Like many of his admirers, I marked the recent passing of Cardinal Avery Dulles. Dulles was, of course, the scion of a great family – a great Protestant family – who became enamored with Catholicism while at Harvard in the late 1930s. Becoming a Jesuit, he enjoyed a extraordinary career as a priest, scholar and statesman. He had the uncommon ability to explain and apply Christian teaching and became a preeminent defender of Christianity itself and not just the Catholic branch of the family.
I was therefore interested to read Mark Tooley’s recent piece in the Weekly Standard about Dulles and Catholic teaching on capital punishment. Most people assume – incorrectly – that the church rejects exemplary punishment under all circumstances. As Dulles noted, Catholic teaching is based on a few key concepts, derived from Holy Writ.
First, that this present, physical life is not all there is. To deprive a man of physical existence is not therefore the end of the matter. Ultimately speaking, what matters most is our eternal destiny, not our brief sojourn here on earth.
“The mounting opposition to the death penalty in Europe since the Enlightenment has gone hand in hand with a decline of faith in eternal life,” Dulles observed. Capital punishment’s demise in secularized countries seems tied to the “evaporation of the sense of sin, guilt, and retributive justice, all of which are essential to biblical religion and Catholic faith.”
Second, while eternity is the goal, we must not neglect the obligations of our present, social existence. And that social existence requires protection and preservation of the common good. As the Catechism states, it is sometimes necessary to render ‘the aggressor unable to inflict harm.’
Third, earthly government does not solely derive its power from the peoples’ will. Rather, human government serves a higher, divine purpose which is to dispense justice. It is not merely the vengence of angry people and emphatically not revenge.
Finally, as the Catechism teaches, ‘the primary effect of punishment is to redress the disorder caused by the offense.’ It is not to deter, although that might be a side benefit. Rather, punishment is based on the notion of ‘desert’, the idea that we get what we deserve. This is the idea about which C.S. Lewis wrote so clearly in his famous essay, ‘The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment’.
But as the Catechism and Dulles both affirm, if there are bloodless means to accomplish the objectives, then these should be chosen over exemplary means. And that is the delicate issue that must be balanced: between what is deserved and what is necessary to protect the common good.
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