"If no crime deserves the death penalty, then it is hard to see why it was fitting that Christ be put to death for our sins and crucified among thieves. St. Thomas Aquinas quotes a gloss of St. Jerome on Matthew 27: ‘As Christ became accursed of the cross for us, for our salvation He was crucified as a guilty one among the guilty.’ That Christ be put to death as a guilty person, presupposes that death is a fitting punishment for those who are guilty."Prof. Michael Pakaluk, The Death Penalty: An Opposing Viewpoints Series Book, Greenhaven Press, (hereafter TDP:OVS), 1991
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"If no crime deserves the death penalty, then
it is hard to see why it was fitting that Christ be put to death for our sins
and crucified among thieves. St. Thomas Aquinas quotes a gloss of St. Jerome on
Matthew 27: ‘As Christ became accursed of the cross for us, for our salvation
He was crucified as a guilty one among the guilty.’ That Christ be put to death
as a guilty person, presupposes that death is a fitting punishment for those
who are guilty."
Prof. Michael Pakaluk, The Death Penalty: An
Opposing Viewpoints Series Book, Greenhaven Press, (hereafter TDP:OVS), 1991
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Capital
Punishment and the Sex Abuse Crisis
Many sense
that the hierarchy’s rejection of capital punishment and their complacency
about clergy sexual abuse are not unconnected. What I want to say on the matter
falls under three headings: separation; vengeance; and protection. All of these
serve to distinguish justice, which the Church should uphold, from mere
“regulatory compliance,” which seems the main thing on offer right now from our
bishops.
First,
separation. There is a fundamental connection between punishment and
separation from the community in which one committed a crime. Children who
misbehave at table are sent to their rooms. Dishonest lawyers are disbarred.
Someone who commits a mortal sin loses friendship with God and must be
“reconciled” to return to the communion of the saints.
Likewise a
criminal, by the very act of committing a capital crime, separates himself
decisively from society. The sentences of exile and life imprisonment are
public judgments which are understood to confirm that separation. Capital
punishment is the extreme instance of separation.
It follows
that it always remains a possibility that capital punishment be prudentially
justified, namely, when society wishes to express and confirm its abhorrence
for certain crimes, by the definitive separation of the criminal from society.
A clear example would be the execution of the Nuremberg war criminals. These
criminals were not merely executed, but also their mortal remains were cremated
and the ashes scattered. Why? So that they would in no sense continue to abide
as a presence in society. Today many communities reasonably want to separate
serial murderers from themselves in the same way.
Thus, an
attitude which absolutely opposes the death penalty, in all circumstances, must
be an attitude which downplays or even rejects the aspect of separation, so
fundamental to punishment. From that point of view even imprisonment, as
it is a separation, can appear suspect. For instance, Pope Francis, in his 2015
letter to the President of the International Commission against
the Death Penalty, writing as pope and not as a private theologian,
condemned as “unacceptable” not merely the death penalty but also lengthy
prison sentences. Separation, he contended, ought never be definitive, and
lengthy prison sentences “may be considered hidden death sentences, because
with them the guilty party is not only deprived of his/her freedom, but
insidiously deprived of hope.”
So then, what
happens when a bishop who denies that punishment of itself implies separation,
and is grieved by the very thought of definitive separation, is confronted with
cases of clergy sexual crimes?
In the pages
of the Pennsylvania grand jury report, one sees repeated instances of bishops
unwilling to separate offending priests from priestly ministry. When Donald
Wuerl celebrated the funeral mass of one of the accused men, he remarked to the
press, “A priest is a priest. Once he is ordained, he is a priest forever.”
This is true, but there seems a structural similarity between the idea that, on
account of his priestly dignity, we cannot separate a priest definitively from
ministry, and the idea that, on account of his human dignity, we cannot
separate the criminal definitively from society. This reluctance to separate
offending priests has often been blamed on a “clubbish” mentality and more
recently on “clericalism.” But could it in fact stem from a lack of a sense of
justice? As a Catholic father, I say without hesitation that a priest who, for
instance, goes into the room of a young man in the middle of the night to start
stroking the young man’s penis (as described in the Pennsylvania report) should
be defrocked.
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"If
a man is a danger to the community, threatening it with disintegration by some
wrongdoing of his, then his execution for the healing and preservation of the
common good is to be commended. Only the public authority, not private
persons, may licitly execute malefactors by public judgment. Men shall be
sentenced to death for crimes of irreparable harm or which are particularly
perverted."
St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, 11; 65-2; 66-6.
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Second, vengeance.
As St. Thomas observes—merely summarizing two millennia of
human wisdom—vengeance, the habit of soul by which we earnestly wish that
offenders receive due punishment, is a virtue, not a vice. No one can genuinely
possess the cardinal virtue of justice if he lacks the minor, though essential,
virtue of vengeance. But is vengeance contrary to gospel meekness?
The good bear with the wicked by enduring patiently, and in due manner, the wrongs they themselves receive from them: but they do not bear with them as to endure the wrongs which the wicked inflict on God and their neighbor. For Chrysostom says: “It is praiseworthy to be patient under our own wrongs, but to overlook God’s wrongs is most wicked.”
To apply this
to the case at hand: It would be wicked for a bishop to “endure patiently” a
priest who goes into a young man’s room at night to stroke his member.
Vengeance is
the habit of earnestly wishing for and willing due punishment. It follows that
anyone who regards punishment as solely remedial, by the nature of the case,
cannot have this virtue. Such a person will indeed appear complacent and
passive in the face of grave wrongdoing, because vengeance stirs up anger and
incites to action. Our hierarchy has evidently been complacent before evil.
But what is
the connection between vengeance and capital punishment? In theory, it would be
possible for someone to reject the death penalty without rejecting retribution
as the basis of punishment. But in practice, opponents of the death penalty
also reject retributive justice, presumably because they recognize the
immediate fittingness of punishing murder with death, affirmed indeed by God at
the beginning of the Bible (Gen 9:6), and wish to neutralize that motive.
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Pope Francis,
in the previously cited letter, even seems to regard retribution as
nonsensical: “When the death penalty is applied, people are killed not for
current acts of aggression, but for offences committed in the past. Moreover,
it is applied to people whose capacity to cause harm is not current, but has
already been neutralized, and who are deprived of their freedom.” Apparently,
that a punishment should be meted out in order to match an accomplished crime
is itself an argument against such punishment. Obviously, punishment is
retrospective, administered for crimes committed in the past—otherwise,
murderers who have no reason for killing anyone beside their past victim ought
to be released.
Third, protection.
Vengeance takes on a combative aspect and is a noticeable trait in a strong
father, who, precisely because he loves his child, cannot tolerate wrongdoing
in him, as Scripture repeatedly says (Proverbs 3:12, 13:24, Job 5:17-18,
Hebrews 12:6). But this makes strong fathers also strong protectors. It is
obvious that our bishops have failed to be strong fathers in the face of sexual
unchastity. They have combated neither unchastity in priests, nor unchastity in
their congregations, nor, for the most part, unchastity in our culture.
“Children are
a precious gift from God,” says Cardinal Wuerl on his “Wuerl Report” website
(since taken down). Ah, “the children”! But as Anthony Esolen does not tire of saying, so is that woman
who is the object of predation by the young men in a priest’s congregation, and
the troubled young person who is afflicted with gay propaganda, and the husband
and wife who have given themselves over to non-procreative acts. All of these
need the “combative” love of a genuine father in their priest and bishop.
The tradition
says that the death penalty may sometimes be necessary to defend society
against the aggressor, and in such cases the state may even have a duty to use
it. It is a gross mistake to take this to mean merely that the death penalty is
licit only when necessary to keep a murderer from committing further crimes
(with the added thought: and of course we have prisons now to do that).
It is likewise a mistake, though not so crude, to say that the penalty plays
the role of a psychological “deterrent,” as if it were no more than a heavy
fine, the most severe dissuasion.
No, what is
meant is rather that the framework of law as applying proportionate punishment
defends society, and that, given this framework, something proportionate to
death must be promised for capital crimes. The homeowner’s gun may protect him
against a night intruder. If he lacks a gun, the promise that the police will
soon arrive can play the same role. If the police cannot get there in time, the
framework of law plays a comparable role. The promise of proportionate
retribution is essential to this order: Be assured that it will be done to you,
as you wish to do to others.
We can expect
that any bishop who, from his stance against the death penalty, has fully
embraced the attitude that punishment is never retributive, but only deterrent,
will fail to protect his flock by appropriately punishing offenders. He will
misapply the standard of proof for criminality, moving it from past to future
crimes: “Indeed, Fr. N. did, beyond a shadow of a doubt, fondle the genitals of
that young man, but, unless it can be shown beyond a shadow of a doubt that he
will do something like that in the future (and the experts won’t say this
much), then he should not be punished.”
Retributive
punishment presupposes rather than denies the dignity of the persons involved.
In contrast, the purely “remedial” concept of justice, like the legal concepts
of training and compliance, involves no more than thinking of others
instrumentally. But seeing the dignity of others presupposes that we understand
our own dignity. We know that some of the hierarchy lacked seriousness about
sexual unchastity in others, because they were not serious about it in
themselves. Such men may not believe in retribution, but unless they repent in
their hearts they will learn of it at the hands of God.
Michael
Pakaluk is professor of ethics at the Catholic University of America.
INTERNET SOURCE: https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2018/08/capital-punishment-and-the-sex-abuse-crisis
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