rethinking capital punishment

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One of my favorite Far Side cartoons is of a man sitting in his favorite TV ... The context of his remarks suggests that he believes, in our attempts to restore a culture of life, we should show reverence even for those who perhaps are worthy of death. ... Certainly, his words and actions indicate that he thinks capital punishment.
COLUMN

RETHINKING CAPITAL PUNISHMENT by Janet E. Smith Let me admit that I am, in a sense, an enthusiast of capital punishment. In fact, I think we all deserve to have our heads chopped off. One of my favorite Far Side cartoons is of a man sitting in his favorite TV viewing chair with a remote in his hand; his head is rolling around on the floor beside him and the caption reads “If you don’t use it, you lose it.” Or at least deserve to. Most of us so rarely use our heads, it’s amazing that we are not knee-deep in heads rolling around on the ground. If I remember correctly, Catherine of Siena claimed that any sin — no matter how small — committed against Infinite Love is deserving of infinite punishment. If she is right, we can’t complain about whatever befalls us. Death is the proper punishment for all our sins and not an excessive one, either. And we will all meet with the punishment of death, sooner or later. It is not the worst punishment that many of us deserve nor will it be the worst punishment that many of us receive. Let us never forget that eternal damnation is worse than death. Pope John Paul II is clearly leading the Church in rethinking the proper application of capital punishment. His interest in the topic seems continually to escalate. Indeed, he had the Catechism rewritten to reflect some nuances in his thought. He has pleaded with governors to pardon those on death row. The Vatican recently joined others in successfully persuading a U.N. Commission on Human Rights to issue a resolution against capital punishment. Such actions indicate that Pope John Paul II is concerned to have an impact upon both the Church and the world at large concerning this issue. Yet, Pope John Paul II has said surprisingly little about his reasons for being such an ardent opponent of capital punishment. In Evangelium Vitae, he contends that the modern penal system is sufficiently sophisticated that we don’t need to have recourse to capital punishment to protect society against heinous criminals. The context of his remarks suggests that he believes, in our attempts to restore a culture of life, we should show reverence even for those who perhaps are worthy of death. One suspects, though, that Pope John Paul II is driven by more than prudential considerations. Other Pope-watchers have shared with me their suspicions that Pope John Paul II may well wish he could say that capital punishment is intrinsically evil and thus ought never to be done. Such a position would, of course, be a radical break with traditional Church teaching and thus is unlikely to be true, if not impossible to be true. Certainly, his words and actions indicate that he thinks capital punishment should become obsolete in the modern world. Again, we are left largely to speculate about his motives for his opposition. He may desire to eliminate the injustice that has often accompanied capital punishment. Certainly, there are well-known instances

where innocent individuals have been wrongly put to death. Often capital punishment has been used not against true criminals but against political enemies. Some races and ethnic groups have had and still have a disproportionately high number on death row. Perhaps Pope John Paul II thinks life sentences will give criminals greater opportunity to repent. Perhaps he believes that we cannot have recourse to capital punishment without fostering a vengeful spirit in our hearts; we cannot rise to the level of desiring capital punishment for the purposes of justice alone. Perhaps he thinks capital punishment comes dangerously close to treating the human person as one without inherent dignity — that it treats human persons as having lost their inherent dignity and as having descended to the status of animals. Could he be driven by concerns about how culpable heinous criminals are for their crimes? I admit to some unease on this matter myself. If a criminal started down the path of crime at a very young age, after having been introduced to addictive drugs and a life of crime, say, by his or her parents, after having been terribly abused (for instance, a young woman virtually sold into prostitution by her parents), how culpable is this individual truly? I think I understand how dangerous it is to speak of a reduced free will but I worry that ultimate moral culpability is often very difficult to assess. No, I haven’t become a bleeding heart liberal, but I suspect we are still novices at knowing what effect some life experiences have on moral responsibility. Perhaps we should not be so troubled to sort out moral vs. legal responsibility and should trust God to make the necessary adjustments, but it would also be wrong to be cavalier when a life is at stake. For some, conversion to opposition to capital punishment will be easier if the traditional teaching is kept intact, for that teaching makes a great deal of sense to them. (Its presence in the Catechism is undoubtedly reassuring.) Many believe that, at bottom, the teaching that states have the right to utilize capital punishment for certain crimes seems altogether compatible with a culture of life and a respect for human dignity, for it indicates the heinousness of certain crimes against life and human dignity. It even respects the dignity of the perpetrator of the crime, for we acknowledge his right to make his free choices, and to accept the proper consequences. One is always edified by a repentant sinner on death row who yearns to pay the ultimate penalty in reparation for his deeds and who feels that retaining or regaining his dignity is dependent upon his willingness to pay the price. But perhaps there is something about a culture of death that distorts capital punishment and causes it to be perceived as just one more manifestation of the use of death as a solution to problems. Maybe the common man lumps capital punishment together with abortion and assisted suicide and thinks that if capital punishment is acceptable so too ought abortion and assisted suicide be permissible. Certainly many opponents of the pro-life movement reason in such a fashion. Maybe if we show reverence for the life of individuals who have done despicable things to the innocent, pro-abortionists will be more willing to have respect for the life of the innocent. I am hoping that Pope John Paul II or those who understand his thought will help us to appreciate his reasons for opposing capital punishment. Those of us who fervently desire to do everything we can to restore a culture of life want desperately to be fully in accord with our most revered and dearly beloved leader. Janet E. Smith teaches philosophy at the University of Dallas and is a regular columnist for Catholic Dossier.

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