility that there may be situations when the defensive application of the death penalty would be justified.
It must be stated, however, that self-defense cannot be a sufficient reason for the state to kill a human being. The person must have been found guilty of a crime. The state cannot take the life of a deranged individual even if he does pose a threat to society. He must be incarcerated, hospitalized, somehow restrained from doing harm, but he cannot be killed.
Rulers have the moral authority to use force to exact justice. The imposition of a penalty on an evildoer serves to redress the moral imbalance, which has resulted from his action and, one hopes, to restore his moral health through reform. However, the direct purpose of the penalty must be retributive justice, since the state has no control over whether the malefactor will make good use of his punishment to reform himself.
It is very clear from Evangelium vitae that John Paul II has great repugnance at the thought of the use of the death penalty. Of the signs of hope which he sees in our sinister “culture of death,” he mentions “evidence of a growing public opposition to the death penalty. . . .” There is also no question at all that the bishops of the United States have overwhelmingly and repeatedly called for the elimination of the use of the death penalty. Although the decision about such matters rightly rests with legitimate public authority, it would be difficult for the faithful not to take the position of the pope and bishops with the utmost seriousness.
With innocent human life at such peril today, it seems that the pope sees it as his primary responsibility to try to reintroduce a sense of awe and reverence for man as the image of God in our midst. In attempting to limit the use of capital punishment, it seems that the pope is saying that juridical guilt is no longer a sufficient reason for the imposition of capital punishment. The continued existence of the malefactor must somehow constitute a threat to the community, so that the imposition of retributive justice is also an act of societal self-defense. This may be the “development” in doctrine to which Cardinal Ratzinger referred in the press conference.
In conclusion it should be said that Catholics who have opposed abortion but supported capital punishment are usually motivated in both positions with the same concern, the protection of innocent human life, since most capital crimes involve an assault on the good of innocent human life. In other words, they are not holding contradictory positions but are being consistent. The pope’s position on capital punishment seems to be a prudential one. There is such a threat to human life today and such misunderstanding about the proper role of the state that it is far better to avoid any occasions for the direct taking of human life. Even if the imposition of capital punishment were warranted, if it were done with a sense of vindictiveness or hatred toward the criminal or on the basis of mere utilitarian calculus rather than a sense of the dignity of human life, then what might otherwise be a just and moral act would be vitiated and those involved would themselves be guilty of immorality.