As the Register has reported, Pope Francis’s recent request for a reformulation of the catechism’s language on the death penalty (as relayed in the official CDF letter, which can be read here) has met with both cheers and concern among faithful Catholics. While theologians and philosophers debate the proposed change and its implications for understanding the Church’s development of doctrine, a certain amount of confusion has arisen among ordinary lay Catholics due to the language used in the letter. The key paragraph (#2) gives three reasons for revising the Church’s standard language on the death penalty.
If, in fact, the political and social situation of the past made the death penalty an acceptable means for the protection of the common good, today [1] the increasing understanding that the dignity of a person is not lost even after committing the most serious crimes, [2] the deepened understanding of the significance of penal sanctions applied by the State, and [3] the development of more efficacious detention systems that guarantee the due protection of citizens have given rise to a new awareness that recognizes the inadmissibility of the death penalty and, therefore, calling for its abolition.
The third reason is one that applies to modern states (if not, perhaps, to some third world countries), and constitutes a simple reiteration of an argument made by many Catholics, including notably Pope John Paul II — namely, that modern prisons being more or less break-proof and humane, the common good is equally protected by the incarceration of criminals as by their execution. This is a prudential judgment—a claim that the death penalty is not necessary, rather than that it is absolutely wrong—and as such is readily aligned with previous generations of Catholic teaching.
The first reason is more complicated. The wording—“the dignity of a person is not lost even after committing the most serious crimes”—presumes (a) that the death penalty necessarily is more contrary to human dignity than life imprisonment and (b) that there is only one sense of human dignity. It is largely on these two points that theologians and philosophers have their debates; and as I am only an amateur on this topic, I will not venture into that minefield.
The second reason, however, is a matter of history; and here I have something to suggest. The CDF letter says that today we have gained a “deepened understanding of the significance of penal sanctions applied by the State.” The words are vague. One plausible reading is that we now realize (based on new psychological studies, etc.) that penalties such as life in prison are in fact appropriate and sufficient responses to crimes such as murder, while the penalty of execution is excessively cruel. (Of course, what constitutes the appropriateness of a punishment is another question—one to which, again, the professional philosophers and theologians are welcome.)
There is, however, another sense in which the modern mind has gained a new notion of the state’s penal sanctions; and it has to do with our understanding of the nature of the state.
5 comments:
I posted this comment over at the Register as well, but I thought I'd put it here too:
Sophia, thank you for this helpful and perceptive article.
I think you're on to something in terms of connecting the change in our understanding of the nature of penal sanctions to the secularization of western culture. I also suspect that that is partly what is behind the vague references to those changes in the CDF document.
I would add that I don't think the change here needs to reflect, necessarily, any change in the Church's fundamental moral philosophy of government or penal sanctions. It may be that God has given the state authority to exact retributive punishment, and that there may even be times when death may be the proper way of exacting it. I don't think the CDF document forecloses on this possibility. But the secularization of our world does make a big difference as to how we should think of penal sanctions, not because our fundamental moral philosophy has changed but because that philosophy ought to be applied differently in a secular society. In the Middle Ages, if a person was executed, it would have been understood all around what that meant - the state, as an agent of God, is exacting retribution according to God's objective moral standard of justice. In our secular societies today, however, the DP would not ordinarily or by most be understood in that way, but would be understood and justifeed in other, secular ways. And these secular ways of justifying the DP may very well be violations of human dignity in various ways. If that is the case, then it would be immoral today for those societies to have the DP. It might be immoral for secular societies to attempt anything like "retribution" in general, because they don't have the ideology in place necessary for that. Such a situation would entail a change in our understanding of the nature of penal sanctions without implying a fundamental theological shift.
This would be similar in many ways to the issue of religious freedom. The requirement to have liberty of conscience in the state may look very different between, say, a Catholic medieval society on the one hand, and a modern pluralistic secular state on the other. I think that is part of what was behind Dignitatis Humanae and why the Church has such a different emphasis regarding religious liberty than she did in earlier ages.
Anyway, I do think that something like this is at least likely to be partly behind the "change in penal sanctions" language in the CDF document. Thank you for calling attention to that.
This argument does not seem open to a Catholic as it is quite clear that St Paul and Our Lord both ascribe divine origin to political authority under the pagan Roman Empire.
Mark, sorry I didn't see this earlier--I rarely get comments on this blog!
It is likely I will do a follow-up post at some point, probably at the Register, to delve further into this. But I don't know when that will be, so for now …
I think you may be right to question whether retribution is moral for modern, secular societies. I am not sure--and I take it from your wording, neither are you--but certainly this much is true: One would have to be very careful and detailed in explaining just how a secular official, understanding his job in an entirely secular way, elected or appointed by people with an almost wholly secular viewpoint, comes by a divine power!
I will note, however, that as the comment below and several of those on the Register post observed, a position like the one you are leaning towards needs to be squared with Scripture. I think it can be; but how is another question (hence, hopefully, another post).
Stranger, you are correct that Our Lord and St. Paul speak of secular human power as having divine origin. I think, however, the attribution of divine power to secular authority is more complicated than it appears at first. One speaks, for example, of lightening having power, and that power comes from God, and sometimes God does use it to do his will (cf. St. Paul's conversion!). But it does not follow that lightening is "just", always, or even when it does good things. In the same way, might it not be that secular rulers have power that comes from God, and sometimes use it in ways that turn out well, but are nonetheless not authorized by God to use it? Sort of like how God permits evil that greater good may come of it?
Sophia, in case you are interested, I've written up some thoughts on this subject now. I discuss further (among other things) how secularism in government might impact the legitimacy of the application of the death penalty and how that might relate to the new teaching. I've written about this here:
https://freethoughtforchrist.blogspot.com/2018/08/the-death-penalty-in-catholic-teaching.html
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