· Did Pope John Paul make a mistake in his encyclical letter, Evangelium Vitae?

By Father Robert Ellis
GUEST COLUMNIST, Washington

Much questioning is going on these days about the death penalty, ever since Pope John Paul came out so strongly against it in his 1995 encyclical Evangelium Vitae. The U.S. Catholic bishops must have been told to support Pope John Paul on this, for they have been doing so, faithfully, even though polls before Evangelium Vitae showed that 80 percent of Catholics in the U.S. (including bishops) approved of capital punishment for exceptionally serious crimes. This opinion reflects the traditional Catholic teaching on capital punishment, which has been carefully developed over the centuries since the time of Christ, by outstanding theologians and Doctors of the Church, such as Sts. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas and others.

In Evangelium Vitae, Pope John Paul recognized the legitimacy of the Church's traditional teaching, but said he thought: (1) "Improvements in the organization of prisons" and (2) "A shift in popular thinking, both within and outside the Church, against the death sentence," justified him saying:


“The nature and extent of punishment…ought not go to the extreme of executing the offender, except in cases of absolute necessity: in other words, when it would not be possible, otherwise, to defend society.”


He admitted, however, that such cases of absolute necessity arc “so rare as to be practically nonexistent.”

For the 20 percent of U.S. Catholics who were already against capital punishment, this novel teaching was welcome. But for the other 80 percent, it was a source of confusion. Well-educated Catholics take comfort in the fact that Pope John Paul recognized the legitimacy of the Church's traditional teaching and did not intend to condemn capital punishment entirely. Less-sophisticated Catholics are simply confused and torn between loyalty to the Church's traditional teaching and loyalty to the Pope. The effects of this controversy are not entirely confined to the Church, either, for some bishops are trying to change state laws that now approve capital punishment.


The Pope’s Intentions

It is a very, very sensitive thing for loyal Catholics to question the Pope's teaching or even to suggest he might have made a mistake somewhere. Nevertheless, there seems to be a good reason to believe that our aging and ailing Pontiff did overlook a subtle but important distinction in dealing with what he called, “the problem of the death sentence,” in Evangelium Vitae.

His praiseworthy purpose in writing the encyclical was to proclaim and defend the value of human life, including the lives of condemned criminals. On more than one occasion since Evangelium Vitae, however, Pope John Paul has remarked that he thinks civil authorities use their right to impose the death sentence too frequently, and he would like to see them restrict it to rare occasions. That, essentially, seems to be what he had in mind when he said in Evangelium Vitae:


“The nature and extent of punishment…ought not go to the extreme of executing the offender, except in cases of absolute necessity: in other words, when it would not be possible, otherwise, to defend society.”


The trouble with this statement is that to simply say, “The nature and extent of punishment…ought not go to the extreme of executing the offender” is, without any qualifying exception, a total prohibition of capital punishment and, therefore, contrary to the Church’s traditional teaching on capital punishment. To avoid this error, Pope John Paul added what he intended to be a “saving” exception, namely, “except in cases of absolute necessity,” which he explains to mean, “In other words, when it would not be possible, otherwise, to defend society.” But the trouble with this “saving” exception is that it fails to save, because defensive killing is not an act of punishment at all, as Pope John Paul mistakenly assumed. Capital punishment and defensive killing are two entirely different things.

In capital punishment, a man is killed as a serious offender for past crimes. In defensive killing (“to defend society”), he is killed as a dangerous threat to prevent future crimes. No one can be punished in advance for future crimes not yet committed. If you kill someone in self (or communal) defense, you are not punishing him for anything he has done, but defending yourself from what he will do. Defensive killing is not an act of punishment at all, but a radical defense. That leaves Pope John Paul’s total prohibition of capital punishment—as embarrassing as it sounds—a total prohibition without any “saving” exception and contrary to Church teaching.

To see this more clearly, we might compare Pope John Paul’s total prohibition of capital punishment with a doctor forbidding his patient to eat apples, but allowing him in case of absolute necessity to eat oranges instead. Oranges, of course, are not apples, so the doctor’s permission to eat oranges in no way changes his total prohibition against apples. Unfortunately, the same is true of Pope John Paul’s prohibition against capital punishment. His permission to perform defensive killing (“to defend society”) in case of absolute necessity in no way changes his total prohibition against capital punishment. An ailing old man simply made the mistake of confusing defensive killing (“to defend society”) with capital punishment, as if defensive killing were a form of punishment.



Infallibility


This naturally raises the question of infallibility, which is an even more sensitive issue for loyal Catholics. Can the Pope make a mistake? The Church needs an infallible teaching authority (Magisterium) to guarantee right doctrine, and Christ established and guarantees this necessary authority in His Church. First, in the pope and bishops acting together in ecumenical councils. And, second, in the pope alone, outside of councils when necessary.

There are, however, two levels of teaching authority in the Church. First is the Ordinary Magisterium, which is presumed to be true teaching and, therefore, presumed to be without error (infallible), but not formally declared to be infallible. The second level of teaching authority is the Extraordinary Magisterium, which deals exclusively with teaching that is formally declared to be infallible. These are the rare and formal “Ex Cathedra” (from the Chair of Peter) pronouncements of Church doctrine that are binding in faith upon Catholics.

To complicate things further, within recent years the question of women’s ordination has come up several times, and each time Pope John Paul has declared, speaking as the Ordinary Magisterium, that it cannot be done. The last time, he said that his final ruling on the question was “definitive and infallible,” even though he was not making a formal (Extraordinary Magisterium) declaration of infallibility. As a trustworthy teaching authority, however, the Ordinary Magisterium has the presumption of truth on its side and, therefore, the presumption of infallibility, although it is not formally declared so. That is the proper function of the Extraordinary Magisterium. Not every teaching of the Ordinary Magisterium, however, is necessarily infallible, even though it has a strong presumption of infallibility on its side; otherwise, there would be no need for the Extraordinary Magisterium.

History shows this to be true. St. Peter, the first pope, for instance, was mistaken on one occasion in his teaching example, and St. Paul had to correct him (Gal. 2: 11). St. Peter’s mistake was not formally or informally declared to be infallible teaching. The same is true of Pope John Paul’s teaching against capital punishment in Evangelium Vitae, where no formal or informal claim of infallibility was made.



Thou Shalt Not Kill


Since the main purpose of Evangelium Vitae was to defend the value of human life, it is in this context that Pope John Paul’s prohibition of capital punishment must be understood. The same principle applies to the proper understanding of God’s commandment “Thou Shalt Not Kill.” Fundamentalists tend to understand this, literally, apart from the Old Testament context in which the Ten Commandments were given. If you quote someone out of context, however, you misrepresent what is said. This applies, also, to God’s commandment “Thou Shalt Not Kill,” which, in context with the other commands God gave to Moses at the same time (to punish with death, wage wars, etc.), can only mean, “Thou shall not kill unjustly (murder),” rather than not to kill at all. This is particularly evident in the fact that at the very time God was appearing on Mt. Sinai to give Moses the Ten Commandments (including the commandment not to kill), God also commanded Moses to put to death any Israelite who even touched the base of the mountain (Exodus 19:12). Obviously, God does not contradict Himself.

Obviously, also, God, Who knows the value of human life better than anyone, saw no difficulty in commanding the death penalty as a just punishment for exceptionally serious crimes. This has always been the traditional teaching of the Catholic Church. In the New Testament, too, we see Jesus teaching, approvingly, of capital punishment in several of His parables (Matt. 21:33, 22:108, Mark 12:1-9, Luke 19:13-27, and 20:9-16), both as a virtuous act of justice on the part of the human authority and as a well-deserved and proportionate punishment for the criminals in the parables. On the other hand, Jesus refused to condemn the woman caught in adultery, because death is not a proportionate punishment for adultery, as it is for malicious murder. Would anyone accuse Christ of disregard for the value of human life, by His choosing to use examples of approved capital punishment in His teaching? Obviously not. In both cases, in the Old and New Testament, God’s approval of capital punishment is a matter of justice, with the full knowledge of the value of human life. That should tell us something about what our own thinking should be.



A Deterrent?


Does the death penalty deter crime? Any child can answer that. If you threaten a child with punishment and fail to fulfill your threat, the child soon learns to disregard the threat. The same is true of our legal system, where the threat of death for serious crimes is avoided, delayed, and most often not carried out.

This is not the case in Malaysia, where illegal use and selling of drugs is a capital offense, punished by death. Malaysia has no drug problem as we do here in the U.S., because the death sentence for illegal use and selling of drugs is swiftly carried out. That seems to be harsh to us, but “by their fruits you shall know them.” Their streets are safe to walk at night, their crime rate is low, they do not have the murders, robberies, and moral destruction of lives caused by drugs as we do. They must be doing something right that we aren’t doing. Wouldn’t you say?



Life Sentence


Why not sentence serious offenders to life in prison, instead of executing them? Life in prison sounds like a terrible punishment compared to normal living, but so does the strictly cloistered life of Trappist and Carthusian monks, which in many ways is more austere, restricted, and disciplined than prison life. To have three square meals a day, a roof over your head, free medical service, T.V. privileges and prison library access with good behavior, physical exercise, and available religious service, is not all that bad a life. Nelson Mandela, former President of South Africa, tells us in his autobiography that after eighteen years in prison, he found himself reluctant to leave the island prison he had become so used to.

At a cost of almost $250,000 a year in taxpayer’s money to maintain just one high-security prisoner, it is adding insult to injury for society to have to support a criminal for life in prison, a criminal who deserves the death penalty for his crime against society. A price cannot be placed on a human life, but justice, both divine and human, demands that each one be given the reward or punishment he deserves for his actions. That is the principle Christ used in his parables on just punishment mentioned above.

More needs to be said from Rome on the “problem of the death sentence,” as Pope John Paul II called it, and it will be hard to do so now because of the embarrassment. Surely it was not his intention to condemn capital punishment entirely, contrary to the Church’s traditional teaching, but that is what he did, besides contradicting his own avowed recognition of the Church’s traditional teaching on capital punishment as legitimate, all because he confused defensive killing as a form of punishment, which it is not. We would all like to spare Pope John Paul this embarrassment, but the mistake has been made and intensified all the more by being included in the new Catechism of the Catholic Church. Much as we hate to say it, this needs to be corrected.

Source:
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/HOMEPAGES/REMNANT/death.htm