Catholic death penalty opponents praise pope’s catechism revision

By Catholic News Service
WASHINGTON (CNS) – The Aug. 2 announcement that Pope Francis had ordered a revision of the Catechism of the Catholic Church calling the death penalty “inadmissible” was praised by Catholic death penalty opponents in the U.S.
“I am overjoyed and deeply grateful to learn that Pope Francis closed the last remaining loophole in Catholic social teaching on the death penalty,” said Sister Helen Prejean, a Sister of St. Joseph of Medaille, who is a longtime opponent of capital punishment.
Krisanne Vaillancourt Murphy, executive director of Catholic Mobilizing Network in Washington, an advocacy group seeking to end the death penalty, called the news “a capstone teaching moment for the Catholic Church.”
Both advocates, in separate statements, stressed the clarity of the pope’s announcement. Sister Prejean said the Catholic Church “has opposed capital punishment for many years, but the official language used to talk about the issue up to this point has always been equivocal” leaving room for some to say that “executions are morally permissible.”
The catechism’s “new language is very clear,” Sister Prejean said, with its description of the death penalty as “an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person.” There are “absolutely no exceptions,” she added.
Vaillancourt Murphy said Catholic bishops in every state that have the death penalty have taken stands to see an end to this practice. She said the revision to the catechism “further clarifies any remaining ambiguity about the church’s teaching against the death penalty and strengthens the global resolve to bring an end to this practice.”
Both leaders pointed out that the Pope Francis’ action builds on work begun by St. John Paul II, who spoke of the dignity of guilty and innocent life and described executions as cruel and unnecessary.
“The moral ground zero of this issue in the Catholic context has been the question of self defense and the inviolable dignity of every human being,” said Sister Prejean, who pointed out that there is “nothing dignified about rendering a person defenseless, strapping them down to a gurney and killing them.”

Father Chris Ponnet, chaplain at the St. Camillus Center for Spiritual Care in Los Angeles, speaks during a rally protesting the death penalty in Anaheim, Calif., Feb. 25, 2017. Pope Francis has ordered a revision to the catechism to state that the death penalty is inadmissible and he committed the church to its abolition. (CNS photo/Andrew Cullen, Reuters)

“The moral tectonic plates have shifted,” she added, saying the “very nature of the act of executing a person can no longer be justified.”
But as thrilled as she was by the pope’s announcement, the author of “Dead Man Walking” – about her experience helping death-row inmates – also said the revision is “still just words on a page. Words must be followed by action. It’s time to abolish state-sponsored killing forever.”
Vaillancourt Murphy similarly stressed the reality of the death penalty in the United States, saying 31 states “still have it on the books.”
She also said more than 2,800 people are currently on death row in the United States and 14 executions are scheduled for the remainder of 2018, including three in August.
“These upcoming executions are a stark reminder that the death penalty is active in the United States, and it violates our commitment to the dignity of all life,” she said. “The death penalty is a failed practice that perpetuates the cycle of violence and disproportionately targets marginalized populations, especially people of color, those living in poverty and people suffering with mental illness.”
Hannah Cox, national manager of Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty, also issued a statement in support of the pope’s revision.
“(It) reflects what we are seeing in our work with conservative Catholics who increasingly understand the death penalty is a failed and unnecessary policy that does not value life and does nothing to make our society safer,” she said. “We are grateful for the leadership of the Catholic Church, including Popes John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and Francis, in efforts to end the death penalty.”

Death penalty cuts off opportunity for conversion

By Bishop Joseph Kopacz
As the Mississippi’s Legislature debates and votes on the expansion of methods of execution in anticipation of the resumption of capital punishment, I respectfully submit the perspective and teachings from our Catholic faith that promote the abolition of the death penalty. We encourage and pray for a more comprehensive debate that calls into question our assumptions for the moral legitimacy of the death penalty in the state and in our nation in the 21st century.
If non lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people’s safety from the aggressor, authority ought to limit itself to such means as these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and more in conformity with dignity of the human person. Today the State, by rendering one who has committed the offense incapable of doing harm, without definitively taking away from him or her the possibility of redemption, the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity, are very rare, if not practically non-existent. (Catechism of the Catholic Church 2267)
The Church’s opposition to the death penalty should not be seen as indifference to attacks on human life and the evil of murder, but as an affirmation to the sacredness of all life, even for those who have committed the most heinous of crimes. The Catholic Church in this country has spoken out against the use of the death penalty for many years.
Our Catholic faith affirms our solidarity with and support for victims of crime and their families. We commit ourselves to walk with them and assure them of God’s compassion and care, ministering to their spiritual, physical and emotional needs in the midst of deep pain and loss.
Our faith tradition offers a unique perspective on crime and punishment, one grounded in hope and healing, and not for punishment for its own sake. No matter how heinous the crime, if society can protect itself without ending a human life, it should do so. Today we have that capability. (Statement of Cardinal Sean O’Malley & Archbishop Thomas Wenski 07-16-2015)
It has been nearly a year since our Catholic community and many others suffered the tragic murders of Sister Paula Merrill, SCN, and Sister Margaret Held, SSSF, the nursing nuns, who served as PAs in Holmes County. This loss of life remains a tragedy for all who knew them, and especially for the poor whom the sisters served faithfully and lovingly for decades. However, throughout the funeral services, in the midst of their profound loss, the sisters’ families and both Religious Communities – the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth and the School Sisters of St. Francis – stated time and again that they are opposed to the death penalty because it is a further assault against human dignity. To respond in this matter seems other-worldly, doesn’t it? This compassion arises out of the hope we know in the undying mercy of Jesus Christ, in the cross and resurrection, for this life and the next.
When dwelling on legal and moral arguments concerning the death penalty, we should do so not with vengeance and anger in our hearts, but with the compassion and mercy of the Lord in mind. It is also important to remember that penalties imposed on criminals always need to allow for the possibility of the criminal to show regret for the evil committed and to change his or her life for the better. The use of the death penalty cuts short any possibility of transforming the condemned person’s soul in this life. We do not teach that killing is wrong by killing those who kill others. Saint Pope John Paul II has said the penalty of death is both cruel and unnecessary.
Likewise, the antidote to violence is not more violence. (O’Malley & Wenski)
As a society we have to approach the moral legitimacy of the death penalty with humility and integrity. Innocent men and women have been executed. This injustice cries out to heaven. States have released more than 150 in recent times who were wrongly accused. Likewise, far too many death sentences are inseparably linked to poverty, racism, drugs, and gangs that greatly diminish freedom and responsibility, sweeping young people down paths of violence. However, like Cain in the book of Genesis whose life was spared after he slew his brother Abel, those who murder have to pay the price of lifetime removal from society.
Crime and punishment are visceral realities in our nation, and a consensus on just laws is difficult to incorporate in a society as tumultuous and diverse as is this great land of ours. Too often we see reality “dimly as in a mirror” and because of this we ought to err on the side of life and the dignity of all human beings. We are not powerless. Reach out to the families of those afflicted by violent crime by bringing Christ’s love and compassion. Pray for the victims of crime, those facing execution, and those working in the criminal justice system. Visit those in prison as Jesus commands as a standard for our own salvation. Advocate for better public policies to protect society and end the use of the death penalty. (O’Malley & Wenski)

Bishop Kopacz: end death penalty instead of expanding

Bishop Joseph Kopacz released the following statement on Monday, March 6, opposing the death penalty. The statement is in reaction to House Bill 638, which calls for additional forms of execution in the state of Mississippi if the current method, lethal injection, is declared unconstitutional.
Lethal injection has come under fire in recent years as some inmates have seemed to suffer as they were executed. The drugs used have also become more difficult to obtain because of the controversy. Mississippi has not been able to execute anyone since 2012 because of pending court cases. This bill would allow a gas chamber or electrocution as alternate methods.
As the State of Mississippi’s Legislature debates the expansion of methods in support of the resumption of capital punishment, (H.B. 638) we respectfully submit the perspective and teachings from our Catholic faith that promote the abolition of the death penalty. We encourage and pray for a more comprehensive debate that calls into question our assumptions the moral legitimacy of the death penalty in the state and in our nation.
If, however non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people’s safety from the aggressor, authority ought to limit itself to such means as these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and more in conformity with dignity of the human person. Today the state, by rendering one who has committed the offense incapable of doing harm, without definitively taking away from him or her the possibility of redemption, the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity, are very rare, if not practically non-existent. (Catechism of the Catholic Church 2267)
When dwelling on legal and moral arguments concerning the death penalty, we should do so not with vengeance and anger in our hearts, but with the compassion and mercy of the Lord in mind. It is also important to remember that penalties imposed on criminals always need to allow for the possibility of the criminal to show regret for the evil committed and to change his or her life for the better. We do not teach that killing is wrong by killing those who kill others. Saint Pope John Paul II has said the penalty of death is both cruel and unnecessary. Likewise, the antidote to violence is not more violence.
It has been nearly a year since our Catholic community suffered the tragic murders of Sister Paula Merrill, SCN, and Sister Margaret Held, SSSF, who served at a medical clinic in Holmes County. Immediately, in the midst of their profound loss, both the religious communities to which they belonged and their families stated time and again that they are opposed to the death penalty as a further assault against human dignity. We wholeheartedly agree.
Bishop Joseph R. Kopacz

High court takes on HHS, death penalty, but holds off on abortion cases

The Supreme Court ruled on a handful of other cases involving issues of life and social justice before it ended its summer session. In a June 29 order, the High Court continued to shield several Pennsylvania religious institutions from having to provide employees with health care coverage that includes contraceptives.
The order in a case filed by the bishops and the Dioceses of Pittsburgh and Erie, Pennsylvania, their charitable institutions and a school said the government may not enforce the challenged provisions of the Affordable Care Act, pending final resolution of legal challenges on the merits of the institutions’ objections to what is known as the contraceptive mandate.
Justice Samuel Alito in April had granted an interim injunction to the Pennsylvania ministries.
No case challenging the mandate or the accommodation as applied to faith-based nonprofit institutions has yet reached the Supreme Court. Several federal circuit courts of appeal have ruled that religious rights are not substantially burdened by the process required for the accommodation. Only one circuit court, the 11th, granted an injunction – to EWTN, a Catholic media conglomerate. That court heard oral arguments in February over whether the company has a valid claim that spares it from following the procedures.
The Supreme Court has, however, acted in favor of faith-based institutions that are suing over the contraceptive mandate each time it has come to the high court. Five of those actions, including twice in the Pennsylvania cases, were about an injunction pending further litigation.
In another in a series of bitterly divided end-of-term cases, the Supreme Court June 29 upheld the execution protocol used by Oklahoma and several other states. The 5-4 ruling written by Justice Samuel Alito upheld lower courts that said the use of the drug midazolam in lethal injection does not violate Eighth Amendment protections against cruel and unusual punishment. The ruling was among the last three opinions released, closing out the court’s 2014 term.
The majority opinion in Glossip v. Gross noted that it has been previously established multiple times that capital punishment is constitutional and only delved into whether the claims by Oklahoma death-row inmates that the effects of the drugs used in lethal injection are unnecessarily painful. Among the reasons Alito cited in upholding lower courts were that “the prisoners failed to identify a known and available alternative method of execution that entails a lesser risk of pain.” Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas each filed concurring opinions. Alito’s majority ruling also was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts, Scalia, Thomas and Justice Anthony Kennedy.
The Texas Catholic Conference expressed disappointment with the U.S. Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision June 29 which temporarily blocks Texas from enforcing new requirements on abortion clinics that would force many of them to close. The Texas law requires the clinics to meet the same standards as ambulatory surgical centers when performing abortions. Other provisions of the law, such as requiring abortion doctors to have hospital privileges and prohibiting abortions after 20 weeks gestation, were not affected.
In a June 9 ruling, the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the constitutionality of the law, and rejected pleas by abortion clinics to suspend its implementation while it is appealed. The Supreme Court ruling prevents enforcement of the law until the fall when the high court will decide if the justices should hear an appeal from a lower court. A June 30 statement from the Catholic conference, the public policy arm of the Texas Catholic bishops, said the bishops “grieve for the unborn children who will continue to die, and are concerned for the mothers who will subjected to substandard care, while the court delays until the fall to resolve this issue.”
The Supreme Court took no action in a challenge of a Mississippi law passed last year requiring doctors at the state’s only remaining abortion clinic to have admitting privileges at local hospitals. This means the law will remain on hold until the appeals process is complete.
Aside from announcing the disposition of other cases it has been asked to review, the court is not scheduled to conduct any further business in the public eye until the 2015 term opens Oct. 5.