Can a Catholic support the death penalty in good-faith?

[ImJustPro]

Alright, so I’m sure these threads have been brought up before and I’m not just starting another one to be provocative. I’m not a Catholic but I’m heavily leaning towards converting after studying the Catechism and Catholic apologetics. That being said, I’m wondering what the Catholic position on the death penalty is. I’ve looked through the Catechism and I’m still confused what the answer is.

I sincerely believe the death penalty saves lives considering the bulk of empirical evidence that says it does. Here is just a small sample of peer-reviewed studies courtesy of Catholic philosopher Edward Feser.

Of course there’s also studies that show that there’s no deterrence effect but those seem to have several issues. Economist John R. Lott responded to them and said:

“Most disappointingly, the NRC report does not discuss the serious problems with most of the studies that find no clear effect. The few studies that fail to find any deterrence from the death penalty have done some odd things. For instance, they measure the execution rate in strange ways. Take an approach first used by Lawrence Katz, Steven Levitt, and Ellen Shustorovish and later by John Donohue and Justin Wolfers. They do not look at the percent of murders that result in execution, but instead at the number of executions per prisoner.”

As for the claim that some innocent people are wrongfully executed, the claim does not hold up that well. A study frequently brought up to back this up is from professor Sam Gross. His study, economist John Lott points out, has several issues:

“The final issue is whether the innocent are accidentally convicted. There is no DNA evidence proving that the wrong person has ever been executed. The rate that innocent people are even convicted of murder, let alone sentenced to death, is just a tiny fraction of one percent. Cohen’s hyperbole in defending law professor Sam Gross’s claim that 4 percent of death-row inmates are wrongly convicted confuses convictions that are overturned with convictions that were mistakes on the merits. The paper effortlessly slides from using terms like “false convictions” to “exoneration” (e.g., top left column of page 2), but while the rate of overturned cases for any reason is indeed higher in death-penalty cases simply because so much effort is put into appeals, neither of these terms implies the defendant was innocent.”

I bring this paper up because it has been brought up before on older threads and I’d thought I’d bring it up. I would really love an answer so I can continue to reflect on the death penalty.

 

[adamhovey1988]

I sincerely believe the death penalty saves lives considering the bulk of empirical evidence that says it does. Here is just a small sample of peer-reviewed studies courtesy of Catholic philosopher Edward Feser.

Some studies say women don’t regret abortion, does that make abortion alright? My problem with the death penalty is not so much that it is immoral (I believe it can be used licitly) it is that it is unnecessary. With Capital punishment, there is also the chance that the person executed may have been innocent, and to even risk that, to me, is unacceptable.

 

[Mountie]

The near-unanimous consensus in criminal justice scholarship is that the death penalty does not serve as a significant deterrent. Rather, studies show that potential criminals care more about being caught than the actual punishment received. The death penalty doesn’t reduce crime. I don’t think that you argued this claim, but it is worth mentioning. The notion that it makes us safer is also mistaken. What’s the difference between life in prison or the death penalty? Are we safer by killing violent criminals? I guess someone could argue that an inmate could escape prison, but that is rare, especially for maximum security facilities. I don’t think that the death penalty makes us significantly safer in this regard.

The death penalty also raises the question of can people change? St. Paul changed. St. Moses the Black changed. Many great saints lived lives of grave sin. As Christians, I would hope that the answer is yes. There are some hardened hearts out there. That is true. But that does not negate their personhood. And while you claim that innocent people are rarely convicted, I think just one person being wrongly convicted shows a fatal flaw in the institution. Jesus died for that innocently convicted life.

Is the Catholic Church opposed to the death penalty? In the past, the Church endorsed the death penalty. Even now, its theoretical usage is sometimes considered permissible. But the Church has moved to a more condemning tone in recent years, one that I strongly sympathize with. Whether it is inherently immoral or not, I’m not going to debate right now. But I am saying that a rational spectator ought to see that the death penalty is not effective by any real measure of justice.

Also aware that my answer does not directly respond your question, I will admit that I likely provided an unsatisfying response. To add, I don’t think anyone can support the death penalty in good reason, at least in contemporary terms, leaving a discussion of faith aside. From my own personal research, I would answer your question in the negative, but I don’t feel comfortable or certain that I am speaking in an objective manner.

 

[ImJustPro]

Typically when surveys are done among crimoologists on whether the death penalty reduces crime or not they aren’t focused on criminologists who have actually published studies on the deterrent effects of the death penalty. I really have yet to see someone do a survey specifically on those criminologists.

As far the question if people can change: I think the penalty should be done if the person doesn’t show remorse and continues not to for a long period of time. Timothy McVeigh is a person that comes to mind.

Innocent people are rarely ever executed here in the United States. Lott (the person who I cited) estimates the probability to be a fraction of one percent. It’s a tragedy, sure, but I would say that’s the same probability of being struck by lightning multiple times in a lifetime.

And no worries about not giving a concrete answer. All (name removed by moderator)ut is welcome!

 

[Ender]

I’m wondering what the Catholic position on the death penalty is. I’ve looked through the Catechism and I’m still confused what the answer is.

You’re not alone. Great numbers of Catholics are confused on this issue as well, and the latest change to the catechism - containing an “eloquent ambiguity” (American bishops) - has not clarified things.

I sincerely believe the death penalty saves lives considering the bulk of empirical evidence that says it does.

This is an opinion on which the church has no position. It is not a moral question. More significantly, the church never justified its use depending on whether this was or was not the case. It has always been seen as a matter of justice, that it was the punishment the criminal deserved. After all, if it wasn’t deserved, how could it possibly be legitimate?

 

[Mrchatsworth]

I support the death penalty in belief. However, because of the recent statements from the Church in this matter I would not be able to serve in a jury in a death penalty case. Actually, any Catholic should not be selected for a jury.

 

[Canvas]

I do not support it for several reasons:

1. I feel the only time it is needed to kill another human being is in self defense, or defense of others, from a real and imminent threat and there is no other measures available.
2. Even the most sadistic criminals have an inherent dignity as human beings.
3. To demonstrate to the world that every life matters, no exceptions and lead by example.
4. Places that have the death penalty do not have less violent crime and murder. The US has higher murder rates than much of the 1st world that has abolished capital punishment (several times higher than Canada, the UK, Western Europe). In the US: A study in 2007 found that states with the death penalty had a 42% higher murder rate than non-death penalty states.
5. The amount of evidence gathered in the modern era (especially by DNA testing) that shows that many people who had been convicted were possibly or probably not guilty of crimes they were incarcerated for. A person who has been executed cannot be re-tried or released from prison if new evidence raises doubts about their guilt.

 

[mdgspencer]

A Catholic could in good faith support the death penalty.
The Church has said conflicting things about this recently. An example is the “Catechism of the Catholic Church.” Originally, the Catechism condemned the death penalty. Then Pope John Paul II changed what it said to say that the death penalty is permissible in particularly serious cases. In the last year this was changed again, which shows that Catholic teaching in this matter is not well established.
In view of this, a Catholic can decide for himself whether the death penalty can be carried out. He can support it in good faith, or condemn it in good faith.

 

[FiveLinden]

The US kills more criminals per head of population than any other English-speaking or western nation. It has more murders per head of population. There seems no evidence at all of deterrence. When the death penalty was in place for petty theft, petty theft continued. Other forms of deterrence based on fear are not very good either. It is not so much a question of morality as mathematics. It doesn’t work. If your motive is revenge, of course, it is excellent in every way except for the problem that facing certain death an offender has no reason not to kill more than one person.

 

[OneSheep]

Catholic teaching begins with the truth that punishment is to be for the benefit of the sinner, to remediate the problem within the sinner himself, it has “medicinal” purpose. Since the death penalty does not do this, one has to go to the purpose of the death penalty itself.

You might take a look at this paper by the USCCB. http://www.usccb.org/issues-and-act...unishment/statement-on-capital-punishment.cfm It is 40 years old, and as you probably know our Church leadership has since determined that there are no circumstances where the death penalty is justifiable. Note: shooting to death a person who has killed someone as has not been apprehended is not the death penalty. All discussion of the death penalty has to do with a person who is under control by authorities.

Sure, there are sources that will defend a position different than the bishops, but as a Catholic I trust that our bishops are closer to the Truth in terms of morals and ethics. Now you may have a different opinion about that also, but as Catholics we focus on what the Truth is, even though we might fail in practice, and that goes the same for Church leadership.

I have no problem at all sharing Eucharist with a person who is pro-death penalty. Eucharist is certainly a primary focus for us, we may differ in opinions but we are one body. We can love, forgive, accept one another’s experiences and POV. A person who leaves the Church just because of an opinion, well, to begin with, they don’t really understand the meaning of the sacrament of confirmation.

The most important discussion points, I think, are first the position of the person who wants someone to be condemned to death. Has this person forgiven the evil-doer, or do they instead hold something against them? The Gospel has something to say about that.
Secondly, one has to look at the purpose of justice itself. Justice does not exist for the sake of justice, it is a value for the purpose of mercy. The purpose of all justice is mercy.

 

[do_justly_love_mercy]

The position of the Catholic Church on this issue is actually pretty straightforward. The pope is elected by the cardinals, inspired by the Holy Spirit, to guide the Church. Among other titles, we call the pope Servant of the Servants of God, Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church, Successor of the Prince of the Apostles, and Vicar of Jesus Christ. Therefore, I trust the plain interpretation of what the pope says, rather than trying to find elaborate ways of arguing that he intended something other than what he actually said.

I would not take Edward Feser particularly seriously. He has his own agenda. His work has been reviewed unfavorably (the expression “hatchet job” comes to mind) by much abler scholars.

There are people who will tell you that the Church’s position is unclear. It is only as unclear as you want it to be. Pope Francis’s views on the matter can easily be found on Google. Furthermore, Pope Francis is only bringing to its logical conclusion the developments seen under his predecessors, especially Pope St. John Paul II, whose opposition to the death penalty could hardly have been more clear.

Here you go. This magisterial review sets out the issues incalculably better than I could ever hope to:

Christians & the Death Penalty | Commonweal Magazine

The most appalling aspect of this book is finally not its shoddy reasoning or theological ignorance, but its sheer moral coarseness. For example, Feser and Bessette twice adduce the career of Giovanni Battista Bugatti—the official executioner of the Papal States who from 1796 to 1865 executed 516 convicted criminals, by decapitating them with an axe or a guillotine, or slitting their throats, or crushing their heads with a mallet, or having them drawn and quartered—as some sort of proof of the Catholic Church’s commitment to the essential justice of the death penalty. On neither occasion do they express the slightest alarm at, or disapproval of, either the number or the savagery of these killings. This is typical of the entire tone of the book: every page exudes an atmosphere of almost numbing callousness. There are times when a faint touch of false tenderness on the authors’ part would have been, at least, decorous.

Seriously, it’s like watching a killer whale devouring a blobfish.

 

[ImQuiet]

The way I’ve heard the death-penalty described is that it’s to be only used in serious circumstances, such as when containment options for a particularly dangerous individual (like, Albert Fish or Pablo Escobar level dangerous) is unable to adequately be held in jail.
So for the U.S., the death penalty isn’t really justifiable at all. For all the faults our prison system has, it does a pretty good job of keeping its inmates in.
Granted, this question didn’t come up much on my journey to Catholicism, so I could be wayyyy off lol.

 

[Ender]

I feel the only time it is needed to kill another human being is in self defense, or defense of others, from a real and imminent threat and there is no other measures available.

The consistent teaching of the church from the beginning until at least 1992 was that taking a human life was legitimate in three cases: just war, self-defense, and punishment for serious crimes.

The Church has said conflicting things about this recently. An example is the “Catechism of the Catholic Church.” Originally, the Catechism condemned the death penalty.

There were a number of catechisms prior to the latest version, and in none of them was capital punishment condemned. Quite the contrary: they all recognized its legitimacy. It was only in 1992 with the first edition of the new catechism did we begin to see an alteration in the position that had been expressed unchanged back to the early Fathers.

Then Pope John Paul II changed what it said to say that the death penalty is permissible in particularly serious cases.

The change JPII made was to add a presumptive judgment against the use of capital punishment. It was a practical objection, not a moral one.

In the last year this was changed again, which shows that Catholic teaching in this matter is not well established.

After being unchanged for almost 2000 years, changes were introduced in 1992, 1995/1997, and 2018, and none of them have clarified the issue.

Catholic teaching begins with the truth that punishment is to be for the benefit of the sinner…

Church teaching is this: “The primary scope of the penalty is to redress the disorder caused by the offense.” (CCC 2266) That is, retribution is punishment’s primary end.

Within the Catholic tradition, punishment has several purposes: redressing the disorder caused by the offense, i.e., just retribution… (USCCB 2005)

… to remediate the problem within the sinner himself, it has “medicinal” purpose.

Rehabilitation is a valid objective, but it a secondary one.

Since the death penalty does not do this…

The catechism directly contradicts this. After saying (2266) “Moreover, punishment, in addition to preserving public order and the safety of persons, has a medicinal scope: as far as possible it should contribute to the correction of the offender” it adds a footnote as an example of a punishment that satisfied that objective. It points to the execution of St. Dismus (Lk 23:40-43).

 

[StudentMI]

The Church sees as a sign of hope “a growing public opposition to the death penalty , even when such a penalty is seen as a kind of ‘legitimate defence’ on the part of society. Modern society in fact has the means of effectively suppressing crime by rendering criminals harmless without definitively denying them the chance to reform”.[833] Whereas, presuming the full ascertainment of the identity and responsibility of the guilty party, the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude the death penalty “when this is the only practicable way to defend the lives of human beings effectively against the aggressor”.[834] Bloodless methods of deterrence and punishment are preferred as “they better correspond to the concrete conditions of the common good and are more in conformity to the dignity of the human person”.[835] The growing number of countries adopting provisions to abolish the death penalty or suspend its application is also proof of the fact that cases in which it is absolutely necessary to execute the offender “are very rare, if not practically non-existent”.[836] The growing aversion of public opinion towards the death penalty and the various provisions aimed at abolishing it or suspending its application constitute visible manifestations of a heightened moral awareness.

http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/p...pendio-dott-soc_en.html#Inflicting punishment

 

[Ender]

I would not take Edward Feser particularly seriously. He has his own agenda. His work has been reviewed unfavorably (the expression “hatchet job” comes to mind) by much abler scholars.

The arguments Feser and Bissette presented have not in any sense been refuted. The responses to their work are much like this one: vague objections and personal attacks.

The way I’ve heard the death-penalty described is that it’s to be only used in serious circumstances, such as when containment options for a particularly dangerous individual (like, Albert Fish or Pablo Escobar level dangerous) is unable to adequately be held in jail.

This is the understanding people took away from the 1997 change. That interpretation was questionable then, but in any event was repudiated by the 2018 change which states "Consequently, the Church teaches, in the light of the Gospel, that “the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person”. If it is “inadmissible” then JPII was wrong to have admitted any exception, and his correction has now been corrected.

I for one am deeply uncomfortable that a doctrine ascribed to by virtually all of the Fathers, and every Doctor, pope and council for 2000 years could be so poorly understood as to require three changes in under a quarter of a century.

 

[StudentMI]

I think St John Paul II was correct in his understanding and development of the teaching regarding the death penalty. The new teaching however is so out of left field (no pun intended re political leanings) that it can’t really be reconciled with past teaching.

And Edward Feser is great.

 

[BartholomewB]

When Rome was merged into the newly united Kingdom of Italy in 1870, the Papal State had been a sovereign political entity for over a thousand years, with the exception of the six years of the Napoleonic period. As in the rest of Europe, so also in the Papal State was the crime of murder, among others, punishable by death. Executions, whether by beheading or by hanging, were a routine public spectacle. Charles Dickens describes, in Pictures from Italy, a public guillotining that he witnessed in Rome in 1845, when he visited the city during the pontificate of Gregory XVI.

When St John Paul the Great issued his encyclical Evangelium Vitae in 1995, did he see fit to criticize his two hundred predecessors for their failure to abolish capital punishment in their own monarchical state? No, of course he didn’t. On the contrary, he argues that, at the time when he was writing the encyclical in the closing years of the twentieth century, there was no longer a need for capital punishment as there had been in the past, and that it ought to be discontinued.

The question we need to ask now, 25 years after Evangelium Vitae, is this: Do the conditions that St John Paul observed in the 1990s, and from which he drew the conclusion that the time had come to discontinue the death penalty, still prevail in our own day? Arguably, they do not. There has been a significant change in the kind of violent crime that society needs to protect itself against. The change came, of course, on September 11, 2001. Muslim terrorism on a worldwide scale is a new reality that St John Paul II could not possibly have foreseen when he issued Evangelium Vitae.

St John Paul was writing in a period of unprecedented peace, less than four years after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War. Sadly, those years of peace are now behind us. The Third World War has already begun, Pope Francis told us a few year ago (link below). Unlike the two earlier world wars, in this one there are no trenches and no clearly marked front lines. It’s a war being fought in pockets. Whenever a terrorist is captured and brought to trial, the judge and jury need to carefully weigh the deterrent value of life imprisonment, on the one hand, and the death penalty, on the other, and to opt for whichever one of the two seems more likely to save innocent lives in the future by deterring other prospective Muslim terrorists from committing mass murder. It would a mistake for the judge and jury, or for any of us, to apply the conclusions of Evangelium Vitae unthinkingly to our own day, just as it would be a mistake to read into those conclusions a condemnation of Gregory XVI for authorizing the execution by guillotine that Dickens witnessed in a public square in the heart of Rome. Times change, often for the better, but sometimes also for the worse.

thetablet.co.uk/world-news/5/3207/we-are-in-the-midst-of-a-third-world-war-says-pope

 

[Ender]

Do the conditions that St John Paul observed in the 1990s, and from which he drew the conclusion that the time had come to discontinue the death penalty, still prevail in our own day?

I agree that the restrictions JPII expressed were directed at the conditions existing at the time he wrote. What is important to note is that conditions are temporary, and judgments expressed about those conditions are just that: judgments, opinions. They are not doctrines. The church has always recognized that specific circumstances could make the application of capital punishment prudentially unwise, but she has never taught as doctrine that it was immoral.

 

[OneSheep]

Church teaching is this: “ The primary scope of the penalty is to redress the disorder caused by the offense .” (CCC 2266) That is, retribution is punishment’s primary end.

Within the Catholic tradition, punishment has several purposes: redressing the disorder caused by the offense, i.e., just retribution… (USCCB 2005)

Yes, and with these in mind, the Church has deemed the DP no longer applies in today’s world. Since Catholics believe that the Spirit guides the Church, we give them the first ear, not the critics.

You have left many questions unanswered in our past discussions. Are you willing to address them again?

Rehabilitation is a valid objective, but it a secondary one.

You haven’t proven this.

The catechism directly contradicts this. After saying (2266) “ Moreover, punishment, in addition to preserving public order and the safety of persons, has a medicinal scope: as far as possible it should contribute to the correction of the offender ” it adds a footnote as an example of a punishment that satisfied that objective. It points to the execution of St. Dismus (Lk 23:40-43)

This is only saying that there is a place for violent correction. However, by your logic torturing someone to death as punishment is also rationalized as “correction”. The CCC is obviously using the words of St. Dismus as a conceptual truth, not advocating for death by crucifixion, nor the death penalty itself.

The world has become a more forgiving place, Ender. It has become a more humane place. The Kingdom still comes… slowly.

 

[Ender]

You have left many questions unanswered in our past discussions. Are you willing to address them again?

Sure, and while I know I asked this before I can’t remember your answer so I’ll ask it again: do you believe capital punishment is or is not intrinsically evil?

Ender:

Rehabilitation is a valid objective, but it a secondary one.

You haven’t proven this.

There can be only one primary objective, and according to CCC 2266 that is retribution, therefore rehabilitation must be secondary.

This [the execution of St. Dismus] is only saying that there is a place for violent correction.

This is the example the catechism gives of a punishment that works to the rehabilitation of the offender, which refutes your claim that capital punishment cannot do that.

However, by your logic torturing someone to death as punishment is also rationalized as “correction”.

“My” logic is nothing more than what the church teaches: to be just a punishment must be commensurate with the severity of the crime. The church has always taught that capital punishment is commensurate with the crime of murder.