Catholic Confusion on Capital Punishment (Part 1 of 3)

True or False:
- The Church has changed its position on the death penalty?
- The Church now teaches that capital punishment is evil?
- An obedient Catholic must oppose state executions?

False is the correct answer to all three questions. The Church has not changed its teaching that the state may use the death penalty if necessary. The operative phrase here is “if necessary.” Whether its use is necessary is a practical, prudential judgment about which Catholics may disagree. John Paul, Benedict and the American bishops have all argued that its use is not necessary in society today. That, however, is a practical, fallible and tentative viewpoint and is not a statement on faith and morals so it is not protected and guided by divine inspiration. It is an application of a moral principle. And so, the Catholic receives from the Church today two distinct teachings:
1. The permanent, traditional, universal doctrine that the state may use the death sentence if required to protect innocent life and the order of society.
2. A tentative, practical, fallible evaluation that alternate forms of punishment today suffice so that we can dispense with capital punishment.
A Catholic must accept the first of the two since it is a permanent teaching on morals; a Catholic may disagree with the second, a practical calculation subject to a universe of complications, contingencies, consequences and considerations. A Catholic who would absolutely deny the state the use of the death penalty is in dissent from Catholic teaching while a Catholic might advocate for its necessity without denying any Catholic truth. This distinction is essential and is obscured, for example, when the bishops state with an aura of authority that “modern conditions do not require use of capital punishment.” That opinion is surely arguable and the bishops have every right to articulate it but they must clarify that it is their practical opinion and not a pure or clear expression of their episcopal role of magisterial clarification. A simple phrase would suffice: “Our estimation…In our opinion…It seems to us…It is probable that…The consensus among us is…”

Purpose of Capital Punishment

Our tradition sees four purposes in the death penalty and in all punishment.
1. Protection: of society from further violence.
2. Deterrence: of further violations.
3. Retribution or punishment.
4. Rehabilitation or repentance.
Questions of protection and deterrence involve empirical calculations so the evaluation may vary even within a given nation. So, for example, an outbreak of child-kidnappings in a given area might necessitate a harsh policy that is unnecessary in another region. The issues of retribution and rehabilitation/repentance are deeper, thornier philosophical questions that will be reserved for another blog posting.

Tentative, Contingent Evaluation

Blogster Fleckinstein does not support the use of capital punishment in the USA in 2008; but he insists that this be rightly understood as a provisional, probative evaluation based upon a number of empirical observations which are subject to change with historical developments or new information. Reasons include:
- Relative adequacy of our prison system to provide protection.
- Inefficiency of deterrent value since it is rarely used.
- Fallibility of court system that is exaggerated by inequalities related to wealth, race, mental ability and other socio-cultural factors.
These three reasons are each subject to reservations, challenge, development and reversal. The first, adequacy of our prisons in providing protection, is questionable: the murder of pedophile Father Geoghan in prison by a convicted murderer casts doubt upon the adequacy of our prison systems. Secondly, the deterrent value might be considerable if it were applied consistently against specific heinous crimes such as deliberate kidnapping, torture, sexual abuse and killing of children. Lastly, the fallibility of our system might be significantly decreased by developments in DNA testing and more competent legal defense provisions for the poor.

Deeper Confusion

There are clear, solid reasons for opposing the death penalty. Unfortunately, however, the crusades on this issue, including that of the American bishops, involve a moral absolutism that identifies capital punishment with an anti-gospel culture of death. This absolutism hides a number of underlying, secular presuppositions that are obfuscations of the gospel we have received from our tradition. These will be explored in two following blog posts.