July 9, 2006

Lead Story

Death and Doctrine
Supreme Court decision reignites
Catholic death penalty debate

by PATRICK NOVECOSKY
Register Correspondent

WASHINGTON — A recent death penalty case should relieve any fears that a Catholic majority on the Supreme Court consults the Vatican in interpreting the Constitution.

A 5-4 ruling June 26 affirmed a Kansas death penalty law and the high court’s long-held position that states should determine how juries weigh factors presented by the prosecution and defense in capital cases.

The five Catholic justices on the court — Chief Jus­tice John Roberts and Associate Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Anthony Kennedy and Samuel Alito — voted to give states greater latitude in applying the death penalty.

At issue was a 1994 Kansas law that says that if the evidence for and against imposing a sentence of death is equal, juries must choose death instead of life in prison. The justices overturned a Kansas Supreme Court ruling that declared the law unconstitutional for violating pro­tections against cruel and unusual punishment.

The ruling renewed the capital punishment debate in Catholic circles and elsewhere.

Despite efforts by the U.S. Con­ference of Catholic Bishops and Pope John Paul II to end capital punishment, the justices’ decision still fits within the framework of Catholic teaching, according to Samuel Gregg, director of the Cen­ter for Academic Research at the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion in Liberty in Grand Rap­ids, Mich.

“Church teaching on the death penalty has developed — particularly during the pontificate of John Paul II,” he said.

In his final visit to the United States in 1999, John Paul said, “Mod­em society has the means of protect­ing itself, without definitively deny­ing criminals the chance to reform. I renew the appeal I made most recently at Christmas for a consensus to end the death penalty, which is both cruel and unnecessary.”

The bishops’ conference followed last year with a campaign to end the use of the death penalty. Cardinal The­odore McCarrick, former archbishop of Washington, led the charge.

“Our Church is very consistent and says: Let us be for life in every stage, even the life of those who are guilty,” he told the Register earlier this year. “Unfortunately, some people may have committed horrible sins of murder, but to say that they can’t be forgiven is to say there are unforgiv­able sins.

“There’s almost a need for ven­geance in everybody’s mind, but that vengeance can be taken care of by taking somebody out of circulation,” he said.

Kathy Curran, interim director of the U.S. bishops’ Office of Domestic Social Development, said the Kansas case is a reminder that capital punishment is officially sanctioned in 36 states.

“The bishops’ campaign tries to educate Catholics about the teaching of the Church on the death penalty,” she explained, “and then encourage them to take steps in their own states to undertake advocacy to change state law.

“John Paul’s reference to the death penalty being cruel and unnecessary is consistent with the Catechism and Evangelium Vitae (The Gospel of Life) where he says that the death penalty is inconsistent with respecting the fullness of the dignity of the human person,” she said.

Contrast with Abortion

However, Pope Benedict XVI and the Catechism of the Catholic Church point out that the Church doesn’t put capital punishment in the same cat­egory as abortion and euthanasia.

In 2004, then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, as prefect of the Congre­gation for the Doctrine of the Faith, wrote to Cardinal McCarrick saying that not all moral issues have the same weight.

“While the Church exhorts civil authorities to ... exercise discretion and mercy in imposing punishment on criminals, it may still be permissible to ... have recourse to capital punish­ment,” he wrote. “There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about ... applying the death penalty, but not however with regard to abortion and euthana­sia.”

Bernard Dobranski, dean and pres­ident of Ave Maria School of Law, concurs.

“That takes the so-called dilemma and unties it,” he said. “Some claim that the Church is moving toward the position of outlawing the death penalty.

“There are some Catholic thinkers who argue that we’re seeing a devel­opment of doctrine here,” Dobranski said. “That’s not a development of doctrine in my mind; it’s turning it upside down. I don’t know how you can recognize something as legitimate for all these years, for all these centu­ries and then somehow conclude that it’s unjustified.”

The distinction between killing an innocent child in abortion and taking the life of a murderer has not been made clear enough to many Catholics, Gregg said.

“There are many Catholics who say the death penalty is the same as abor­tion and euthanasia. Well, it’s not,” he explained. “I tend to be opposed to the death penalty, but I understand and accept that the Church’s position on this is that the applicability of this issue is very much a question of pru­dential judgment.

“It doesn’t carry the same absolute

status as abortion and euthanasia; John Paul II never said it did,” he said “It’s interesting in the sense that it may help some people understand that when we’re talking about the culture of life, we have to be very careful before we put too many things in the same basket.”

Not Revenge

The Church does not view capital punishment as a form of revenge. It sees punishment having a threefold purpose: defending society against the criminal, rehabilitation of the criminal (including spiritual rehabilitation) and retribution, the reparation of the disor­der caused by the transgression.

“Punishment has the pri­mary aim of redressing the disorder introduced by the offense,” the Catechism teaches (2266). “When it is willingly accepted by the guilty party, it assumes the value of expia­tion. Punishment, then, in addition to defending public order and protect­ing people’s safety, has a medicinal purpose: As far as possible, it must contribute to the correction of the guilty party.”

It goes on to say that if the con­vict’s guilt is certain, “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. ... The cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity are very rare, if not practically non-existent” (No. 2267).

Curran points out that the bishops’ campaign to end the use of the death penalty is thoroughly consistent with the Catechism.

“Given that there are means to protect society from [unjust aggres­sors] and given the strong call in our teaching to respect the dignity of every human person, even those who have committed very bad acts, the use of the death penalty is really not necessary.”

Patrick Novecosky is based in Naples, Florida.

© 2006 Circle Media