It reads like a headline from the Babylon Bee:
Catholics Upset
Because Pope Francis Doesn't Want Them To Kill People Anymore.
The truth is often stranger than fiction, as the saying goes.
Pope Francis has
recently updated Catholic Church teaching by declaring that the death penalty
is "inadmissible."
Controversy has
erupted. Some argue over whether Church teaching can truly "change"
at all. Others take issues with the updated teaching itself.
I wonder why so many
people seem to want the death penalty. I can understand (though not necessarily
agree with) the argument that the death penalty may at some times be
regrettably necessary. But even so, it should always be a last resort and
something very sad. It means all other options have failed (and that those other options have been tried and tried again), and that's nothing
to celebrate. I wish I saw as much passion from people working hard for envision alternatives to the death penalty as I do from those who want to keep it.
Still, I've been struggling with trying to figure out what
actually happened with Francis' pronouncement. I wholeheartedly support the
Church moving more clearly in the direction of love, life and nonviolence, but
when I try to "work out the theological math" so to speak, I have
been left skeptical. My issues have nothing do with whether or not doctrine can
develop (as some argue), because I'm convinced it can and has (see below under
the section "Fundamentalism"). My questions are about the theological
implications of the pronouncement itself.
Here's why:
If the death penalty
is "inadmissible" in every single case and condition--including cases
of absolute self-defense--then the Catholic Church has taken a step toward a
paradigm of nonviolence and pacifism. That would be huge.
If not, then what has happened is that Francis has simply clarified the
teaching that was already there and changed the wording to prevent
misunderstandings. The real leap forward came with Pope John Paul II.
As I explained in a previous article, the death penalty has
already been de facto inadmissible in the previous version of the Catholic
Catechism. That Catechism contains this line:
"the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the
death penalty." However, what
follows is a very strict conditional clause: "if this is the only possible
way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust
aggressor." It even goes on to
spell out that such cases where the death penalty could be admissible in modern
society "are very rare, if not practically nonexistent." If that weren't enough, the Catholic
Church even put this section about the death penalty under the category of
"Legitimate Defense" just to make sure there would be no
confusion.
In short: The Church
is not supporting the right of nations to dole out God's punishments, but it
does not deny the right to legitimate defense, even if such instances are only
hypothetical in the modern world.
For reasons that I
have a hard time understanding, many people took that to mean the death penalty
was still up for debate. It's not. Simple reading comprehension will tell you
that. And this was long before Francis.
The U.S. 2nd Amendment and Other Matters of Interpretation
Church teaching is one thing; how that teaching is
interpreted is wholly another.
Catholic blogger Jack Quirk penned a blog entry that gets to
the heart of the matter. He mentions how Francis' update to the Catechism
negates "prudential judgment" interpretations. This is key. Many take
some parts of Catholic Church teaching more literally than other parts. To that
latter category, they apply "prudential judgment," which is a fancy
way of saying they take the teaching prayerfully and seriously but not
authoritatively or literally. Francis is saying that you cannot apply
prudential judgment to this teaching--it speaks from a higher level of
authority.
In addition, a lot of people were reading the Catechism on
the death penalty the way many American conservatives currently read the 2nd amendment:
They read the first part divorced from the second part in a manner reminiscent
of Justice Scalia. In the 2nd amendment, the opening clauses states that the
people have to right to bear arms, but that right is nestled within the
necessary condition of a well-regulated militia. Most Constitutional scholars
have read it that way since the passing of the Bill of Rights. However, the more
recent Scalia style of interpretation separates the first part from the latter
context. In other words, the "right to bear arms" now stands alone,
largely divorced from its context, namely, the condition of a "well-regulated militia."
Many apply that same interpretative style to the Catholic
Catechism on the death penalty. As stated above, the first part says that yes,
the Church cannot totally rule out the use of the death penalty. But then there
is the conditional clause: There must be no other way to save lives and/or
protect the common good. With current resources for incarceration and
sociological studies overwhelmingly denouncing the death penalty as a
deterrent, it is almost impossible to claim the death penalty is
"necessary" for protection. However, many Catholics just read the
first part saying the Church cannot rule out the use of the death penalty and stood it on its own. They
regarded the prevalence of executions through history as the backing of
tradition and they just ignored or downplayed the second part about necessary defense. The
door was open just a tiny crack but they attempted to drive a truck through it.
That's the problem Francis was trying to address, I think.
If we read carefully the previous Catechism, the death
penalty is not actually supported--only self-defense is a legitimate use of
force, not the death penalty. However, the previous Catechism seems timid about
saying that outright, even though that's really the only logical conclusion to
take from the text itself. So I see Francis as saying 'let's quit beating around
the bush and just tell it like it is.' I don't think Francis is taking away the
option for "legitimate defense" and moving the Church towards pacifism, even though he may personally want to do that and I would be
sympathetic to that, as well, but that would be a rather significant can of
worms to open.
Maybe I'm wrong and Francis has indeed introduced pacifism. Case in point: Moral theologians will say that through "double
effect" reasoning, an execution--which is "inadmissible"--could still happen, but the primary motive would be to protect the common good and the death of the prisoner would be a regrettable secondary outcome. Others (like Stephen Schloeder) argue that Francis has put the death penalty into a category that
makes double effect reasoning null and void, as "inadmissible" sounds a lot like "intrinsically evil." This is fodder for moral theologians to hash out in the coming years.
I believe all that Francis did was try to put an end to opportunistic readings of the Catechism in regards to the death penalty. The Church is against it and this is authoritatively said--no more prudential judgment readings nor separating out isolated statements out of their context.
Fundamentalism
Most of the controversy about this move by Francis is over whether doctrine can truly
"change" at all. Some claim that everything that appears to be a change in Church teaching is only an
adaptation to the signs of the times and not actual doctrinal evolution. Others--especially Church historians--cite instances of legitimate change in Church teaching over its 2,000+ year pilgrim journey.
The
whole controversy over doctrinal development is really just the Catholic Church
wrestling with its own form of fundamentalism.
In Protestant Fundamentalism, the defining issue is the literal
interpretation of the Bible. In Catholic
fundamentalism, the claim of fundamentalists is that the teaching authority of
the Church (the Magisterium) can never be wrong on matters of faith and morals.
Both camps deny history, deny the written word and bend over backwards to try
to make all the pieces fit, instead of just admitting that an absolute,
unchanging, literal interpretation of either Scripture of Magisterial
pronouncements is the actual error.
Just War Theory
Many have noted the
similarities between the theologies of the death penalty and Just War Theory. A
change in one could bring about a change in the other. Stay tuned . . .
