| The Church's teaching has not changed, nor has the Pope
said that it has. The Catechism and the Pope state that the state has the right to exact
the death penalty. Nations have the right to just war and individuals have the right to
self-defense. Does that means that any and all uses of force to defend oneself against a
criminal, or a criminal nation, are justified? No, and most people understand that. To
be good every moral act must satisfy three elements
1) The act itself must be good.
2) The intention of the one doing it must be good.
3) The circumstances must be appropriate.
1. Capital punishment is the right of the state. This is the principle taught by the
Church. The Pope does not deny it, but neither St. Thomas or any Magisterial text presumes
this gives the state an unlimited right to make capital laws and carry them out. It is
inherent in a just capital punishment law that there be proportion between the taking of
the life of the criminal and the benefit expected to the common good. A law, for example,
that takes no account of factors such as repentance, mental age and so on is unjust.
States have executed the mentally retarded, who could be of no conceivable future
threat to society, and in one case a woman whose evident conversion even the state
admitted. Thus, the Catechism of the Catholic Church states:
- 2267 Assuming that the guilty party's identity
and responsibility have been fully determined, the traditional
teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death
penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively
defending human lives against an unjust aggressor.
2. Intention. The motive of the state is good when it follows a just law, that is, its
decision is motivated by the requirements of the common good and not by motives of
vengeance. This is probably not usually a problem of the state, though some officials
evidence it, but it is clearly the mind of many in the public, a fact every execution
seems to bring out.
3. Circumstances. There are, of course, individual circumstances related to the
particular capital case which, as I noted, a just law takes into account. Here I want to
consider, however, certain general circumstances. The Pope has noted that in the developed
countries the possibility exists to incarcerate criminals for life, removing definitively
any threat to society. Thus, the Catechism continues in paragraph
2267,
If, however, non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect
people's safety from the aggressor, authority should limit itself to
such means, as these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of
the common good and more in conformity with the dignity of the human
person.
Another circumstance, and one related to "the concrete
conditions of the common good," is the nature of our society. We
have become a culture of death. The question really arises as to whether we have just
laws, and whether we can execute those we do have justly. Abortion has worked a truly horrible
corruption of our country, for which we are beginning to pay the price, not just in
demonic violence but in the "corruptio mentis" (corruption of mind and heart) of
people in general. This is manifested in the malfeasance of justice, by
police, juries, prosecutors and judges at all levels of the justice
system. In
the early Church a similar situation existed. During the time of pagan Rome, Catholics
could not hold civil or military office if they could be obliged to judge capital crimes
or execute capital punishment. Only after the Church was legalized and the state
influenced by its teaching would Catholics be allowed such offices. As the state becomes
less influenced by the truth the Catholic finds himself returning to the quandary of the
early Christians. Thus, while the state may have the right, all other factors being
respected, to execute the criminal it also has the opportunity for mercy. If the greater
good of the society is protected adequately then the Church argues for mercy,
both so that the respect due to every life is restored and so that the
unconverted might convert and save their souls. Thus, in Evangelium
Vitae and the Catechism (2267) the Pope concludes,
- Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which
the state has for effectively preventing crime, by rendering one
who has committed an offense incapable of doing harm - without definitively
taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself - the
cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute
necessity "are very rare, if not practically
non-existent." (EV 56)
So, in the end is the Pope changing Church teaching by arguing against capital
punishment? Absolutely not! It fact, it would be contrary to Church
teaching to say that capital punishment is per se
immoral, as some do. Rather, the Pope states that the conditions of
modern society argue against it's use in all but rare cases. It is
simply becoming harder and harder to argue that a particular act of
capital punishment is circumstantially necessary (the third element of
a good moral act). The Pope is NOT substituting his judgment for the
political prudence of those who must make decisions about when to use
capital punishment. He is teaching principles and making a general
evaluation about modern circumstances. Ultimately, the laity
who are responsible for these judgments in political society must make
them in the individual cases. In doing so, however, they have a grave
obligation to apply all the principles taught by the Church to
the cases before them, as taking a human life is always grave matter
if done unjustly.
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