“Recent evidence suggests that capital punishment may have a significant deterrent effect, preventing as many as 18 or more murders per execution.”
A Life-for-Life Tradeoff
With that bold assertion begins a March 2005 study from the AEI-Brookings Joint Center for Regulatory Studies. The report’s authors, Cass Sunstein and Adrian Vermeule, performed a comprehensive review of state and federal data and found a striking consistency. From 1997-1999 a death sentence deterred 4.5 murders and an execution deterred three murders. The deterrent effect is also a function of the length of time on death row, with a murder deterred for every 2.75 years deducted from the period before execution.
What’s more, 91% of the states which suspended the death penalty faced an increase in homicides. But in 67% of states, the rate was decreased after reinstatement of capital punishment.
“Capital punishment,” state the authors, “presents a life-life tradeoff, and a serious commitment to the sanctity of human life may well compel, rather than forbid, that form of punishment.”
All of this is of great interest to Catholics. The late Pope John Paul II was famously opposed to the death penalty, claiming that the circumstances in which it is appropriate are “practically nonexistent.” Does that mean that on an issue like the death penalty, conscientious Catholics must ignore social science and simply agree with the pope or risk lapsing into dissent?
Legitimate Diversity of Opinion
It doesn’t. While all Catholics should give due deference to the Holy Father on matters of faith and morals, it is important to (1) examine precisely what he has said on a given subject and (2) determine the voice in which he is speaking.
Let’s address these subjects in reverse order. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith identifies Church teachings according to the following categories: (1) divinely revealed truths, e.g., Sacred Tradition, Scripture, ex-cathedra statements by popes, etc.; (2) non-fallible Church teaching, e.g., teachings of the ordinary Magisterium which merely repeat what has always been taught; and (3) teaching on faith and morals, e.g., presented as true or “sure” even though lacking a definitive pronouncement from the ordinary Magisterium.
John Paul II addressed life issues like abortion, capital punishment and euthanasia in his encyclical Evangelium Vitae. Into which category does Evangelium Vitae fall?
That depends. An explanation from Ave Maria Law School’s Dr. Michael Orsi is worth quoting at length:
[T]here may be different levels of teaching found in the same document. For example, there is no doubt about the non-fallible prohibitions against abortion [nn. 58-63] and euthanasia [nn. 64-67] found in Evangelium Vitae. In these paragraphs, reference to the constant Catholic teaching on these issues is well documented, and the strong words used by the pope leave no doubt as to the binding force of the prohibitions. His advice, however, in the same document that capital punishment “be used rarely if ever used” [n. 56] is a prudential teaching which deserves careful consideration. This is not binding since the long tradition of the Church on this issue allows the state the right to execute criminals for its protection and to exact retribution.
The notion that John Paul II was exercising his nonbinding prudential judgment concerning the death penalty is supported by Cardinal Avery Dulles, who wrote, “[i]n coming to this prudential conclusion, the Magisterium is not changing the doctrine of the Church.” Ditto for noted Catholic apologist Jimmy Akin: “To disagree with the pope on these issues is to disagree with his prudential judgment, not with Church doctrine.”
And none other than Pope Benedict XVI, writing as then-Cardinal Ratzinger, makes a crucial distinction between war and capital punishment on the one hand and abortion and euthanasia on the other:
Not all moral issues have the same moral weight as abortion and euthanasia. For example, if a Catholic were at odds with the Holy Father on the application of capital punishment or on the decision to wage war, he would not for that reason be considered unworthy to present himself to receive Holy Communion. While the Church exhorts civil authorities to seek peace, not war, and to exercise discretion and mercy in imposing punishment on criminals, it may still be permissible to take up arms to repel an aggressor or to have recourse to capital punishment.
So is it fair when progressive Catholics who are squeamish about the Church’s teaching on abortion and euthanasia call their pro-death penalty co-religionists “dissenters” and hypocrites?
Here is Pope Benedict again: “There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not however with regard to abortion and euthanasia.”
When John Paul II invoked a prudential, pastoral voice to address his reservations about the death penalty, his choice of voice was no accident. He recognized that, as a servant and not a master of doctrine, he was bound by the fact that “the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty.” There’s a practical side to these limitations, for when information from a group like AEI-Brookings becomes available it can influence that pastoral voice.
Scripture, Tradition and Experience
If John Paul had seen AEI-Brookings’s report, would he would have written Evangelium Vitae differently? Not necessarily. We know from Scripture and human experience that the death penalty is an effective deterrent. The book of Deuteronomy (17:13), depicts the societal “fear” produced by the death penalty for refusing to obey a priest, and chapter 21 describes how “afraid” the people of Israel will become witnessing the stoning of a “stubborn son.” Personal experience tells us that the threat of a jaywalking ticket encourages the use of crosswalks; why should the threat of the death penalty fail to modify behavior?
But before weighing the effectiveness of the death penalty as a deterrent, one must first establish its justice, i.e., that it is a punishment that fits the crime. As C.S. Lewis observed:
When we cease to consider what the criminal deserves and consider only what will cure him or deter others, we have tacitly removed him from the sphere of justice altogether; instead of a person, a subject of rights, we now have a mere object, a patient, a “case.” (emphasis mine)
Cardinal Dulles quotes Pius XII’s clarification of perennial Church teaching on the role of the state in meting out this justice:
Even when there is question of the execution of a condemned man, the state does not dispose of the individual’s right to life. In this case it is reserved to the public power to deprive the condemned person of the enjoyment of life in expiation of his crime when, by his crime, he has already dispossessed himself of his right to life. (emphasis mine)
The traditional Cathechism of St. Pius X, a popular work described by then-Cardinal Ratzinger as “still valid today,” also addresses this teaching by placing it squarely in the context of justice:
It is lawful to kill when fighting in a just war; when carrying out by order of the Supreme Authority a sentence of death in punishment of a crime; and, finally, in cases of necessary and lawful defense of one's own life against an unjust aggressor.
To reiterate: the reason for focusing briefly here on justice is to make the point that regardless of what beneficial effects (deterrence) might be ascertained through a study of death penalty statistics, that in itself can never be the reason for the death penalty. We must first establish that it is a just punishment, as Catholic doctrine has long held, before we even begin to talk about its value as a deterrent.
That said, a growing body of evidence certainly can influence the Magisterium's social teaching. This is precisely what happened in the run-up to Centesimus Annus, when the abysmal failures of socialism led John Paul II to reaffirm strongly the Church’s condemnation of socialism and to embrace, albeit with important reservations, a market-oriented economic system.
Likewise, conscientious Catholics can use information like that from AEI-Brookings to take an informed decision on the death penalty. If that decision is ultimately to support it, they need not fear having a point of view that is anything less than authentically Catholic.
© Copyright 2005 Catholic Exchange
Rich Leonardi, publisher of the blog Ten Reasons, writes from Cincinnati, Ohio.
