The Death Penalty, Catholicism, And Super-Max

[Ender]

Killing, including the application of the death penalty, is not moral for punishment purposes.

This is incorrect. The Church has always taught, and does so today, that the execution of a criminal can be be a moral action. It is rejected by the Church now not on moral grounds but on prudential ones.

Capital punishment, for the purpose of retribution, is Old Testament justice, and was perfected by Jesus Christ in the New Testament.

Not according to Augustine, Aquinas, and a whole string of popes. The nature of punishment and justice have not changed; what the Church said was moral before is still moral now. How else do you explain how the Vatican itself allowed the death penalty until the mid 1960’s?

Ender

 

[Dan_Grelinger]

This is incorrect. The Church has always taught, and does so today, that the execution of a criminal can be be a moral action. It is rejected by the Church now not on moral grounds but on prudential ones. Not according to Augustine, Aquinas, and a whole string of popes. The nature of punishment and justice have not changed; what the Church said was moral before is still moral now. How else do you explain how the Vatican itself allowed the death penalty until the mid 1960’s?

Ender

I agree with you that the Church has always taught that capital punishment can be a moral action. Where we disagree is for what intent. Intent always comes into play when judging the morality of actions, and in the case of capital punishment, it is true as well.

From the official teaching of the Roman Catholic Church:

2267 The traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude, presupposing full ascertainment of the identity and responsibility of the offender, recourse to the death penalty, **when this is the only practicable way to defend the lives of human beings effectively against the aggressor. **"If, instead, bloodless means are sufficient to defend against the aggressor and to protect the safety of persons, public authority should limit itself to such means, because they better correspond to the concrete conditions of the common good and are more in conformity to the dignity of the human person.

 

[Ender]

I know what the Catechism says in 2267. My comments about that section are these: (1) it is a prudential teaching and even though we are to give it serious consideration we are therefore not required to accept it, and (2) it doesn’t address the issue of justice and the nature of punishment - which is why I don’t accept it.

If you look at 2266 you will see these points being made:

• Legitimate public authority has the right and **duty **to inflict punishment proportionate to the gravity of the offense.
• Punishment has the primary aim of redressing the disorder introduced by the offense.

Note that it is the duty of the state to impose a punishment proportionate to the crime and this is what redresses the disorder, which is punishment’s primary function. So why is the issue of capital punishment determined by it’s tertiary purpose (protecting the public) while its primary function is ignored?

Ulitmately this is a question of justice: the need to give to each man what is his due, for both rewards and punishment. This is how it was understood in the past and, because it is not addressed in 2267, I believe that section is deficient.

Ender

 

[vern_humphrey]

While I accept the teaching of the Church in the Catechism, I think we should make two points:

1. The protection of society extends beyond dealing with a specific criminal. Consider the case of Timothy McVeigh – given the damage one or two men can do, if they have no conscience, we have a duty to treat such men with the utmost severity – you don’t want blowing up public buildings to become a fad! The execution of Timothy McVeigh was definitely an act of collective self-defense, as well as justice.
2. The teaching is expressed in an “if-then” manner. If the conditions are as the bishops assume, then the death penalty should be very rare. But the bishops are not experts in criminology, penology and similar matters. They cannot say that the conditions they imagine actually exist.

 

[Dan_Grelinger]

If you look at 2266 you will see these points being made:

• Legitimate public authority has the right and **duty **to inflict punishment proportionate to the gravity of the offense.
• Punishment has the primary aim of redressing the disorder introduced by the offense.

Note that it is the duty of the state to impose a punishment proportionate to the crime and this is what redresses the disorder, which is punishment’s primary function. So why is the issue of capital punishment determined by it’s tertiary purpose (protecting the public) while its primary function is ignored?

Ulitmately this is a question of justice: the need to give to each man what is his due, for both rewards and punishment. This is how it was understood in the past and, because it is not addressed in 2267, I believe that section is deficient.

Ender

Thanks for the provocative discussion. I appreciate your responses.

Upon examination of 2266; The purpose of punishment must conform to the ends of the first sentence, ‘safeguarding the common good.’ All else you reference follows this, i.e. it is of the most importance. I disagree with you then, that protecting the public is tertiary. The protection of innocent human life is indeed ‘safeguarding the common good’, and is of primary importance with respect to the role of government in administering the death penalty.

The duty to inflict ‘punishment’ to ‘redress’ the ‘disorder’, is still a duty, but not the primary duty. Here, if capital punishment does not ‘redress the disorder’, then it may not be justified. I would propose that in most cases, the disorder created by the crime (a person no longer lives), is not redressed by the death of the murderer.

The true tertiary role of the government in protecting its citizens is adminstering punishment that has a medicinal effect on the punished. Capital punishment may provide this.

However, nowhere in 2266 is it suggested that punishment is for revenge, or more simply 'an eye for an eye.

Dan

 

[dudleysharp]

catholic-caveman.blogspot.com

But anyhow, my friend pointed out 2267 of the Catechism which states in part; “Today, in fact, given the means at the State’s disposal to effectively repress crime by rendering inoffensive the one who has committed it, without depriving him definitively of the possibility of redeeming himself, cases of absolute necessity for suppression of the offender ‘today … are very rare, if not practically non-existent.’”

This penological reasoning is very weak, particularly in the context that it contradicts biblical, theological and traditional church teachings, as well as completely avoiding justice.

Pope John Paul II made serious errors in fact and logic within his anti death penalty writings. In addition he overlooked the many biblical, theological and traditional Church teachings on the death penalty - such teachings overwhelm his inaccurate writings on the death penalty.

PJP II based his writings on defense of society, which is a penological consideration, not a religious one. By doing so he omitted justice. More importantly, he avoided the reality that the death penalty is a greater defense of society than lesser sentences and in by so doing, he has called for the sparing of guilty lives by the sacrifice of more innocents.

We all know that living murderers, in prison, after escape or after our failures to incarcerate them, are much more likely to harm and murder, again, than are executed murderers.

No knowledgeable party questions that the death penalty has the most extensive due process protections in US criminal law. Therefore, it is logically conclusive, that actual innocents are more likely to be sentenced to life imprisonment and more likely to die in prison serving under that sentence, that it is that an actual innocent will be executed.

Thirdly, 10 recent studies find for death penalty deterrence. Some believe that all studies with contrary findings negate those 10 studies. They don’t. Studies which don’t find for deterrence don’t say no one is deterred, but that they cannot measure those deterred, if they are.

Ask yourself: “What prospect of a negative outcome doesn’t deter some?” There isn’t one, although committed anti death penalty folk may say the death penalty is the only one. However, the premier anti death penalty scholar accepts it as a given that the death penalty is a deterrent, but does not believe it to be a greater deterrent than a life sentence. I find the evidence compelling that death is feared more than life - even in prison.

In choosing to end the death penalty, or in choosing not implement it, some have chosen to put more innocents at risk.

Furthermore, possibly we have sentenced 20-25 actually innocent people to death since 1973, or 0.3% of those so sentenced. Those have been released upon post conviction review.

 

[vern_humphrey]

The Church does not have any prisons, and hence the leaders of the Church have only a vague idea of what goes on inside prisons. All those who actually work in prisons will tell you that the death penalty is necessary for the protection of Corrections Officers.

 

[Ender]

Thanks for the provocative discussion. I appreciate your responses.

And I yours.

Upon examination of 2266; The purpose of punishment must conform to the ends of the first sentence, ‘safeguarding the common good.’ All else you reference follows this, i.e. it is of the most importance. I disagree with you then …

There is no implied modifier to the statement about the primary purpose of punishment. Section 56 in Evangelium vitae is clear about which aspect of punishment is primary and which are subsidiary: “*The primary purpose of the punishment which society inflicts is “to redress the disorder caused by the offence”*46 …” Footnote 46 references 2266 in the Catechism.

However, nowhere in 2266 is it suggested that punishment is for revenge, or more simply 'an eye for an eye.

Don’t conflate justice with revenge. 2487: "Every offense committed against justice and truth entails the duty of reparation." JPII continues from above: “… Public authority must redress the violation of personal and social rights by imposing on the offender an adequate punishment for the crime.”

I would propose that in most cases, the disorder created by the crime (a person no longer lives), is not redressed by the death of the murderer.

The thing we tend to forget is that "sin is an offense against God " (1850), not merely society. Redressing the sin involves more than making things better for society. “*But sin also injures and weakens the sinner himself, as well as his relationships with God and neighbor. Absolution takes away sin, but it does not remedy all the disorders sin has caused. Raised up from sin, the sinner must still recover his full spiritual health by doing something more to make amends for the sin: he must “make satisfaction for” or “expiate” his sins.” *(1459)

The discussion that is missing is the one that addresses what is required to expiate truly great sins and whether any punishment short of execution is adequate. Paul VI: “The very existence and the gravity of the punishment enable us to understand the foolishness and malice of sin and its harmful consequences.”

Ender