Please help me to understand the Church’s position on the death penalty. Pope JPII was the first papal voice that I can recall ruling the death penalty as “improper”.
It is actually best to read the words for oneself. But let’s backup. We Catholics are creationists. Not in the sense that we literally embrace Genesis (we don’t), but in our belief that each of us posesses a soul which is a unique creation by God.
Further, we believe in a God of infinite love, infinite compassion, and infinite forgiveness. We are all sinners, we all fail to live without sin, yet God loves each of his creations infinitely, beyond our comprehension.
In his earthly ministry, Jesus instructs us to forsake vengence (You have heard it said, an eye for an eye…) and, instead, to resist evil without violence. He also repeatedly told us that the keys to salvation are to love God with all our hearts and to love our neighbors as ourselves. Further, he makes it clear that neighbor is a broad definition. Look at Matt25, notice that visiting of prisioners is listed as a criteria for final judgment.
John Paul explained that Jesus instructed us not just to love as we love each other, but as He loved us. Since Jesus is the Lord, his love is infinite. We are to love not just the good and kind, but sinners - since, ultimately, that is what we all are.
So, we value every unique creation of God very highly in our faith, from conception to natural death. We should care for the weakest among us simply for what they are, children of God, not our perception of their moral or physical worth.
The Pope noted that we have a right to protect society. In fact, if we Love our Neighbor, we have a resonsibility to protect those around us. But in a modern industrialized society, the risks of long term incarceration vs. execution are very small, seemingly unmeasurable. On the other hand, the death penalty has two problems. First, it sometimes claims innocent lives and killing an innocent life is a terrible sin in our faith, that is why we take abortion so seriously.
Second, in prematurely ending the criminal’s life, we remove the opportunity for redemption and possible salvation. Saul was, by modern secular definitions, guilty of a brutal hate crime type murder. But he renounced his sinful ways and became St. Paul. As a saint, we believe that he achieved salvation, but even if he did not our faith would very likely not exist today without him.
I, personally, really struggled with this teaching. But something my father once said seemed to help. He told me that the only things a person really believes in are the ones he will stand up for when they cost him something. I found it easy to be pro-life with regards to a helpless child, and very hard with a violent felon. But forgoing violent vengence and praying for the latter is very much in keeping with the New Testament and our faith.
I decided that if I believed in Christ and a God of infinite love, I had to at least try (I also felt a Roman Catholic obligation to obey). I still struggle with the teaching, but I have come to accept it as right and true, particularly as more problems with our death penalty system come to light.
Again, it is better to read John Paul’s words for oneself, he was a prolific and very accessible writer. But I hope the above helps.
