A Few Questions

Have you noticed how the media usually describe Catholic politicians who reject their Church's teaching as "devout Catholics" or, if they are a bit too far from Church teaching, as "practicing Catholics"? They are, of course, neither. A devout, practicing Catholic will accept the Church's magisterial teaching, especially that teaching which the Church declares to be based on divine law. The Church cannot change, and has never changed, divine law, and neither can the political authorities, the media, or any worldly entity. When the Church, for example, declares abortion to be an "intrinsic evil", it will remain so, regardless of the opinions of self-described "devout" or "practicing" Catholic politicians.

I believe it's important to realize that someone who supports abortion will likely support anything. After all, abortion is nothing less than the willful, dismembering slaughter of a living, unborn child, the most innocent of God's children. Every Sunday at Mass, we come together and pray the Nicene Creed in which we praise the Holy Spirit as "the Lord, the giver of life." To destroy a life given by the Holy Spirit, and to support the wholesale destruction of those lives, are serious sins indeed.

My next question: For whom should we vote in November, and what should be our deciding criteria? I found it interesting that a few days ago Joseph Cardinal Tobin, Archbishop of Newark, New Jersey, stated publicly that “a person in good conscience could vote for Mr. Biden.” I suppose that’s true, at least literally: yes, a person in good conscience can vote for Joe Biden, but the important question is, as a faithful Catholic, should he or she? But I really don’t believe Cardinal Tobin was thinking or speaking semantically. No indeed, he was providing Catholic Biden voters, like himself, with a convenient excuse.

The Cardinal's feelings toward President Trump become apparent when he continued by saying, “I, frankly, in my own way of thinking, have a more difficult time with the other option.” Wow! Your Eminence, in your “own way of thinking,” you really find it more difficult to vote for President Trump than to vote for a man who has supported abortion since it was “legalized” by the Supreme Count in 1973? You do realize that Mr. Biden has supported the slaughter of more than 60,000,000 unborn American infants -- that's 60 million for the numerically challenged. I’m sure you’re familiar with unborn infants — like Jesus on that day of Annunciation, or John who leaped in his mother's womb when the pregnant Mary and the unborn Son of God came to visit -- you know, like those unborn infants.

I suppose Cardinal Tobin is simply following the morally confusing recommendations found in the U. S. Bishops' document, “Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship." Here the Bishops state:

"A Catholic cannot vote for a political candidate because he or she supports an issue considered an intrinsically evil act, such as abortion, euthanasia, deliberately subjecting workers or the poor to subhuman living conditions, or assisted suicide."

Does this mean I can indeed vote for such a person only if my reason has nothing to do with those intrinsically evil acts he might support? And did you note the use of the word, "considered"? Intrinsically evil acts aren't simply "considered" evil; they are evil. But then, as if afraid of picking sides, the Bishops add:

"At the same time, a voter should not use a candidate's opposition to an intrinsic evil to justify indifference or inattentiveness to other important moral issues involving human life and dignity."

I can picture the Catholic voter asking, "Okay, Bishops, what's it going to be?" Are the Bishops saying we cannot vote for Joe Biden who has consistently supported, and continues to support, intrinsically evil acts? Or are they telling us we can overlook this if we don't like what his opponent says about the dignity of a murderer on death row? Would I be wrong to suspect that these statements were written not by moral theologians but by lawyers?

I support the Church's teaching on capital punishment, which is clearly described in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (2266 & 2267). Unlike abortion, though, capital punishment is not intrinsically evil. Morally, the two are very different acts.

I find it particularly interesting that Cardinal Tobin, the day after he seemed to support one presidential candidate over the other, defended his comments by saying: "I neither endorsed nor opposed anyone running for office. I simply reminded Catholics of our responsibility to take part in the elective process."

Okay, then, I guess I can say the same thing.

Death Penalty and the Vinyard Owner

“Late have I loved you, beauty so old and so new: late have I loved you...You were with me, and I was not with you...You called and cried out loud and shattered my deafness. You were radiant and resplendent, you put to flight my blindness. You were fragrant, and I drew in my breath and now pant after you. I tasted you, and I feel but hunger and thirst for you. You touched me, and I am set on fire to attain the peace which is yours.” -- St. Augustine

Decades ago if anyone had asked me if I supported capital punishment, I would have given an unequivocal positive answer. I saw no reason not to execute a criminal who'd been convicted of first-degree murder, especially if the circumstances of the crime were especially horrendous. And as a naval officer and naval aviator who had lost many friends in times of both war and peace, I felt the same about egregious acts of treason. These beliefs were unshakable, or so I thought, although I suppose I'd never seriously questioned them.

Earlier this week, on Wednesday morning, as I proclaimed the Gospel at daily Mass, I could not help but recall another morning, perhaps 25 years ago, when that same Gospel passage (Mt 20:1-16) was proclaimed at Sunday Mass. 

Even then I'd probably heard or read this passage about the generous vineyard owner a hundred times. I'd studied it years before in a New Testament course. And I'm sure I'd discussed it on several occasions with others. But I'd never considered that it had anything to do with capital punishment. Indeed, as the visiting priest began to preach on that long-ago Sunday morning, he focused entirely on social justice and the need to ensure working people received a living wage. I remember thinking he was certainly correct in that a living wage was a just wage, but I also found it curious that he said not a word about the "Kingdom of Heaven" which, at least according to Jesus, was the central theme of the parable. 

Anyhow, once I realized where the homilist was headed and that he intended to take some time to reach his destination, my mind began to wander. In my defense, my wanderings didn't stray too far from the subject at hand. In fact, I found myself thinking about the parable in a quite different way.

My thoughts that morning centered on all those last-hour hired hands in the parable, the ones who'd worked for only one hour and had yet received the full daily wage. I realized how merciful God is, how His justice is so different from the world's justice, how He continues to call us to repentance, and how He offers forgiveness and eternal life to all. If only we could be like God. If only we could be perfect as the Father is perfect. But because we so often insist on equating fairness with equality, God's generosity just doesn't make sense to us.

As I mulled this over my thoughts inexplicably turned to the death penalty, our most extreme punishment, a punishment designed effectively to shorten the lives of men or women convicted of serious crimes. And yet through capital punishment society quite possibly prevents those sinners most in need of God's saving mercy from experiencing the last-hour salvation God offers. God, of course, can and will act regardless of the designs and schemes of human beings. But we should not be testing God, in effect challenging Him to overcome the obstacles we place in the path of His holy will.

Yes, God will always prevail, but how arrogant of us to presume we can just trash God's greatest gift, the gift of life itself. The desired end of both murder and capital punishment is the destruction of life. It is this end, among other things, that makes murder sinful. By taking the life of another person the murderer attempts to usurp that which belongs to God alone, life and death. The use of deadly force in both self-defense and just war is, of course, a moral exception since its desired end is the protection of life and because all other means are either impractical or ineffective. 

Some consider the death penalty a societal form of self-defense from the most violent and depraved among us. This might make some sense if we were unable to incarcerate criminals safely and indefinitely. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (2267) addresses this clearly when it states:

"The traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude, presupposing full ascertainment of the identity and responsibility of the offender, recourse to the death penalty, when this is the only practicable way to defend the lives of human beings effectively against the aggressor. If, instead, bloodless means are sufficient to defend against the aggressor and to protect the safety of persons, public authority should limit itself to such means, because they better correspond to the concrete conditions of the common good and are more in conformity to the dignity of the human person. Today, in fact, given the means at the State's disposal to effectively repress crime by rendering inoffensive the one who has committed it, without depriving him definitively of the possibility of redeeming himself, cases of absolute necessity for suppression of the offender 'today ... are very rare, if not practically non-existent'" [John Paul II, Evangelium vitae 56].

Others call for the need to provide "closure" for the families and friends of victims, as if the death of a murderer will somehow restore the victim's life. Closure, of course, is simply a convenient euphemism for vengeance, and we should call it what it is, because vengeance is antithetical to Christian belief. After all, how can we pray daily the only prayer Jesus taught us, in which we say, "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us" [Mt 6:12] -- how can we pray this and still accept the legitimacy of vengeance?

By listening only to the proclamation of the Gospel that Sunday morning, and disregarding a rather boring homily, I had experienced an epiphany, one that forced me to challenge my own opinions regarding capital punishment. I didn't experience an instant change of opinion, and this internal challenging continued for some time, ultimately leading me to question my earlier, strongly held beliefs.

A few years later -- actually on February 3, 1998 -- the state of Texas executed a woman by the name of Karla Faye Tucker. She had participated in two ghastly murders and was the first woman executed by the state of Texas in 135 years.

Karla Faye Tucker

Not long after her incarceration Tucker had experienced a total conversion to Christianity, and spent the next 15 years on death row. Although some questioned the sincerity of her religious beliefs, her final words to those who would witness her execution convinced all but the most cynical -- which, sadly, included then Texas Governor George W. Bush -- of the reality of her conversion. Her words:

"Yes sir, I would like to say to all of you — the Thornton family and Jerry Dean’s family — that I am so sorry. I hope God will give you peace with this. [She looked at her husband.] Baby, I love you. [She looked at Ronald Carlson.] Ron, give Peggy a hug for me. [She looked at all present weeping and smiling.] Everybody has been so good to me. I love all of you very much. I am going to be face to face with Jesus now. Warden Baggett, thank all of you so much. You have been so good to me. I love all of you very much. I will see you all when you get there. I will wait for you."

With Tucker's execution I experienced another epiphany of sorts. It caused me to question the stated purpose of our so-called correctional institutions. What exactly is their purpose? Do they aim to correct, to rehabilitate those who have committed serious crimes? Or are they institutions determined only to mete out punishment according to the latest societal or political whim? If a prisoner, regardless of the seriousness of the crime, truly repents, reforms, and becomes a new person in Jesus Christ, what do we do with him? And if this reformed prisoner -- one who has actually experienced the "correction" advertised by the institution -- is on death row, do we execute him anyway? Is this justice? Or is this simply vengeance?

Such questions lead one to make comparisons, to examine man's justice in light of God's justice. Should we be content as we crawl through life aware that we are more often than not acting unjustly? Or should we strive for the perfect justice God desires of us?

From the Christian perspective, Karla Faye Tucker was very fortunate. She experienced a conversion early in her incarceration, continued along the rocky path of repentance and forgiveness for the next fifteen years, but went to her death fully aware that she was loved by God. Because she had accepted God's forgiveness, she was able to forgive herself. It is noteworthy that she did not beg for forgiveness from the families of the man and woman whose lives she had taken. I'm sure she knew that forgiving her at that moment might be a hard thing for them, and a failure to forgive could even present an obstacle to their own salvation. No, she instead hoped God might give them His peace.

Still another concern related to the exercise of capital punishment by the state involves government's tendency to expand its influence and control over virtually all aspects of society. This is clearly evidenced in totalitarian regimes which try to control not only the actions and words, but even the thoughts of the people. And the most severe method of exercising such control is through the expansion of the death penalty as a punishment for so-called "crimes against the state."

We encounter this as well in some Muslim-majority states where sharia law is established as the law of the land or accepted as a legitimate alternative to a nation's constitutional law. Sharia, of course, rejects the concept of religious freedom and calls for capital punishment for those guilty of such religious wrongs as apostasy and blasphemy. I suppose in an Islamic theocracy, in which religious teachings pervade every aspect of the society and the state functions as Allah's agent, these "crimes" are considered crimes against both Allah and the state.

The citizens of constitutional republics in which capital punishment is permitted must remain vigilant. As the people allow their government to expand and become increasingly authoritarian, they can expect to encounter changes too in the application of capital punishment.

Capital Punishment

Not long ago, someone asked me, "You seem to be pretty conservative politically. How come you're against capital punishment?" I told him there was no quick answer, but that I'd write about it soon. And so I suppose this is my response.

It's been interesting experiencing the change in my own thinking regarding capital punishment. Thirty years ago I had no problem with the death penalty. As far as I was concerned, when it was applied in our country it was applied correctly, and usually only in cases of first-degree murder and treason. I had great faith in our legal system and the appellate process, and assumed no one would be executed unless he were truly guilty of the crime for which he had been sentenced. Admittedly this faith displayed a naivete common among non-lawyers, but I think most Americans held similar beliefs.

Of course today, as a result of DNA testing, we have seen that many people have indeed been convicted unjustly and  sentenced to death for crimes they did not commit. As a result we hear of a growing number of wrongly convected people being released after years in prison, often on death row. How many have actually been executed we will never know since no court or prosecutor is going to pursue such cases after an execution has been carried out. DNA testing made one thing certain: man's justice, as meted out by our courts, was often flawed. But my views on the death penalty changed before the advent of effective DNA testing.

Quite honestly, though, I rarely thought about the death penalty at all. It was simply one of those things I accepted. After all, wasn't it in the Constitution? Actually, the United States Constitution refers to capital punishment twice, both times in the Bill of Rights, in the 5th and the 8th Amendments. In the former it states:

"No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation."

Here the Constitution guarantees that no one can be held for a capital crime unless he has been indicted. It also states that you may not be executed -- "deprived of life..." -- without due process, which consists of proper indictment, trail and conviction. (Note: the 14th Amendment extended this restriction to the states.)

The 8th Amendment, although it doesn't specifically mention capital punishment, does address what it calls "cruel and unusual punishment." Here's the Amendment's entire text:

"Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted."

As you can see, the wording is pretty flexible and can easily lead to a range of interpretations and judgments. The forms of capital punishment considered usual in the 18th and 19th centuries -- hanging, firing squad, etc. -- would be considered unusual and probably cruel by most Americans today. And the forms of capital punishment common in the 20th century -- electric chair and gas chamber -- have in most instances now been replaced by some form of lethal injection which the state considers more "humane". As far as capital punishment itself being considered "cruel and unusual", today's Supreme Court has generally not intervened in death penalty cases.

And so, the state -- that is, the law of man -- seems to think capital punishment is just fine, so long as it's not too "cruel and unusual". And quite honestly this had been my opinion as well. But what about the Church? What does it say? Well, here's what we find in the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

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 the unjust aggressor.

If, however, non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people's safety from the aggressor, authority will 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.

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" [John Paul II, Evangelium vitae 56.]

And so the Church is telling us that today there is really no safety-related reason to execute someone, since we certainly have the means to protect society from the convicted criminal through effective incarceration. If this is the case, and I believe it is, our decision to execute the criminal is really based more on revenge than on safety. How often do we hear about the need for "closure" on the part of victims' families? What they really seek is revenge, because in the minds of many the death of the murderer will supposedly balance, if only partly, the death of the loved one. Regarding revenge, the Catechism says:

2302 By recalling the commandment, "You shall not kill" [Mt 5:21], our Lord asked for peace of heart and denounced murderous anger and hatred as immoral.

Anger is a desire for revenge. "To desire vengeance in order to do evil to someone who should be punished is illicit," but it is praiseworthy to impose restitution "to correct vices and maintain justice" [St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theoligica II-II, 158, 1-3]. If anger reaches the point of a deliberate desire to kill or seriously wound a neighbor, it is gravely against charity; it is a mortal sin. The Lord says, "Everyone who is angry with his brother shall be liable to judgment" [Mt 5:22].

Pretty serious stuff. And the Catechism also reminds us that we should not take away from the offender "the possibility of redeeming himself." As anyone involved in prison ministry can tell you, personal conversion can take a long time for someone who has never known love, never received a kindness, never experienced anything in his life but hatred and sinfulness.

The Church reminds us, too, that being a Christian isn't always easy. We are called to "be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect" [Mt 5:48] and that's a tall order. We are called to conform our law, as best we can, to God's Law. And perhaps, most importantly, we are called to reflect in our lives the prayer we pray daily when we say, "...forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us." To forgive does not mean we neglect to punish those who are a threat to society, but can forgiveness and capital punishment coexist? Can the Christian say, "I forgive you. Now I'm going to kill you"? I think not.

What got me thinking about this 30 years ago wasn't the Catechism, which at that time had yet to appear, but abortion. I experienced this little epiphany one January during a March for Life in Washington, D.C. as Diane and I, along with several hundred thousand others, approached the United States Supreme Court. As we stood there peaceably, under the gaze of hundreds of U.S. Capitol Police, I realized there was something terribly wrong with a nation that allowed the killing of the most innocent and helpless of its people. Ironically, the Supreme Court's fateful Roe v. Wade decision in 1973 came not long after a 1972 decision that banned capital punishment and threw out most death penalties en masse. In other words, in 1973 the court decided that killing the most innocent Americans was fine, but executing those found guilty of capital crimes was unconstitutional. This remarkable contradiction, more than anything else, led me to question my own beliefs. (Of course, a few years later, in 1976, the Court decided that executions, after all, were okay.)

The legalization of abortion led me to wonder what else the courts could ultimately decide was worthy of the death penalty. And I believe it's important to realize that an abortion is really the imposition of the death penalty on an unborn infant because she committed the unpardonable offense of being inconvenient. You see, that's one of the more practical problems with capital punishment: once you allow it for murder and treason and terrorism and piracy, what's to prevent the state from adding a few more "crimes" to the acceptable list? Just this week, I read that the compassionate Islamic government of Iran has decided to execute two bloggers who it seems "spread corruption" through their blogs. Capital punishment for bloggers -- a radical Islamic form of political correctness. Unbelievable? No, believe it. Can't happen here? If you believe that, I suggest you ask your grandparents if fifty years ago they thought unrestricted abortion would ever be legal in this country. After all, the only modern country that had allowed it was Nazi Germany. Back in the fifties and earlier abortion was universally considered a most despicable crime. But once the Supreme Court weighed in on the issue, like sheep most of our nation went along with it, assuming the courts knew what they were doing as they interpreted the Constitution. Oh, they knew what they were doing all right, but it had little to do with the Constitution. Once you allow the camel to stick his nose under the tent, it's only a matter of time before he joins you in your sleeping bag -- a most unpleasant situation.

And so, those are some of the reasons I'm against capital punishment. I'm too tired today to write any more. And I miss Dear Diane who is away on a cruise with a group of her "girlfriends" and has left me alone to fend for myself. It's all very disconcerting.