The Holy Father Pope John Paul II has challenged us in the new millennium with a renewed commitment to the Gospel of Life. An important way that we can promote the civilization of love in the new millennium is to call for the abolishment of the death penalty. Our task is to work for a more just society and for real solutions to alleviate crime and violence in our communities. The more respect we have for life, the safer our communities will become.
In a growing culture of death devoid of morality, we face the life-threatening issues such as abortion, immoral genetic practices and experimentation, civil strife, nuclear war, ethnic conflicts, euthanasia and capital punishment. These various assaults on life cannot be melded into a single problem. They are distinct, complicated issues that require individual attention, but they do form pieces of a larger pattern. When human life under any circumstance is not held as sacred in a society, all human life is diminished and threatened.
The Church's pro-life stance is consistent and is based on the theological affirmation that the person is made in the image of God, the philosophical assertion of the dignity of every person, and the Church's social teaching that society and the state exist to serve the person. Because we hold the sacredness of human life, the taking of even one person's life is a most serious event. Historically, the teaching of the Church has allowed the taking of human life only in very rare instances, viz., in the case of self-defense, and by extension of this principle, in the case of capital punishment.
It is not surprising that in our own 20th Century, the most violent century in recorded history, the presumption on the part of moralists against taking human life has been strengthened and the exceptions deemed ever more restricted. Certainly, the dramatic situation with legalized abortion has heightened our awareness of the urgent need to defend the sacredness of every human life.
The Supreme Court in its decision in Georgia v. Furman (1972) held that the death penalty as then administered did constitute cruel and unusual punishment and so was contrary to the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution. In Gregg v. Georgia in 1976, the court allowed states to resume using the death penalty. This decision claimed that new procedures would address the objections involved in the previous ruling and so set off the debate once again. Since that time, many people have been surprised that the Bishops' Conference has consistently opposed the death penalty, in spite of the contrary opinion of a majority of the Catholics in the United States. However, Catholic teachings are not based on polls, or prevailing sentiments, but upon the magisterium with the two-fold font of Scripture and Tradition.
[Part one of a four part series]
