Repeal the Death Penalty

Details: 17 May 2013

Earlier this week, the Nebraska Legislature debated LB 543, a bill that proposes to replace the death penalty with life in prison without the possibility of parole. Although it appears that a majority of senators support LB 543, there were not enough votes to stop a filibuster of the bill. Twenty-eight senators voted for cloture (i.e. to stop the filibuster) but 33 are needed. This means LB 543 will likely see no further action.

Unlike abortion and euthanasia, the death penalty is not an intrinsic evil (i.e. never morally permissible) and is not a primary focus of the Bishops’ Pastoral Plan for Pro Life Activities. Nonetheless, the Pastoral Plan does address the death penalty and encourages support for public policy efforts to end it.

The Catholic Church has never taught that the death penalty is an intrinsic evil; She recognizes that its use can be morally legitimate if necessary to protect society from an unjust aggressor. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (#2265-#2267) acknowledges this:

"Legitimate defense can be not only a right but a grave duty for one who is responsible for the lives of others. The defense of the common good requires that an unjust aggressor be rendered unable to cause harm. For this reason, those who legitimately hold authority also have the right to use arms to repel aggressors against the civil community entrusted to their responsibility." (#2265)

"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." (#2267)

In 1995, Blessed Pope John Paul II wrote one of his most important encyclicals entitled Evangelium Vitae (The Gospel of Life) in which he focuses primarily on the intrinsic evils of abortion and euthanasia. However, Blessed John Paul also mentioned something so important on the death penalty (EV #56) that section 2267 of the Catechism was amended (as follows) to reflect the Pope’s teaching:

"Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an offense 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 very rare, if not practically non-existent.’"

It is conceivable that there are less-developed countries that could morally impose the death penalty because of the inability to otherwise protect society from unjust aggressors through a secure penal system. This is pretty clearly not the case in our country and state. Hence, the moral legitimacy for the death penalty in Nebraska is, in Pope John Paul II’s words, "practically non-existent."

In the Pastoral Plan for Pro Life Activities, the Bishops conclude their section on the death penalty as follows: "Executing the guilty does not honor one who was killed, nor does it ennoble the living or even lessen their pain, for only love and forgiveness can do that. State-sanctioned killing affects us all because it diminishes the value we place on all human life. Capital punishment also cuts short the guilty person’s opportunity for spiritual conversion and repentance.

"The consequences of widespread loss of respect for the dignity of human life—seen in pervasive violence, toleration of abortion, and increasingly vocal support for assisted suicide and research that destroys human embryos—make it all the more urgent to reject lethal punishment and uphold the inviolability of every human life. ‘Our witness to respect for life shines most brightly when we demand respect for each and every human life, including the lives of those who fail to show that respect for others’ (Living the Gospel of Life, no. 22).

"Thus we are called to extend God’s love to all human beings created in his image, including those convicted of serious crimes. In so doing, we can help to make ‘unconditional respect for life the foundation of a new society’ (The Gospel of Life, no. 77)."

You can contact Greg at The Nebraska Catholic Conference, 215 Centennial Mall South Suite 310, Lincoln, NE 68508; This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.