Archbishop Charles Chaput
Even when a defendant is well defended, properly tried and justly found guilty, experience shows that capital punishment simply doesn’t work as a deterrent. Nor does it heal or redress any wounds, because only forgiveness can do that. It does succeed though in answering violence with violence — a violence wrapped in the piety of state approval, which implicates all of us as citizens in the taking of more lives.
Turning away from capital punishment does not diminish our support for the families of murder victims. They bear a terrible burden of grief, and they rightly demand justice. Real murderers deserve punishment; but even properly tried and justly convicted murderers — men and women who are found guilty of heinous crimes — retain their God-given dignity as human beings. When we take a murderer’s life we only add to the violence in an already violent culture, and we demean our own dignity in the process.
Both Scripture and Catholic tradition support the legitimacy of the death penalty under certain limited conditions. But the Church has repeatedly called us to a higher road over the past five decades. We don’t need to kill people to protect society or punish the guilty. And we should never be eager to take anyone’s life. As a result, except in the most extreme circumstances, capital punishment cannot be justified. In developed countries like our own, it should have no place in our public life.
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Last month here in Pennsylvania, execution warrants were signed for four men. A judge stayed one of the execution warrants, but the three remaining warrants could potentially result in the first execution in our state in 13 years. One of the cases in which appeals seem to be exhausted involves Terrance Williams.
In October, Williams is scheduled to die by lethal injection for the murder of Amos Norwood in 1984, a crime committed when he was 18 and a college freshman. Williams is indisputably guilty of the crime. He’s also mentally competent. His defense attorneys argue that he was repeatedly sexually abused as a youth, including five years of abuse at the hands of the man he murdered, and that this helped motivate his violence. The state counters that all of Williams’ claims — including claims of sexual abuse — have had proper judicial review and been rejected.
Terrance Williams deserves punishment. No one disputes that. But he doesn’t need to die to satisfy justice. We should think very carefully in the coming days about the kind of justice we want to witness to our young people.
Most American Catholics, like many of their fellow citizens, support the death penalty. That doesn’t make it right. But it does ensure that the wrong-headed lesson of violence “fixing” the violent among us will be taught to another generation.
As children of God, we’re better than this, and we need to start acting like it. We need to end the death penalty now.
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The Archbishop strongly encourages readers to contact the Pennsylvania Board of Pardons, urging them to recommend commutation of Williams’ sentence to life in prison. Please also contact the Office of the Governor and urge the Governor to accept a clemency recommendation from the board, or, in its absence, to order a temporary reprieve. Use the Catholic Advocacy Network at www.pacatholic.org to send an email to the Board of Pardons and the Governor. Or call or write them at:
Pennsylvania Board of Pardons, 333 Market Street, 15th Floor, Harrisburg, PA 17126; phone: 717.787.2596.
The Honorable Tom Corbett, Governor of Pennsylvania, The Capitol, Harrisburg, PA 17120; phone: 717.787.2500.
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Excellency,
As a poor sinner trying to live as a good Catholic, I respectfully have problems with your statements against the death penalty. Murder recidivism rate in the USA is extremely high. As a police officer of 25 years, I ask, what is to stop the murderer from killing again, even with a life sentence???? Both the Correction Officers and other prisoners will always be targets. What are you going to do, give the bad guy/girl a 2nd life sentence???? And how about serial killers that have become all too common??? Should not they pay???
If you don’t find a cause/effect relationship between the death penalty and lower murder rates, it’s probably because of the 15-20 years of appeals that each prisoner gets. Swift, certain, and PUBLIC executions would make the need for them that much less. Evil needs to be beaten both on one’s knees, but also while carrying a very big and loud stick. When our country was founded, there were 70+ capital offenses on the books and all executions were in public. Now obviously I’m not advocating returning to the 1700’s, but for serial killers, kidnap/rapists/pedophile/ Terrorists, public trail & punishment would be a positive.
Respectfully, in Jesus;
RJO
As a former medical examiner I have some insight into pain that of survivor families and a great deal of outrage at murderers, especially of the calculated, serial variety. Believe me when I tell you I would cheerfully pull the switch (or give the injection) for execution. Which is exactly why it ought not happen, because my desires are themselves the disordered desire for revenge. This issue was the hardest for me to come to grips with when I came into the church for very intense and personal reasons. But Archbishop Chaput is right and I ask for the grace to embrace withmy heart that which my intellect tells me is in fact an expression of the hardest and therefor the most Christ-like, love. In the long run, our actions are not to be about saving lives or supporting political parties somuch as to be witness to Christ.
This is as bad as the Groeschel bombshell.
The archbishop is not only wrong about detterence…he’s simplistic about it. God gave it over thirty times in the Bible in order to deter but our hierarchy are above God. Acts 5 after the first Pope cooperated with God in the killing of a couple…ends by saying ” the whole community took fear”. But our Bishops contradict scripture with ease.
But with our legal industry making appeals in the US last ten years ( 20 in California), then in that situation, deterrence is hurt. Guatemala has a death penalty that does not deter. Why? Their arrest rate for murder is 3%. Long appeals, low arrest rates diminish the deterrence of any punishment. But Japan is safer than virtually every Catholic country on earth and has the death penalty ( 4 executed in early summer).
Catholic hierarchy are trying to make the Inquisition disappear and fighting the death penalty verbally actually works in that goal because most Catholics are not great readers of history.
In the first half of the 19th century, Bugatti, the papal executioner executed 500 criminals in the papal states. Suddenly after Europe went against the death penalty, Catholicism followed… hoping to impress de Christianized Europe and therefore talk Europe out of abortion by impressing them on the death penalty.
The question the Bishop needs to answer is this.
Is the death penalty for murder justified in retribution for the crime of murder, or any other of commensurate gravity?
If it is, then the criminal suffers no injustice in being put to death. The matter then moves on to a discussion of the case for clemency.
If it is not, then the execution of the criminal must be assimilated to murder, which would render both the traditional teaching of the Church, and her new teaching as set forth in the Catechism, incorrect.
Thank you, Your Excellency, for this reflection. I am a traditional, pro-life Catholic who is also opposed to the death penalty. Yet, most of my friends and family are wholesale supporters of it even though the Church has has recently taught otherwise. I really appreciate this clear statement of Church teaching.
Capital punishment has nothing to do with deterrence nor retribution nor forgiveness. It is justice. This reminds me of those who say an all loving God surely wouldn’t condemn someone to hell for eternity. An all loving God is also an all just God, and Justice demands it. The modern Church today has embraced humanism. Nowhere is this more evident than when they changed the Mass so the priest now faces the people vs facing God. This pretty much sums it all up.
I greatly admire this Archbishop for his unapologetic defense of Catholic doctrine and faith. I have disagreed with him twice. The first was his support of the Dream Act, which undercuts federal law and increases the liklihood of national insolvency and disintegration and this position of the death penalty.
Many modern Catholics believe that history, especially enlightened history began with our age simply because we happen to be alive in it. As the Archbishop correctly states: “Both Scripture and Catholic Tradition support the death penalty under certain limited circumstances.” The last part of that sentence was overly apologetic for a legitimate point and truth. He might also have added that canon law also supports it. The late Cardinal Dulles provided a lengthy scriptural and traditional defense of the death penaly.
Much of modern opposition to capital punishment came, I believe, from John Paul II who lived under Nazi occupation followed swiftly by Soviet, communist domination. Both these systems used the death penalty whimsically, capriciously, arbitrarily and unjustly. Under those cicumstances, I too am opposed to the death penalty.
I am not, however, opposed to just imposition of the death penalty. Ted Bundy actually escaped from a prison, ran to Florida, and murdered some more. He was justly and morally executed in my view. You may disagree with me but you can’t tell me that I am not a faithful Catholic for holding that view. Again, Scripture and Tradition simply does not support abolition of capital punishment, like it or not.
I do not take disagreeing with Archbishop Chaput lightly. While I agree the use of it should be extremely rare, I do believe we owe it to law enforcement and the victims of kidnap to exhaust every tool possible to prevent their deaths in the line of duty. If the law officer in the field or the detention center can say to one who could kill them, don’t do it or you face execution, they should have that opportunity and we owe it to law enforcement to protect them as much as possible.
What I struggle with is whether life imprisonment isn’t more degrading (or potentially so) than execution. Further, if contemporary, technologically advanced societies DO possess the resources to render “one who has committed an offense incapable of doing harm – without definitely taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself”, one may presume those resources, however vast, to be limited. At what point are the resources used to house, feed, and provide medical care to people serving life sentences disproportionate to the state’s actual moral obligations to those same people?
My question is how do you reconcile such a statement with earlier church teachings on the reason the death penalty was permitted? As I understand it, the death penalty is permitted because in many ways it is a mercy, as it forces the person facing it to confront his mortality and possibly find his way to God.
As Saint Paul states in 1 Cor. 5:5
“you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.”
I do not agree with putting people to death out of blood lust or vengeance. However, Psalm 90 also requests that God “Teach us to number our days, that we might gain a heart of wisdom”, and who better numbers their days than the man or woman who faces death directly?
All of us must die sometime. The death penalty is just if the murderer is guilty and not sorry. It is better than spending millions keeping aman in prison while other die because they have no food or health care! Or because they are aborted!
Abp. Chaput is deaf. Doesn’t he hears the cries of the blood of murder victims!
As a Catholic Navy veteran, I do not automatically accept the opinion of AB Chaput. He states himself that the protection of society is one reason that the state can take a life. Obviously time of war would be one example. Our society is deteriorating and the good archbishop may be right and he may be wrong. It should be obvious that AB Chaput would be classified as a “bleeding heart”. There is also no doubt that he is a socialist and just as obviously in favor of the redistribution of wealth through his recent actions in regard to the Catholic School System and its supposed privatization. Again with these issues as well, he may be right and he may be wrong. He is among many bishops who are against capitalist Romney and why the bishops support the socialist Obama and look the other way in regard to his support for abortion.
I agree that in most cases, even with many murder cases the death penalty may not be the answer. However, I’ve been studying about gangs, their development and history and many of the most violent gangs are operated from within prisons by gang leaders who commit subsequent crimes even murders within prison. These leaders are able to communicate and organize their gangs even give orders for more violence all from within their maximum security cells with relative impunity. Maybe these are the extreme cases for which the death penalty should be reserved for.
Death only begets more death.
Thank you Archbishop for standing up for Catholic doctrine; you continue to be an inspiration.
Dudley Sharp, I suggest you use Scripture and the Catechism as references instead of a blog. Kozaburo, your quickness to lump shame on those that disagree with you isn’t in the Catholic tradition, no matter what country you’re from.
Google Dudley. You will see that he does nothing but posts/pastes the same words and links over and over again.
Dudley Sharp is a sick excuse for a human being.
“Turning away from capital punishment does not diminish our support for the families of murder victims. ” Yes it does, and this family member of a Philly murder victim is glad that Philly has a strong Ukrainian Catholic Church, because after Chaput’s statement I’ll never go to an Archdiocesan church again. Shame on Chaput!
bold statement mr kozaburo, but why don’t you read what the catechism says on this topic before you lash out at archbishop chaput
I want to give my own opinion about this case. I do not want this man to be
executed . Death Penalty does not solve anything but it is only Death again.
If Jesus Christ came to this world would forgive this man… I want my signa
ture to be added with other signatures in order to help to save Terrance’s
life
Archbishop Chaput,
Thank you for speaking to this issue as directly and as eloquently as you have done. It is important for American Catholics to remember that being pro-life doesn’t stop at the maternity ward. Also, just because a punishment may fit a crime, it doesn’t mean that punishment is a positive or morally-correct choice for a community to impose.
You have, however, left a question: you indicate in your writing that, “except in the most extreme circumstances, capital punishment cannot be justified.” To what extreme circumstances do you refer?
the extreme circumstance would be in the case of a violent criminal being caught, and jail not being adequate enough to protect the innocent ie he can break out easily.
The gov’t has a responsibility to protect the innocent, so the death penalty would be the only way to do it in this case of an inadequate jail system. In the USA this is not the case.
I agree with the specifics of the Terrance Williams case. He is no apparent threat to society, and our prisons can keep others safe from him.
I disagree that the death penalty should be totally eliminated. As I understand from news reports, there are prisoners in the SuperMax prisons in California and elsewhere who can order the death of innocent people from prison. This is exactly the situation where the death is permitted in Church teaching. It seems to me that there are certain criminals who, no matter how far removed they are from society, can still cause harm. The death penalty is for them, and no one else.
Archbishop Chaput is defending a position taken by the Democratic party. This is unusual in that in the past the Catholic Church always defended positions taken by the Republican party. I suspect that Cardinal Dolan has had some influence on his brother Bishops in that he is trying to make the Catholic Church more balanced in its political perspective. The reality is that neither party completely embraces Catholic doctrine.
Robert, Why the need to politicize the Archbishop’s words? The positions of the political parties are irrelevant. The Archbishop is simply reiterating the same position offered by many other bishops and popes before him, which is also found in the Catechism. One need not read into it some sort of secret political motives. It’s just good Catholic moral theology at work.
The Church has never been partisan and cannot be lumped into a political party. In terms of social justice, the Church has been a foil to the Republicans, and when it comes to pro-life advocacy, she frustrates the Democrats. The Church’s moral teaching is bigger and more complete and always more consistent than partisan politics.
Thank you, Archbishop Chaput. I’ll be sharing this.
I think it is more important to think of issues such as abortion, the death penalty, etc. not as partisan issues than to think about them in terms of the way the majority of any political parties tend to vote on or at least look at each issue. You are right that neither party completely embraces Catholic doctrine, though it is not hard to come by Catholics who would beg to differ because of the fact that these important issues have become polarized. Regardless of which political party usually backs abortion, the death penalty, etc., these issues still must be addressed even if doing so results in criticism.
Of course the death penalty deters.
All prospects of a negative outcome deter some. It is a truism.]]
THE DEATH PENALTY: SAVING MORE INNOCENT LIVES
Of all endeavors that put innocents at risk, is there one with a better record of sparing innocent lives than the US death penalty? Unlikely.
1) The Death Penalty: Saving More Innocent Lives
http://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2012/03/death-penalty-saving-more-innocent.html
2) Innocents More At Risk Without Death Penalty
http://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2012/03/innocents-more-at-risk-without-death.html
And Dudley Sharp raises his ugly head.
Please Dudley. Get pancreatic cancer.