Sensibility, Intelligence, our Pope and the Death Penalty

I am pretty much against the death penalty...for a good number of prudential, intelligent, practical reasons...but largely because it offends my sensibility. It disgusts me emotionally! Happily, my sensibility (feelings) and my intelligence agree; I am clear in my view, but tentative as I recognize a number of very good reasons in favor of capital punishment. It is NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT a moral absolute like adultery, abortion, or torture.

Intelligence and sensibility are to be strongly contrasted: the first is our capacity to know reality; the second is our subjective feeling about the reality we experience. Human intelligence (unlike that of the angels and the Trinity) always flows out of sensibility: in this we stand with St. Thomas and St. John Paul and against Plato and Descartes! Intelligence, properly exercised, leads us beyond our subjectivity to know what is different from us; sensibility is our unavoidable but limiting physical/psychological vulnerability to reality as it presents itself. Intelligence, at its best, recognizes sensibility in its validity and limitation, and transcends it in disciplined, obedient, communal study to open up to the real beyond how it impacts the individual, vulnerable body/psyche. When we feel something, it says something about the "something" and about "ourselves" and so we need to separate out the two of them. My family is of Irish descent but my Dad hated the bagpipes. I don't know why, but he did have a defect in his ear that effected his swimming and kept him out of World War II so I think something in his ear may have made the sound painful for him. If he were asked to judge a bagpipe contest, he would have to humbly decline. We are pretty much all against the death penalty...in our feelings...but it is far from clear that our feelings are validly judging (an intellectual task) reality. Our contemporary sensibility may blind us to the reality about the death penalty for several reasons:

1.  Weakened sense of the supernatural. Even the most pious among us are "secular" in that we live, breathe, work, feel, think, decide and act with little or no sense of God and the supernatural. Modernity is "disenchantment" in regard to our Creator and Savior, heaven and hell, angels and devils, spiritual combat and eternal life. It has re-enchanted itself with control, prosperity, health, and  self-fulfillment. To such a sensibility, the application of the death penalty is most vile. Contrast: just over a century ago the little St. Therese praying for the death-row conversion of the sinner murderer!

2.  Weakened sense of authority. Modernity is the rejection of authority: that of tradition, of the Church, of the past, of paternity and implicitly of the Fatherhood of God. Authority is viewed suspiciously, not as an image of the loving Father, but as the imposition of the stronger, oppressive will on another. So, we have the inevitable comparison of the application of lethal force by the state with that by the murderous individual. In reality, they are contradictory, not similar: the policeman, soldier and executioner (with exceptions to be sure) are acting, in principle, to protect innocent life. This distinction is largely lost. It is like comparing the amputation done by a surgeon to that of a psychopathic torturer. They are polar opposites. And so, we see that the most modern, contemporary and up-to-date Western countries (excepting the USA) have all outlawed the death penalty, as they became more secular and suspicious of authority.

3.  Confusion of revenge and  retribution. Revenge is an act of hatred; however understandable, it is inherently evil. Retribution is an act of justice; inherently good. The police who arrest; the jailer who retains; the prosecutor who accuses; the jury who convicts; and the judge who sentences...they are not acting in revenge, but in truth, in duty, for the final good of the community and even of the accused. Retribution is misconstrued as revenge because of the weakened sense of the moral order. Anecdote: my brother found his young son laying, uncharacteristically, on his bed in the middle of the day. "What's up, Joe?" he asked. "I am punishing myself."  "Why?" "I ran in the street to get a ball and I should not have."  (Aside:  Joe is now a Catholic priest and PhD in theology.) Was this the childish workings of the overcharged superego of a first-born boy? I think not! I see it as the innocent, childlike intuition of the moral order! Good must be rewarded; bad punished! At our particular judgment, we will immediately see the gravity of our sins and will cry out for correct retribution:  "I must do (the equivalent of) two hundred millennia in purgatory!" Even the damned (if there be any; we can, with Balthasar hope not) will cry out in truth:  "Exactly! I chose against heaven and for hell and that's what I want and what I deserve and God is truly Just and Good!" It is arguable that a Timothy McVeigh who murdered hundreds needs to be executed; but that intelligent argument is dismissed as revenge by the secular, modern sensibility.

4.  Weakened sense of evil.  The ontological gravity of evil is minimized, along with everything supernatural, as it is psychologized ("Oh, he had a rough childhood!") and sociologized ("Oh, he is a victim of an unjust economic order!") We do well to consider Lucifer and his demons and even fictional, cultural analogues: Hannibal Lector; the Joker; Darth Vadar and his mentor; Kaiser Sozi (Kevin Spacey in "The Usual Suspects").

5.  Exaggerated sense of human competence. A prevalent argument against capital punishment is that our sophisticated prison system is able to protect society from the predators. At the same time we hear horror stories about prison culture: rape, gangs, stabbings, murders, and the psychological torture intrinsic to solitary confinement. Arguably a quick death is more humane than a semi-eternity in the hell of sodomy, gang violence, and desolate solitude. The evidence that current prison systems can protect and deter competently is flimsy at best.

Thought experiment: imagine a poor, underdeveloped country has an outburst of vicious gangs who kidnap for ransom children of the affluent. If they don't get their money, they rape, torture and kill the little ones...videotaping it. Most of us (and not only the affluent) suddenly find prudential reasons to implement the death penalty. Mostly, though, the image...prolonged torture of the little ones...is so repugnant to our sensibility that it vastly overwhelms our disgust for the death penalty.

Question of the century: Why is it that the modern, liberal sensibility is so horrified by (the very limited) capital punishment of the guilty but so tolerant of (vastly greater) abortion of the innocent?

Renunciation of the death penalty is an intelligent, promising position. But Pope Francis' elevation of it into a final, absolute prohibition is confused, irrational, authoritarian and heretical. It is confused because it is unclear: is he saying the act is inherently evil (contradicting tradition) or that it is not inherently evil but that he has been granted a invincible, infallible intuition that it will never again, anywhere, anytime be required by prudential wisdom? The later is ludicrous on the face of it. It is irrational because he is elevating his sensibility (however prevalent in modernity) into a dictum while dismissing rigorous intellectual consideration. Emotionalism and anti-intellectualism are the hallmarks of his pontificate: witness his avoidance of the dubia! It is authoritarian in that he is using the authority of the Chair of Peter (I write this on that feast day) to impose his sentimentality without regard for the bishops, cardinals, tradition or Magisterium. He is heretical in that he is contradicting what is clear, longstanding Church teaching. The sensibility is so prevalent, however, that there is virtually no serious push-back. A handful of cranky conservatives like myself are the only ones who are.

However, there are signs of hope. His recent statement on married priests and women deacons was heartening. Let us pray for him, our spiritual Father, that his pronounced theological deficiency be remedied by the Holy Spirit! St. Peter pray for us!