Looking to Scripture
The Church's participation in the debate on capital punishment, as on any public policy, seeks to convince our fellow citizens that this position in favor of life is based on reason and on a natural law that binds all human beings. We appeal to human rights and dignity and call people to embrace policies that will promote our humanity and the common good. We present our convictions with cogent arguments that should appeal to all people of good will in a pluralistic society.
However, in our own teaching to those of the household of the faith, to our Catholic people and other Christians, we turn to the New Testament. There we find the example and words of Jesus as the primary source of Christian life-ethics. Nowhere does Jesus offer violence as a solution to set things straight. The Gospel reveals God's boundless love for every person, regardless of human merit or worthiness. He does not will the death of a sinner, but rather that the sinner be converted. Jesus often shifts the locus of judgment to a higher court, a court where there is no need for polygraph, where there is absolute knowledge of the evidence, of good deeds and of evil, of things private and things public; a court where there is justice and mercy, both law and grace, wrath and tenderness.
In the book of Genesis, the first murderer was Cain. He was punished but not executed. God protected Cain from those who would threaten to kill him. The Old Testament injunction, "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth," was an attempt to curb the spirit of vindication among God's people who would have sought to punish the guilty sevenfold by plucking out both eyes and knocking out several teeth. Just as the law of Moses in Deuteronomy 24 should be seen as a concession and not an approval of divorce, a concession that Jesus later abrogates, so too the law of talion does not command but limits revenge.
The provision of cities of sanctuary in the Old Testament was still another way of limiting people's thirst for revenge.
In the Gospels, Christ's mercy is in sharp contrast with the attitude of those invoking capital punishment for the woman caught in adultery. Our Lord commutes her sentence by challenging the worthiness of her accusers to judge. Then He forgives her sin and admonishes her to sin no more. The Lord hates sin but loves the sinner. Discipleship calls us to have the same sentiments as the Master. The Sermon on the Mount and the teaching of the New Testament are clear in forbidding revenge and in demanding an attitude of mercy when dealing with a sinner. The Pharisees were quick to condemn Jesus because "He ate with sinners." He replied to their criticism by saying that it is the sick that need the physician. Our task as Christians is to bind up the wounds of sin. The sin causes greater harm to the perpetrator than to the victim of a crime. "Fear not the one who can kill the body, but rather the one who can cause you to be cast into eternal hellfire." Jesus on the Cross, is an innocent victim of an intimidated judge. Despite Jesus' own pain, He holds out mercy and hope to the guilty as He speaks to the Good Thief: "Today you shall be with me in Paradise."
By trading places with the guilty and with his enemies, by dying in the murderer Barabbas' stead, Jesus teaches us that even people who do us evil have a claim on our love. Jesus' whole mission teaches us about His love for sinners. St. Paul, in Romans, reminds us: "Indeed only with difficulty does one die for a just person, though perhaps for a good person one might even find courage to die. But God proves His love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us."
All of this is not to say that we do not need to find appropriate punishments for crime and ensure the safety of our people, but we must strive to free ourselves from hatred and a desire for vengeance in our dealing with criminals. A very striking Christian witness was given by Coretta Scott King, widow of Dr. Martin Luther King, when she stated, "As one whose husband and mother-in-law have died victims of murder assassination, I stand firmly and unequivocally opposed to the death penalty for those convicted of capital offenses. An evil deed is not redeemed by an evil deed of retaliation. Justice is never advanced in the taking of a human life. Morality is never upheld by a legalized murder."
Present Debate
Unfortunately, in the public debate, capital punishment is often seen as a symbolic issue: Do you or do you not support your local police? Do you or do you not care enough about crime to get tough on criminals? However, the reality is that capital punishment does not deal with crime in any useful way, rather it deludes the public into a false sense of security about a complex social problem. The death penalty is really a way of avoiding the problem of crime instead of dealing with it. In studies referred to earlier, almost 87 percent of the criminologists and 57 percent of police chiefs find it quite accurate to say: "Debates about the death penalty distract Congress and state legislatures from focusing on real solutions to crime problems." A consideration of the monetary costs of an execution illustrates this point. A former Texas attorney general, Jim Mattox, is quoted in the Dallas Morning News as saying that presently, it costs about $2 million to execute a prisoner. This is three times what it costs to incarcerate a person for 40 years. Two million dollars, the cost of one execution, translates into the salaries for approximately 48 additional police officers. Rather than investing millions of dollars in a dubious deterrent and dehumanizing vengeance, the state would do better to invest its limited resources in programs for crime prevention, drug rehabilitation, and maintaining a well-equipped police force.
The United States is one of the last democracies of the West to maintain the death penalty. The Council of Europe reported in 1962 that: "The facts clearly show that the death penalty is regarded in Europe as something of an anachronism"." Capital punishment has been abolished in 28 countries of Europe. In fact, this week a Paris newspaper, Le Monde, reported that the French courts were allowing extradition of Ira Einhorn to the United States only on the condition that the state of Pennsylvania not invoke the death penalty in case of conviction. In 1976 Canada ended the death penalty, and in recent years the United Nations has issued resolutions stating the desirability of abolishing capital punishment. Quite conspicuous by their indifference to these recommendations are nations generally known for their disregard for human rights of their citizens, such as China, Iraq and Iran. For instance, recent reports indicate that in China prisoners are executed as needed and their organs are harvested and then sold.
Within the United States, one-third of the states have already abolished capital punishment. The opposition to the death penalty is widespread and diverse. Catholic, Protestant and Jewish groups, as well as many national organizations, have expressed their opposition based on religious, moral and civic reasons.
As we prepare to end the most violent century in the history of the world and as we cross the threshold of hope into a new millennium, we must join our voices with that of our Holy Father in calling for an abolition of the death penalty. We want our country to be characterized by justice, not revenge; by safety, not violence; by life, not death.
