The Roman Catholic Churchs Notion on the Death Penalty - Essay Example

RELIGION Introduction Death Penalty is the gravest of all punishments and the Roman Catholic Church's take on this punishment has evolved over time. This change in view of the Church will be discussed in this paper thoroughly. The paper will start off by giving a history of the death penalty and its supporters and opponents in the past, in terms of societal and religious groups. Then the Roman Catholic Church's notion on the death penalty and its development is studied. Discussion Death penalty is a serious punishment for those who have committed serious crimes such as murder and have caused harm to the society by terrorist acts. People's and nations' perceptions of the death penalty or execution changed over time. This perception changed according to the requirements of the era. In today's era, where crime is pervasive but also unstoppable, there is little need for death sentences, according to many people out of which some are staunch Christians also. But why do we link the religion to death penalty They are both different branches of the same subject. We link religion to this punishment because all religions teach respect for human life and the right of humans to their lives. We will see in our discussion how the Church changes course from defending the right of oneself to the right of human life in general. We will see how the teachings of the Church changed from supporting the death penalty as a punishment to opposing it. It is important to know how the world felt about this punishment before we can start discussing about how the Church felt about it. This will give us an idea about how closely linked the Church's ideas were to those of people from different religions, nations and societies. We can infer and make conclusions of the Catholic Church's beliefs better if we have an understanding about the time and the ideas of the time at which the Church actually held these beliefs. Therefore, following is a discussion on the death penalty, in which other ideas and laws are explained. The Death Penalty and its History The 'death penalty', the 'execution' or the 'capital punishment' is the final punishment; hence it is the cruelest out of all the punishments. Because of its intensity as a punishment, there are bound to be many contradictions regarding this. We can easily say that there will be many groups who will support this as punishment and other sensitive and tender ones will oppose it as it is the violation of human rights. The question is why would anyone support it and/or oppose it People who support it believe that this punishment should be given to people who have committed serious crimes in the past because of which people have lost lives, directly or indirectly. It supports the idea of the old adage; "a tooth for a tooth". If these criminals took lives, their lives must be taken in return too. On the other hand, the opponents believe that death penalty is as bad as what the criminals did. If they killed people, it doesn't make it acceptable for authorities to become as dire as them and take their lives in return. Now that the debate is clear, we can get into the history of the death penalty. It was in the Eighteenth Century B.C. when death penalty laws were first established. However, by the Eleventh Century A.D., it was decided that only people who murdered will be hanged and not other. Death penalty was traditional in Europe also, for many centuries. People were being executed till mid-1700 but by late 1700, the US abolitionist movement started. As a result, by early 1800's many of the states concentrated the number of their death crimes by building more state prisons. In Britain, around a hundred of the crimes that were punishable by execution were eliminated (Death Penalty Information Center, 2008). By early 1900, people were executed using the electrocution method but nine states of the US had abolished the law. By 1920, the abolition movement of USA started to lose support and became unpopular. Soon after this, newer ways of executing people were being discovered. Around this time, for example, the cyanide gas was used as a means of execution. Therefore, the levels of executions in America went up dramatically and were the highest in its history. However, by 1966, the overall support of the death penalty was really low. People started disapproving of it and so by 1972, Supreme Court suspended the death penalty. It was later reinstated in 1976. Then again, consequently, newer methods of executions were used such as lethal injection. Ten years later, mentally retarded people were banned from the capital punishment. By 1994, President Clinton became a supporter of the death penalty and stretched federal capital punishment as a movement against violent crimes (Death Penalty Information Center, 2008). In January 1999, Pope John Paul II opposed the death penalty in St. Louis and called for an end to it. During this time, the U.N. was also an opponent of the capital punishment and so its Human Rights Commission supported the suspension of execution. Many groups and people, during this time, were opposing the death penalty. So by June 2004, the New York law declared execution as unlawful and unconstitutional. In 2005, it was declared cruel and unlawful to execute those under 18 who had committed crimes. Today, more than fifty percent of the countries globally oppose the death penalty and have abolished it completely for trivial crimes (Death Penalty Information Center, 2008). The Catholic Church and the Death Penalty During all this time when several changes were made regarding the laws of execution, where was the Catholic Church and what were its views on executions when all that is discussed above was happening Now that we've studied the history of the death penalty and that we have an understanding of what the history of it was like, we can start discussing the Church on the death penalty. Like every other religion, the Christian religion also respects the human life. The Church has long been an opponent of the capital punishment. It has appealed and petitioned for mercy for those who have committed crimes and are destined for execution. Many Fathers such as Ambrose and Augustine have asked Christian judges to exercise non deadly ways of punishing offenders but at the same time they would have urged for civil rights of exercising the death penalty (Curran, C.E. n.d.). One would think, why not It shouldn't be any different since the teachings of Christianity teach us respect for the human life. It corresponds to the commandment that 'Thou shalt not kill". According to the Fifth Commandment 2258, "Human life is sacred because from its beginning it involves the creative action of God and it remains for ever in a special relationship with the Creator, who is its sole end. God alone is the Lord of life from its beginning until its end: no one can under any circumstance claim for himself the right directly to destroy an innocent human being." (Office for the Catechism, n.d.). Today, therefore, many Christians talk about death penalty almost as if it is evil. Except that this is not the story. The story of the Catholic Church was different in the early days. The Church wasn't much of an opponent of the death penalty during the mid-twentieth century. It was, in fact, a consistent and vigorous supporter of capital punishment. For two thousand years, it supported executing people for the crimes that they had committed. It has a long history of appreciating the death penalty. It was even permissible in the holy Vatican City. This is evidence enough of just how approving the Church was of execution. If it makes sense for the Church to oppose capital punishment, it also makes sense for her to oppose it because according to the 2264 Fifth Commandment, under respect for human life, Scripture spells out the excluding need for death penalty. It says that all humans have a right to their lives and they must respect it even if this means killing in self-defense (Office for the Catechism, n.d.). I mentioned earlier how Father Augustine urged judges to exercise non lethal ways of punishing people but at the same time, he would have believed otherwise also. He believed in this because where the teachings of Christianity outlaws killing of humans, at the same time, it makes exceptions. St. Thomas Aquinas went even further to say that people who committed such crimes as to be sentenced to death deserved it. He said they not only deserved detachment from the Church but also detachment from the world as a result of death penalty. Therefore, the Church taught that the death penalty is not wrong in all cases. The Church was an advocate of the death penalty being right in some cases for two thousand years. It was traditional for the Church to support the right of the state to kill criminals until the early 1950's. There were signs of the fading of this stance of the Church during this time. The pro-execution attitude of the Church faded even more, but gradually, during the 1960's. The death penalty was finally abolished by Pope Paul IV in 1969. Since then the Church has been teaching otherwise. The strongest Christian opponent of the death penalty, by far, was probably Pope John Paul II. The Pope personally urged leaders to amend death sentences. Under Pope John Paul II, the Church became a strong challenger of the death penalty. This was happening around 1999. During this time, he believed that death sentences belonged to the mores of death and were, therefore, morally wrong. He wrote to many judges of developed countries to commute death sentences. He disapproved of it severely. He believed that execution was not a necessity of today's world. It is almost never a requirement. He said that death should be sentenced only when it becomes absolutely necessary. Absolute necessity is when it cannot be avoided because it becomes extremely harmful for a society to feed that criminal. It can then be said that the death penalty should be given to criminals who pose serious threats to the society. Also, executing these criminals will be for the overall and bigger good of the society. Pope John Paul II also said that this seldom happens in many developed nations today. Therefore, the death penalty is very avoidable today. Conclusion In conclusion, I will summarize the history of the Church on the death penalty and how it has changed over time. To begin with, during the first half of the twentieth century, the Church supported the death penalty by teaching that it was not always morally wrong. She said that to sentence people to death was right in some cases. So, the Church approved of it. She was a supporter of the capital punishment for about two thousand years. During the 1950's, the signs of the Church's support for death penalty started weakening and gradually kept abating until in 1969, Pope Paul IV abolished death penalty in 1969. After this Pope, in 1999, Pope John Paul II was a strict opponent of the death penalty and wrote to U.S. and other judges on many occasions to commute death sentences. As a final point, it is important to notice why Pope John Paul II reversed the traditional teachings of the Church. He believed that in today's world it almost never the case that a society is at real risk from a criminal. Why might this be so It might be because the penitentiaries today have a good system of maintaining judicial discipline against serious criminals. Therefore, there is seldom a need to execute criminals as they never really pose serious threats to the society. In any case, the pope opposed it severely and said that it should be the last resort; only when the entire society benefits as a result of this death sentence, should it be taken. WORKS CITED "Part II: History of the Death Penalty." Death Penalty Information Center. 2008. 18 Aug. 2008. Curran, C. E. (N.d). Change in Official Catholic Moral Teaching. Paulist Press. "Article 5 The Fifth Commandment." Office for the Catechism. N.d. U.S. Catholic Bishops. 18 Aug. 2008. Read More