Even Evil Life is Sacred

by Editor · October 5, 2011

The Catholic Church professes an immutable belief in the sanctity of life. The teachings of the Church do not permit a distinction between a life that is yet to be born, one that is in full bloom or wilting, or one that is of no value to society. We are not mandated to deliberately end a person’s life, except in some instances of self-defence.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches: Human life is sacred because from its beginning it involves the creative action of God and it remains forever 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 (CCC#2258).

This teaching of the Church came into sharp focus in September with the execution of two men on the same night in the United States.

In Atlanta, Georgia, 42-year-old Troy Davies was put to death even as witnesses who helped convict him recanted their testimony and he himself maintained his innocence.

At the same time, the state of Texas executed Lawrence Brewer, a 44-year-old white supremacist convicted for his part in tying a black man, James Byrd Jr, to the back of a pick-up truck and dragging him to his death. Brewer remained unrepentant and indeed proud of his evil crime.
Remarkably, James Byrd’s son pleaded that his father’s murderer not be executed. You can’t fight murder with murder, Ross Byrd told journalists, describing Brewer’s execution as just another expression of the hate shown towards his father.

Reaction to the executions was not invariably imbued with such essentially Christian sentiment. Conservative commentator Ann Coulter, who describes herself as a Christian, tweeted the heartless line: One Troy Davis flame-broiled, please.

The local Church, therefore, must oppose the steady clamour in South Africa for the return of capital punishment. Attractive as the death penalty may appear it is not the easy option to plead for the life of a racist like Lawrence Brewer or to show mercy for pitiless murderers and rapists it is morally illicit in Catholic thought. On a practical level, it also serves no demonstrable deterrent value. It cannot be acceptable to the local Church that capital punishment remains legal in Botswana (last execution in 2010) and Swaziland (last execution in 1983), both part of the Southern African conference region.

Likewise, it should be a badge of shame for the United States to share a top 5 ranking in terms of executions performed with such tyrannical regimes as China, Iran, North Korea and Yemen.

Capital punishment is incompatible with the Catholic faith because it impedes God’s mercy on those who arguably need redemption most people who shed their humanity to commit acts of wickedness or depravity.
The impulse to seek the death of a callous criminal is not unreasonable. However, much as support for the death penalty is understandable, it does not accord with the teaching of the Church that all human life is sacred, and that its deliberate termination is always an act against God.