If this is so it seems that the church is very late in coming to this conclusion. /…/
Not at all
*Only in the last 40 years of its history has the church come out against state-sponsored executions, except in highly delimited circumstances. …a departure from previous teaching, which stretches back almost two millennia… *(Archbishop Wilton Gregory, 2008)
Let us do justice by situating the quote of His Excellency Archbishop Gregory you cite, giving it now in the broader context he gave it and subsequently expanded it via the thought His Eminence Avery Cardinal Dulles
Let us also give thread readers the chance to read for themselves a truly
masterful text delivered by His Excellency to Emory University
catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=8506
*/…/ Over the last 30-plus years, the interventions of the U.S. bishops on the question of the death penalty follow a pattern similar to that of the Catholic Church in other regions. The intent has been the same, namely, to limit, restrain or end the use of society’s ultimate punishment /…/
We bishops of the United States conclude therefore that the imposition of the death penalty under the conditions of contemporary American society is not justified in view of the traditional purposes of punishment
Like other death penalty opponents, Catholic leadership has pointed to the systematic flaws in the application of capital punishment, including the well-documented economic and racial inequality that inheres in the trials and sentencing of capital offenders. We bishops have also pointed to the alarming number of mistaken convictions of men and women on death row who were later exonerated /…/
It is clear to many observers that the Catholic Church has undergone a development in its teaching on the death penalty.
Only in the last 40 years of its history has the church come out against state-sponsored executions, except in highly delimited circumstances. Such a departure from previous teaching, which stretches back almost two millennia, is bound to invite controversy within the ranks of the Catholic faithful
One of the most prominent intra-Catholic debates in recent years was initiated at a conference at the University of Chicago in 2002. Two prominent American Catholic participants, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and Cardinal Avery Dulles, took up the historical, moral and legal dimensions of the issues which we have been discussing /…/
Justice Scalia takes the position that the church, which has always permitted the use of the death penalty, has changed its historic position in the already-mentioned passages of the catechism and in John Paul II’s Evangelium Vitae. Such alterations in traditional moral teaching, he argues, were imprudent to say the least /…/
Unlike Justice Scalia, Avery Dulles finds no rupture in the development of Catholic teaching on the death penalty. The Jesuit cardinal distinguishes between theological affirmations, which allow for the death penalty in certain instances, and their practical application to contemporary contexts. By virtue of their office, the church’s pastors receive the guidance of the Holy Spirit to apply the principles of justice to public policy on matters like the death penalty. When they do so on behalf of their faithful and the common good, they make a prudential application of these principles to the contingent circumstances of contemporary society
After recounting the history of the church’s position, Cardinal Dulles argues that when it comes to the death penalty each of the traditional ends of punishment carry a different weight. For example, defending against the particular criminal carries a greater weight than deterrence against criminals committing a similar crime in the future
/…/ **It is clear to me that Avery Dulles, who follows the lead of my brother bishops, has the stronger case. The statements of the supreme pontiff and those of the American hierarchy over the last 40 years are by no means inconsistent with historical Catholic teaching on just punishment and the need to safeguard human life and social goods
As Dulles argues, opposition to the death penalty is contingent on context.** The state has the right to defend against unjust aggressors and in some limited cases may apply punishment by execution. The church’s pastors have recognized that to civil authorities belongs the duty to defend all human life when it is wantonly or unjustly endangered. The particular aspect of capital punishment that has changed in contemporary society from centuries past is the claim that the punishment for capital crimes necessarily requires execution as a deterrent to other potential offenders /…/
While John Paul II greatly influenced the development of the Catholic position on capital punishment, he also wrote and spoke passionately against the use of the death penalty in his homilies and speeches. On several occasions he pleaded for clemency for individuals on death row in the United States
His challenge to our society in extending mercy even where it appeared to the public as unwarranted was articulated well during his 1999 homily at the papal Mass in St Louis, Mo. The Polish pope invited worshippers to join the “new evangelization,” which “calls for followers of Christ who are unconditionally pro-life: who will proclaim, celebrate and serve the Gospel of life in every situation … even in the case of someone who has done great evil.” He then called for “a consensus to the end of the death penalty, which is cruel and unnecessary” /…/
The moral requirement to protect the innocent stands alongside the imperative to stem the cycle of violence that keeps individuals and communities enslaved to vengeance. As Mohandas Gandhi once said, “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind”*
