First of two parts
My dear friends,
To kill or not to kill.
The answer seems clear in the case of innocent, unborn children. Their right to life must be respected. But what about the right to life of convicted criminals? Have they not forfeited it by taking the lives of others?
That debate has filled the Letters to the Editor section of this newspaper in recent months, with people on each side citing Scripture or tradition or the Catechism as proof for their argument.
Who is right? Both sides, really. For as theologians are pointing out, the Church's teaching on capital punishment is changing. And at the forefront of that change is Pope John Paul II himself.
In words and deeds, he has called upon Catholics to re-examine their thinking on the death penalty. First, he personally forgave the man who tried to kill him. Then he issued his encyclical “The Gospel of Life,” in which he stated that the punishment for violent offenses “ought not go to the extreme of executing the offender except in cases of absolute necessity: in other words, when it would not be possible otherwise to defend society. Today … such cases are very rare, if not practically non-existent…” (Paragraph #56)
This more nuanced teaching is enshrined in the new catechism: “If bloodless means are sufficient to defend human lives against an aggressor and to protect public order and the safety of persons, public authority should limit itself to such means…” (#2267)
Is the Holy Father repudiating centuries of Church teaching? Absolutely not. He is merely applying it to the realities of the modern world. The question is not whether the state has the right to put criminals to death; but whether it should resort to this most violent solution when other options"such as life imprisonment without possibility of parole"are available.
A similar development has taken place in the Church's teaching on war"the whole question of what is a “just war.”
As recently as a century ago, aggression was the norm, and most disputes between nations were settled by violence. In fact, the Old Testament is replete with stories of the Israelites being led in battle by God himself"their victories served as proof of his faithfulness.
Today, after two bloodly world wars and the advent of nuclear weapons, humanity views armed conflict as a last resort, after all peaceful measures have been exhausted. We have begun to think of ourselves not as groups of individuals living in different territories, but as a family of nations sharing the same planet.
In Church terminology, we are all God's children, and we should treat each other as brothers and sisters. War, therefore, must be a last resort. As the Catechism states: No armed conflict can be considered “just” unless it meets “rigorous conditions of moral legitimacy.” (#2309)
As with capital punishment, the bar has been raised. The issue is no longer “can we” but “should we.” In both cases, the Pope and the catechism make it clear that we rarely, if ever, should go to war or resort to the death penalty.
As Florida's bishops stated in their recent appeal for the lives of two convicted killers scheduled to die in the electric chair: “Will not the safety of persons and the preservation of public order be as secure if, instead, you commute these sentences to lifelong confinement? … Killing people to show that killing is wrong is a piercing contradiction…”
Next [issue]: Why Church teaching has changed
