Hope or Closure? Reflection on the Inadmissibility of the Death Penalty
On May 11, 2018, the Congregation (now called the Dicastery) for the Doctrine of the Faith, promulgated a reformulation of Canon 2267 in the Catechism of the Catholic Church regarding the morality of recourse to the death penalty. This new formulation was made as part of the teaching office of Pope Francis in consort with the teachings articulated by his most recent predecessors including Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Saint John Paul II. The relevant part of the new formulation reads: “Consequently, the Church teaches, in the light of the Gospel, that “the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person, and she works with determination for its abolition worldwide.”
While the use of the term “morally inadmissible” does not place the death penalty on the same level as sins like murder or abortion which are “inherently evil” because the Church has always taught that circumstances can never justify their commission, the term “morally inadmissible” does convey that our understanding of human dignity and the common good of society has developed that the death penalty can no longer be utilized as an effective, just, and coherent means to honor the value of the human life of those who have been murdered and whose surviving loved ones have been aggrieved by such sinful violence.
There is much for our ongoing prayer and consideration contained in the new formulation of Canon 2267. One point from the formulation that I offer you for your consideration is that “a new understanding has emerged of the significance of penal sanctions imposed by the state.” Prior to the development of the secular state, the role of the civil government was understood as including the fostering of the spiritual dimensions of human dignity that rested upon the presuppositions of Divine judgment and eternal life. The imposition of the death penalty in cases of murder included the importance of the convicted murderer to seek forgiveness from God and from those harmed by his sin in preparation for Divine judgment that he be spared eternal damnation and to prevent the damage to the common good by individual revenge.
Without this Christian presupposition of Divine judgment and human dignity as recognized and upheld juridically on the part of the state, this moral significance of the action of the state is lost and is replaced by a mechanized form of vengeance that only promises a sense of closure to loved ones of murder victims still understandably angry at the injustice of the murder perpetrated against their loved one.
Only the modern world and its postmodern residue with their removal of God to the private sphere of human society and the replacing of God with the state in the public sphere would be so bold as to suggest that the execution of a criminal would suffice to bring about the closure of the hole left in the lives of the loved ones by the violent and intentionally inflicted death of their loved one for the common interest of society. This offer is made with a bold presupposition that human life and its end merits human closure. Closure for whom? Closure promised by advocates for the death penalty suggests a finality that can only make sense on the basis that this world is all that there is, and the powers of this world have on this basis a conclusive say in the matter of giving and taking life: a responsibility that rests with God alone.
The closure of such a wound does not heal the wound. Only hope in God can bring such healing. Hope decries the injustice of murder. Christian hope acknowledges that human action alone cannot bring about the satisfaction that we desire, but only human action in cooperation with God’s creative plan for human life and who calls us to authentic justice both through the Natural Law and Sacred Revelation.