Why does the US and so many of its citizens continue to support the death penalty?

[Annie]

How could the Church have taught that the DP was moral and sometimes even necessary for so many centuries if human dignity trumps the use of it?

 

[Crocus]

How could Jesus say the Jews were allowed to divorce because of their hard heartedness, then give them a new law more cognizant of human dignity?

 

[Annie]

I thought revelation ended with the death of St John?

 

[Crocus]

Genesis: God created man in his image

 

[Aquinas11]

How could Jesus say

to Pilate “you would not have the power to kill me had it not been given you from above” if DP violates human dignity?

Is God the Father wrong? Is Jesus wrong? Is that where we’re at?

 

[Annie]

You keep saying that, but God then commanded that malefactors be put to death, and even after Christ, the Church taught all the way up to like 50 years ago that the DP was moral and sometimes even required.

 

[Crocus]

The only reason I’m “against” death penalty is because of Pope Francis’s prudential judgement on the matter. But inside, I’m not…

It is a virtue to trust filial obedience above long held beliefs. I honor your courage.

 

[JimG]

What does the term “inadmissable” mean in practice for an individual Catholic?

Does it mean that a Catholic may not serve as an executioner? Does it mean that a Catholic may not vote ‘guilty’ as a juror if it may result in the death penaly being applied? Does it mean that a Catholic must disqualify himself from serving as a juror in any potential death penalty case?

Does it mean that a Catholic prosecutor must refuse to take a death penalty case?
Does it mean that a Catholic must petition the legislature to rescind any death penalty law?
Does it mean that a Catholic may not vote for any candidate who favors the death penalty?

Is the word 'inadmissable" to be applied as term of moral theology or a term of political practice?

 

[Crocus]

Those are really good questions. I for sure wouldn’t serve as a executioner, but maybe that’s just me. :woman_shrugging:t2:

 

[Ender]

Perhaps because the US is more religious than many of these other nations and less likely to follow the lead of other nations?

Christianity in general (until recently), and Catholicism in particular (even now), recognized the moral legitimacy of capital punishment. Opposition to capital punishment was not initiated by Christians and Christianity, but by those who largely rejected it. As western nations became less and less Christian they opposed capital punishment to a greater and greater extent.

The US is more resistant to the idea of opposing capital punishment because she is, temporarily at least, a more Christian nation than the rest of the west.

The mounting opposition to the death penalty in Europe since the Enlightenment has gone hand in hand with a decline of faith in eternal life. In the nineteenth century the most consistent supporters of capital punishment were the Christian churches, and its most consistent opponents were groups hostile to the churches. When death came to be understood as the ultimate evil rather than as a stage on the way to eternal life, utilitarian philosophers such as Jeremy Bentham found it easy to dismiss capital punishment as “useless annihilation.”

Many governments in Europe and elsewhere have eliminated the death penalty in the twentieth century, often against the protests of religious believers. While this change may be viewed as moral progress, it is probably due, in part, to the evaporation of the sense of sin, guilt, and retributive justice, all of which are essential to biblical religion and Catholic faith. The abolition of the death penalty in formerly Christian countries may owe more to secular humanism than to deeper penetration into the gospel. (Cardinal Dulles, 2001)

 

[graciew]

This Pope is building on previous Popes.
Pope Saint John Paul II said the following :

“ The new evangelization calls for followers of Christ who are unconditionally pro-life: who will proclaim, celebrate and serve the Gospel of life in every situation. A sign of hope is the increasing recognition that the dignity of human life must never be taken away, even in the case of someone who has done great evil. Modern society has the means of protecting itself, without definitively denying criminals the chance to reform (cf. Evangelium Vitae , 27). I renew the appeal I made most recently at Christmas for a consensus to end the death penalty, which is both cruel and unnecessary.”

http://www.vatican.va/content/john-.../documents/hf_jp-ii_hom_27011999_stlouis.html

 

[do_justly_love_mercy]

It’s a secondary reason.

Yes, I am much more persuaded by the argument from individualism. It seems that in other western countries there is a feeling that murderers and other heinous criminals deserve to lose their freedom, usually only temporarily, and should be removed from society, again, usually temporarily. The criminal justice system in those countries seems to be directed more toward understanding the causes of crime and rehabilitating offenders. In the US, people who commit the most serious crimes are often deemed unworthy even to exist. It is not enough that they should be imprisoned and taken out of society for a time; they must cease even to exist.

Also interesting is that the US is unusual in making frequent use of life sentences without parole. In the UK, for example, fewer than 1% of prisoners serving life sentences are subject to “whole life” sentences, meaning than more than 99% of UK prisoners sentenced for the most serious crimes have a realistic chance of release. In the US, on the other hand, around 1 in 3 life prisoners are serving sentences without a chance of parole. Uniquely, we also sentence juveniles to life imprisonment without parole (a handful of other countries maintain this as a theoretical sentence, but no other countries actually impose it). There are literally thousands of juvenile offenders serving life without parole in US prisons.

 

[do_justly_love_mercy]

I believe it stems from the Protestant ‘Divine Right of Kings’ ideology.

Now that is a very interesting theory. At first, I was ready to dismiss it saying, “But all those monarchies in Europe and the Commonwealth have abolished the death penalty”, and then I saw your point. Almost all of the most developed Protestant nations (such as the Commonwealth realms and Scandinavia) are constitutional monarchies (Iceland was a monarchy until 1944, leaving Finland something of an anomaly due to its long history of occupation by its neighbors).

Because these nations have actual monarchies, in some instances still notionally of divine origin, there is no role for the sovereignty of the ordinary people. In the US, on the other hand, we retain the sense of a divinely ordained absolute authority, but, rather than vest that authority in a benevolent figurehead ruler such as Queen Elizabeth II, we vest it in ourselves. An Australian or a Norwegian, seeing that ultimate power is vested in a constitutional monarch, recoils at the notion that the state has power of life and death over its citizens, whereas an American, seeing that ultimate power is vested in the people, considers it reasonable that the people collectively should have power of life and death over some of the people individually.

I appreciate that your original argument was actually something slightly different, namely, that in the US we have vested the divine right in an elite, but I think it’s an interesting, and actually quite persuasive, theory. Virtually every other country in the western world has had the experience of power being mediated through the Church and/or a monarch. The United States is possibly unique in being a nation where ultimate power, since the foundation of our republic, has been vested directly in the people.

 

[Crocus]

The US is more resistant to the idea of opposing capital punishment because she is, temporarily at least, a more Christian nation than the rest of the west.

Among the peer countries that retain the death penalty: China, India, Japan, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq.

 

[TK421]

@Ender

The alleged polemic between believers and non-believers does not exist. The communist authoritarian regimes of the world were/are all anti-religion, and they all employed and employ the death penalty heavily.

 

[Annie]

As I said before:

There are other reasons for a nation to retain the DP; however, the fact that another nation does so does not ipso facto make a nation which does so out of considerations of justice wrong, any more than the fact that drug addicts abuse certain substances make someone’s doctor-prescibed use wrong.

@TK421
@blackforest

 

[Annie]

I understand that, and so I do not argue in favor of keeping the DP; i only spoke up here to clarify why people in the US might differ from those in nations which have abolished the DP.

While admitting that I have failed to maintain my policy of not arguing in favor of the DP while explaining why Americans are more likely to favor keeping it than those of other nations.

 

[Ender]

Among the peer countries that retain the death penalty: China, India, Japan, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq.

None of those are Christian countries, so what they believe has little to do with what Christianity teaches. This “argument” is non-rational. It’s an emotional appeal to the irrational idea that if we do what other “bad” countries do then what we do is also bad. Look for something more reasonable.

 

[blackforest]

I think many people support it because to them, it is justice. They took a life, their life gets taken, plain and simple. I am not saying I agree, just saying what I hear from people that support it.

There’s a fine line cutting between justice and vengeance. It would further the dialogue if death penalty opponents and proponents could define more precisely where that line should cross.

Most of the arguments I hear for it veer toward the emotional, i.e. how we feel so angry about murderers and how much better we’d feel if they’d suffer the same fate.

Perhaps because the US is more religious than many of these other nations and less likely to follow the lead of other nations?

I’m not so sure. The USSR had it. North Korea, China, and Japan all have it. I’d hardly consider these countries exemplary in religious practice. It would be interesting to cross-reference this list with counties that still have the death penalty. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/maps-and-graphics/most-religious-countries-in-the-world/

Also noteworthy is that many of the highly religious countries with the death penalty support other harsh punishments, such as the death penalty for sexual impropriety and slicing off the hands of thieves, practices not supported by devout Catholics.

 

[graciew]

Thanks for the explanation ,Annie. Sorry that I misunderstood.