While the “traditional teaching of the Church does not
exclude, presupposing full ascertainment of the identity and responsibility of
the offender, recourse to the death penalty, when this is the only practicable
way to defend the lives of human beings effectively against the aggressor,” it
is also Church teaching that if “‘bloodless means are sufficient to defend
against the aggressor and to protect the safety of persons, public authority
should limit itself to such means, because they better correspond to the
concrete conditions of the common good and are more in conformity to the
dignity of the human person.’” [1] What’s more, under
modern conditions, “‘given the means at the State's disposal to effectively
repress crime by rendering inoffensive the one who has committed it, without
depriving him definitively of the possibility of redeeming himself,’” cases
where the death penalty is necessary are, as St. John Paul II observed, “‘“very
rare, if not practically non-existent.”’” (Catechism of the Catholic Church
(CCC) §2267)
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| by Jeffrey Bruno |
All of this is well known Catholic doctrine. It is,
therefore, not surprising that Pope Francis has recently called for an end to
capital punishment. [2]
It would have been astonishing if he said anything else. What might raise some
eyebrows, however, is that he also called for the abolition of life sentences,
which hitherto has been offered as the suggested replacement for the death
penalty. Indeed, one might easily have thought that it is the modern world’s
capability of humanely imposing life sentences that has rendered the death
penalty obsolete. But a close look at the Church’s teaching on criminal
punishment provides insight into what the Holy Father said.
First of all, the principle purpose of criminal punishment “is
to redress the disorder caused by the offense.” (CCC §2266) Of course, in the
case of murder, which is the crime for which life in prison is most often
advocated, complete redress is not possible; nothing the State can do to the
offender can bring the murdered person back to life again. Moreover, it is
clear that there can be no replacement for a person. Economic compensation,
even toward support of a murder victim’s dependents, can never match a human
person’s infinite value. A prison sentence of any kind does nothing to overcome
the impossibility of redress for a murder, even if the sentence is for the life
of the offender.
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| by Bart Everson |
A second consideration is the preservation of public order
and the safety of persons. (CCC §2266) General deterrence of crime is what must
be looked at here. Superficially, it might seem as though general deterrence
would be best served by the harshest penalties possible. But criminological research
has shown “that enhancing the certainty of punishment produces a stronger
deterrent effect than increasing the severity of punishment.” [3] The truth is, existing “evidence does not
support any significant public safety benefit of the practice of increasing the
severity of sentences by imposing longer prison terms. In fact, research
findings imply that increasingly lengthy prison terms are counterproductive.”
There is simply no reason to believe that life sentences are necessary to
maintain public safety, and there is, indeed, reason to believe that they are
not so.
Finally, criminal punishment should have a kind of medicinal
value: “as far as possible it should contribute to the correction of the
offender.” (CCC §2266) But, as the Holy Father has pointed out, “Life
imprisonment is a hidden death penalty.” An offender cannot reform if he is
executed, nor can he do so if he is rendered effectively dead to society by a
sentence of life imprisonment. Even if the offender undergoes a complete change
of heart while incarcerated, there is no way for him to effectuate any internal
reform if his continued incarceration is a certainty. Note that what Pope
Francis is objecting to is not the separation of a dangerous person from the
rest of society as long as he is dangerous, but sentences that foreclose the
possibility of reform from the onset. Where there is no hope of parole, there
is less incentive for reform, and an essential purpose of criminal punishment,
according to Catholic teaching, is hindered, and effectively removed.
As always, Pope Francis’s seemingly radical statement is
simply a reflection of Catholic doctrine and the tradition of the Church. The
benefit of the media attention the Pope receives is that orthodox Catholic
teaching is deemed newsworthy.
—Jack Quirk