Capital punishment

Introduction

Christianity and capital punishment

Christians argue both for and against the death penalty using secular arguments, but like other religious people they often make an additional case based on the tenets of their faith.

For much of history, the Christian Churches accepted that capital punishment was a necessary part of the mechanisms of society.

Pope Innocent III, for example, put forward the proposition: "The secular power can, without mortal sin, exercise judgment of blood, provided that it punishes with justice, not out of hatred, with prudence, not precipitation."

The Roman Catechism, issued in 1566, stated that the power of life and death had been entrusted by God to the civil authorities. The use of this power did not embody the act of murder, but rather a supreme obedience to God's commandments.

In the high Middle Ages and later, the Holy See authorized that heretics be turned over to the secular authorities for execution.

The law of Vatican City from 1929 to 1969 included the death penalty for anyone who tried to assassinate the Pope.

Research done in the 1990s in the USA found that Protestants (who interpret the Bible to be the literal word of God) were more likely to be in favour of the death penalty than members of other religious factions and denominations.

In favour of the death penalty

It's in the Bible

Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed

Old Testament

The death penalty is consistent with Old Testament Biblical teaching, and suggests that God created the death penalty.

In total, the Old Testament specifies 36 capital offences including crimes such as idolatry, magic and blasphemy, as well as murder.

But many Christians don't think that is a convincing argument - they say that there are 35 capital offences, in addition to murder, described in the Old Testament. As these are no longer capital offences, Christians say it is inconsistent to preserve murder alone as a capital crime.

New Testament

The New Testament embodies what must be the most famous execution in history, that of Jesus on the cross. But paradoxically, although the tone of the whole of the New Testament is one of forgiveness, it seems to take the right of the state to execute offenders for granted.

• In Matthew 7:2 we read "Whatever measure you deal out to others will be dealt back to you", though this is unspecific as to whether it is God who is doing the dealing, or the state.
• In Matthew 15:4 Jesus says "He who speaks evil of father or mother, let him surely die".
• Despite the fact that Jesus himself refrains from using violence, he at no point denies the state's authority to exact capital punishment.
• At the moment that Pilate has to decide whether or not to crucify Jesus, Jesus tells him that the power to make this decision has been given to him by God. (John 19:11).
• Paul has an apparent reference to the death penalty, when he writes that the magistrate who holds authority "does not bear the sword in vain; for he is the servant of God to execute His wrath on the wrongdoer" (Romans 13:4).
• Capital punishment affirms the commandment that 'thou shalt not kill' by affirming the seriousness of the crime of murder.

This argument is based on interpreting the commandment as meaning "thou shalt not murder", but some Christians argue that the 'Thou shalt not kill' commandment is an absolute prohibition on killing.

God authorises the death penalty

Christians who support the death penalty often do so on the ground that the state acts not on its own authority but as the agent of God, who does have legal power over life and death.

This argument is well expressed by St Augustine, who wrote:

The same divine law which forbids the killing of a human being allows certain exceptions, as when God authorises killing by a general law or when He gives an explicit commission to an individual for a limited time.

Since the agent of authority is but a sword in the hand, and is not responsible for the killing, it is in no way contrary to the commandment, 'Thou shalt not kill' to wage war at God's bidding, or for the representatives of the State's authority to put criminals to death, according to law or the rule of rational justice.

Capital punishment is like suicide

This argument is that the criminal, by choosing to commit a particular crime has also chosen to surrender his life to the state if caught.

Even when there is question of the execution of a condemned man, the State does not dispose of the individual's right to life. In this case it is reserved to the public power to deprive the condemned person of the enjoyment of life in expiation of his crime when, by his crime, he has already dispossessed himself of his right to life.

Against the death penalty

Only God should create and destroy life

This argument is used to oppose abortion and euthanasia as well.

Many Christians believe that God commanded "Thou shalt not kill" (Exodus 21:13), and that this is a clear instruction with no exceptions.

St. Augustine didn't agree, and wrote in The City of God:

The same divine law which forbids the killing of a human being allows certain exceptions, as when God authorizes killing by a general law or when He gives an explicit commission to an individual for a limited time.

Since the agent of authority is but a sword in the hand, and is not responsible for the killing, it is in no way contrary to the commandment, "Thou shalt not kill" to wage war at God's bidding, or for the representatives of the State's authority to put criminals to death, according to law or the rule of rational justice.

But a modern Franciscan writer says there should be no exceptions to "thou shalt not kill".

In light of the word of God, and thus of faith, life--all human life--is sacred and untouchable. No matter how heinous the crimes ... [the criminal] does not lose his fundamental right to life, for it is primordial, inviolable, and inalienable, and thus comes under the power of no one whatsoever.

The Bible teaching is inconsistent

The Bible speaks in favour of the death penalty for murder. But it also prescribes it for 35 other crimes that we no longer regard as deserving the death penalty. In order to be consistent, humanity should remove the death penalty for murder.

Secondly, modern society has alternative punishments available which were not used in Biblical times, and these make the death penalty unnecessary.

Christianity is based on forgiveness and compassion

Capital punishment is incompatible with a teaching that emphasises forgiveness and compassion.

Capital punishment is biased against the poor

Some Christians argue that in many countries the imposition of the death penalty is biased against the poor. Since Christian teaching is to support the poor, Christians should not support the death penalty.

Abolition is in line with support for life

Capital punishment is inconsistent with the general Christian stand that life should always be supported. This stand is most often taught in issues such as abortion and euthanasia, but consistency requires Christians to apply it across the board.

Catholic Church

The Catholic Church and capital punishment

Throughout the first half of the twentieth century the consensus amongst Catholic theologians remained in favour of capital punishment in those cases deemed suitably extreme. Until 1969, the Vatican had a penal code that included the death penalty for anyone who attempted to assassinate the Pope.

However, by the end of this century opinions were changing. In 1980, the National Conference of Catholic Bishops published an almost entirely negative statement on capital punishment, approved by a majority vote of those present, though not by the required two-thirds majority of the entire conference.

In 1997 the Vatican announced changes to the Catechism, thus making it more in line with John Paul II's 1995 encyclical The Gospel of Life. The amendments include the following statement concerning capital punishment:

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 offence 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 rare, if not practically non-existent.