c. 1997 Religion News Service
(Kenneth Craycraft teaches moral theology at St. Mary’s University in San Antonio, Texas.)
UNDATED _ As the jury for the Timothy McVeigh trial seeks to determine the appropriate punishment for the convicted bomber of the Oklahoma City federal building, one point of view will be starkly absent. No one will make a principled moral argument against the death penalty, per se.
This is because, under the federal rule providing for a capital trial _ a trial in which execution is a possible sentence _ potential jurors who have such a principled opposition to capital punishment are automatically excluded from consideration.
The problem of capital punishment is a vexing one, upon which persons of good will can disagree.
If one’s starting point is purely a secular-political one, in which public order is the highest value and retribution is the means to secure that order, one can make a consistent, coherent case for the right of the state to kill. The question is whether public order secured by violence, or the threat of violence, ought to be one’s highest value.
But among religious people _ especially Christians, which, it is safe to surmise, the bulk of the McVeigh jury consider themselves _ the problem is, or or should be, a bit more complicated.
The Christian New Testament is surprisingly silent about particular ethical or moral issues. It has little to say about how we should order our lives, and contains few commands or rules.
Rather, the center of New Testament moral teaching is a set of descriptions of the virtues consistent with life in the Kingdom of God. Christians are not called to create a better world; rather, we are called to learn to speak the language of, and thus bear witness to, the better world Jesus established in his life, death and resurrection.
The grammar of this language is found in the Sermon on Mount, where Jesus lists the characteristics of a blessed life _ life in the Kingdom of Heaven. The overwhelming tone of this new political language is mercy, reconciliation, peacemaking and forgiveness.
This contrasts sharply with the political language of retribution, vengeance, violence and vindictiveness at the heart of American law and jurisprudence.
And of course, Jesus commands his disciples to pray that God’s will _ not humanity’s nor the state’s _ be done here on Earth as it is in Heaven. This prayer is answered when Christians learn to speak consistently the language of this new peaceable Kingdom of mercy and reconciliation, and thus bear witness that it is a truer language than that of violence and retribution.
Never mind that it has always been difficult for the church to speak Jesus’ revolutionary language to the nation-state, founded and sustained as it is upon violence. As followers of Jesus, we are commanded to learn and follow his example of mercy, reconciliation, peacefulness and forgiveness to and among ourselves, and thus show a better way to both those who break and enforce laws.
Of course, the Catechism of the Roman Catholic Church does recognize the inevitable need to punish offenders of criminal law. Indeed, when that punishment is freely and remorsefully received, it is expiatory for the offender. But if “bloodless means are sufficient to defend human lives against an aggressor,” it is not permissible to use stronger means. To do so violates the principle that punishment should be no greater than is necessary to protect society.
It would be morally repugnant to doubt or deny the excruciating pain _ physical, psychological and spiritual _ survivors of the Oklahoma City bombing continue to endure. And it would be foolishness to deny that Timothy McVeigh’s act was monstrously wicked.
But for the Christian, this makes the mandate of mercy greater, not lesser. Thus is the strange politics of the Kingdom of Heaven.
DEA END CRAYCRAFT
