Reflections on the Death Penalty

By Fr. James Rude, S.J.

March 2, 2007

In the previous essay I discussed the need to distinguish moral principles from emotional responses. Let’s face it: we easily mix them up. We become angry when we have been seriously insulted and we often want some kind of revenge. We are hurt by someone’s words and we don’t want to talk with that person again. We are passionately involved when someone hurts our child.

This is all quite normal, but we cannot permit ourselves to act out of those emotions, because then our actions become simply retaliations, we are responding to evil with evil. I read recently that a judge sentenced a person to death and then added, “However I would prefer to sentence you to Hell!” Actually the judge committed a worse evil than the man standing before him in the dock, for whatever that man had done, it was one or a series of actions that had finite evil consequences whereas the judge wished he could do something that would have had an infinite evil consequence.

Emotions are normal and good, they are a part of our human make-up, but we must distinguish them from our rational thoughts. And especially we must do so if we consider ourselves to be followers of Jesus.

Let us consider the death penalty. What is its purpose? To balance justice? To right a serious wrong? But one evil cannot justify another evil. To make the community safe? If you mean safe from that particular malefactor, that can be achieved by jailing him for life without parole. If you mean that his execution becomes an example to others and thus a deterrence from crime, there is no indication that this is true. And life without parole could be just as strong a deterrence.

Perhaps the purpose of the death penalty is simply to punish. Punishment is a legitimate action. In various ways we see it in families and in schools, why not in society? That person has done something seriously hurtful and he must be punished, so society does something equivalently hurtful to him. As I say, punishment is legitimate if applied appropriately and judiciously, but if it gives us consolation or joy, I wonder what that says about us. And if we are satisfied only if the ultimate punishment is inflicted on the person who has done us wrong...?

For more than 25 years, the Catholic bishops of the United States have called for an end to the death penalty. Eleven years ago the Catechism of the Catholic Church was published with its teaching against the death penalty. Six years ago Pope John Paul II made a passionate plea to end the death penalty. This year the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops again called for an end to the death penalty. Nevertheless, the majority of Americans still favor the death penalty and since it was reinstated in 1976, over 500 state killings have taken place, with more than 3500 prisoners waiting in death rows across the nation.

Political reasons given for the stopping of the death penalty are the number of errors that are made against the innocent, the racial makeup of those executed, the hope of conversion, the belief that our citizenry is not more protected by the state killing of criminals.

Religious reasons are based on the dignity of all human life, respect for each and every human life, including the lives of those who fail to show that respect for others, opposition to the violence in our society, seeing the death penalty as perpetuating a cycle of violence and promoting a sense of vengeance in our culture.

From our Catholic point of view, the strongest reason must be found in our study of the life of Jesus, who we believe is the definitive revelation of his divine Father and who calls us all into unity with his Father.

In his teaching and his deeds, he dealt respectfully with sinners, inviting them to the fullness of life through repentance. He urged forgiving others, refraining from judging others and acting unjustly out of anger. In order to win them over, he freely associated with those who lived athwart the law, eating with them, for example. He even broke the law himself—for the sake of life. He told the parable of the shepherd who left his sheep in the desert to search out one stray sheep, and the woman who spent all day looking for a stray coin, and the father who spent his days on the road looking in hope for the return of his stray son.

He preached love, even love of enemies, proclaiming that all of the teachings of the Law and the Prophets hinge on love of God and love of neighbor. He preached that he was called to bring good news to the poor and the oppressed, to bring release and freedom to those caught in hopelessness, to bring sight to the blind of body and heart. He preached love and compassion and instructed his followers to do the same. He showed love and compassion by feeding the hungry and curing the sick, which were not simply actions in their own right, but also symbols of his mission to destroy the kingdom of evil and to extend the kingdom of love.

There was a moment in his life when he was asked about the death penalty. It was a case of a woman guilty of adultery. He showed his aversion to that penalty, adding that the executors should look rather to their own moral situation.

Nothing in the life and teachings of Jesus indicates that his followers could accept the penal killing of others. And everything in his life and teachings indicates that his followers should fight against it, not giving the state our permission to kill felons, which of course we do when we are silent against this injustice. For the life and teachings of Jesus stand not for death, but for love and for life.