Catholic Confusion on Capital Punishment (Part 3 of 3):
Secular Presuppositions of the Crusade against Capital Punishment

Current arguments against capital punishment commonly refer to development in modern sensibilities. Deeper inspection suggests that these sensibilities are largely secularized sentimentalities of compassion uprooted from moral principles like authority, accountability, judgment, natural law, and retribution. Notice that the death penalty has for some time been banned in the most secularized countries of Europe but remains popular in the evangelical cultures of the USA. It also seems to have diminished in appeal as abortion and related atrocities have become pervasive. This hints that “modern sensibilities” may be less than infallible on matters of social conscience. The moralizing repulsion from capital punishment springs partially from modernity and secularization as a loss of the sense of the Transcendent. Let us view this in relation to five aspects of the Transcendent: authority, natural law, sin and judgment, the supernatural, and abortion.

Authority

Modernity is characterized by a rejection of the transcendence of authority in favor of a leveling egalitarianism. By contrast, tradition has always viewed authentic authority (parental, ecclesial, governmental, judicial, etc.) as descending from God. The Modern Project renounces this and elevates the isolated Self as the center of all meaning and authority. This places everyone on the same plane in a permanent state of aggression against each other. In this view, action by a state is not different in kind from that of the individual; it is merely an aggregate or collectivization of individual agents. So, we hear from our bishops that the state is contradictory in its effort to “teach that killing is wrong by killing those who kill.” This argument assumes that forceful action by the state is similar in kind to that by an individual. From a traditional point of view, this is patently ridiculous since the difference in the two is self-evident. This afternoon, my 4-year old grandson Matt grabbed the coloring book from his 5-year old sister Brigid. Their mother took it from Matt to bring peace to the situation. Brigid and Matt both know with utmost clarity the difference between the actions of Matt and Mom. The one was aggressive; the other was restorative. Every child knows the difference between a beating by the local bully and a spanking by Mom or Dad. Every child welcomes a spanking (if it is just a spanking, and not an abusive beating) of the bully by his Mom or Dad as a sign to all that the bullying is NOT tolerated. The modern sensibility prohibits Mom from taking the coloring book from the aggressor or spanking the bully. Such forceful behavior is not nice; the preference is for reasoning, negotiation, and appeals to benevolence.

We see here that prohibition of executions springs from a refusal to invest the state with authority superior to that of the individual. It is the same suspicion of authority that renounces Biblical inspiration, the Church’s magisterium, Just War practices, and responsibility of the state to protect the unborn, even from their own mothers.

Natural law

Just use of lethal force by the state rests within the Natural Law tradition which discerns in creation a moral intelligibility, structure and purposefulness intended by our Creator as an image of his own absolute justice and truthfulness. This order is transcendent of the individual but discernable to conscience and is universal and permanent even as it is comprehended and expressed in a variety of fashions in different times and cultures. This understanding is largely lost to modern consciousness which has deconstructed creation into the empirically objective (what can be measured) and the arbitrarily subjective (purely voluntaristic and self-determined).

Outside of a vibrant sense of creation and natural law, the use of lethal force can only be seen as a despicable aggression of one will against a weaker one. The repulsion is understandable given the broader secular, egalitarian framework.

Sin, Judgment, Freedom, Responsibility

A pervasive, understated determinism suffers a pity for the violator who is seen as a victim of circumstances: poverty, abuse, trauma, genetic-based orientation, and lack of love. Implicitly, this viewpoint denies the freedom, responsibility and culpability of the human person as a moral agent. As Christopher West says, we human beings are angimals, a mysterious blend of the angelic and the animal, the material and the spiritual, the determined and the free. So, we are partially determined and yet free and accountable. Our entire tradition of morality and legality is supported by a conviction about the root freedom and culpability of the moral agent. A sentimental, effete liberalism retreats from such stern accountability in favor of a pity that constructs the offender as a passive, pathetic victim. It is unbearable then that one who has been victimized by family, misfortune and society should now be further victimized by the finality of execution.

Supernatural

Modern sensibility is insensitive to the supernatural. Here we might consider the fourth purpose of punishment: rehabilitation or repentance. The death penalty cuts off future opportunities for rehabilitation, the argument goes, and therefore absolutely short-circuits the disciplinary, corrective, educational value of punishment. This argument is persuasive on the purely natural plane. If however, each of us is destined for an eternity in heaven or hell, another dimension opens up. St. Thomas viewed imminent execution as an opportunity for final repentance. He argued that if one fails to repent with death so imminent, it is unlikely that one will do so at a later date. There is logic here: a longer, steady, uneventful life terminated, let’s say, by an unexpected accident or heart attack, will not necessarily enhance the probability of final repentance. God is, of course, free to work on death row and in lifetime imprisonment. This element is not vulnerable to human calculation. Nevertheless, the eventuality of final penitence/impenitence is hardly part of the thoroughly secularized discussion on capital punishment.

Abortion

The consistent “seamless garment” ethic opposes both abortion and capital punishment in the effort to safeguard the sanctity of human life. There is an apparent, superficial logic to this stance. In practice, however, crusaders against execution are less than zealous about abortion and anti-abortion activists are less than absolute in their rejection of executions. The underlying energies of the two campaigns are going not only in different directions, but in opposing directions. What divides the two crusades is the underlying attitude towards state authority: the liberal who abhors state execution is reluctant to give the state authority over the life of the embryo against the choice of the mother; inversely, the moral conservative boldly empowers the state to perform executions in defense of life and to override a woman’s choice to abort. Both claim to be pro-life but in practice they oppose each other: the liberal tolerating legal abortion but not legal executions on behalf of a feeble state; the conservative is proactive and assertive on behalf of innocent life, not hesitating to execute the guilty and limit the rights of the mother. The “seamless garment pro-lifer,” self-satisfied in his opposition to war and executions, will vote for the party of choice. Sister Helen Prejean, noted death penalty activist and protagonist of Dead Man Walking, endorsed Obama, who supports the death penalty, abortion, infanticide and in naming Gates his Secretary of Defense is effectively continuing the Bush war policy of the last two years. She self-identifies as pro-life; but her actual vote suggests a different agenda. She may agree with her good friend Susan Sarandon who also endorsed Obama: “I think that he has definitely convinced people that he stands for change and for hope and I can’t wait to see what he stands for.”

Conclusion

Catholic teaching on capital punishment is clear and unchanging: the state may use such lethal force when necessary. Whether it is necessary remains an open and lively issue. Arguments against its use in current conditions are largely persuasive on pragmatic, tentative, consequential grounds involving protection, deterrence and discipline. This essay is NOT in favor of executions today. The central philosophical question of just retribution remains largely unaddressed except for a minority report by theological and legal scholars like Dulles, Scalia and Bork. The prohibitionist crusade, however, is largely built upon secular modernity at its worst: the denial of the transcendent. As such, it tends towards an emotivist disparagement of masculine, conservative values including authority, natural law, sin and responsibility, judgment and retribution and it aligns itself with a feminist sentimentalism in the refusal to protect innocent life.