The Implications of Capital Punishment

Death penalty supporters (like Loose Canon)have have come under attack lately as being as out of harmony with Church teaching as abortion rights advocates. T'aint so. In a beautifully-reasoned piece in his archdiocesan newspaper, Denver Archbishop Charles Chaput shows that the death penalty does fit into Church teaching:

"The death penalty is not intrinsically evil," writes Chaput. "Both Scripture and long Christian tradition acknowledge the legitimacy of capital punishment under certain circumstances. The Church cannot repudiate that without repudiating her own identity.

"It is not an idolatry of individual rights — in this case, the rights of the murderer. Catholic social teaching rests on two equal pillars: the dignity of the individual person, and the common good. The right to life of the convicted murderer must be balanced against society’s right to justice and security."

Even ardent supporters of the death penalty (like me) only want to see it used for the most heinous crimes. Chaput is quite moving on this:

"What Catholic teaching on the death penalty does involve is this: a call to set aside unnecessary violence, including violence by the state, in the name of human dignity and building a culture of life. In the wake of the bloodiest century in history, the Church invites us to recover our own humanity by choosing God’s higher road of restraint and mercy instead of state-sanctioned killing that implicates all of us as citizens."

But I hate to see Chaput using hackneyed notions from the left: "State-sanctioned killing that implicates all of us citizens"? Give me a break. If capital punishment is justly applied, we need not worry about being "implicated."