03/11/01

He was crucified for our salvation …

During Lent, we make our lives more sacrificial in order to enter more intentionally into the self-sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. Jesus was executed on the cross. If his was not also a self-sacrifice, then the crucifixion has no religious significance. It was simply an execution by the Roman authorities who occupied Jesus’ homeland, with the connivance of some of Jesus’ own people and the betrayal of one of his closest disciples. If Jesus was infinitely more than a human prophet or messiah, however, and if he freely offered himself on the cross for our salvation, then he has the right to tell us to take up our cross and follow him. He died because of our sinfulness; we have to join him in that death if we are to be saved from our sins. That is our Lenten journey.

People with their own agenda will sometimes turn Jesus into a purely worldly reformer. He was a rival to Caesar, so the Roman authorities killed him. But he told Pontius Pilate at his trial that Pilate had no authority that had not been given him by God and that Jesus’ own Kingdom was not of this world (John 18:36). Others, critical of the Church or of “organized religion”, will co-opt Jesus by saying that he was opposed to the “religious establishment” of his time. But he wasn’t. He told his disciples to respect those who sat on the chair of Moses (Mt. 23: 2-3), to obey what they taught but not to imitate them personally when they themselves did not truly observe the Jewish faith, God’s instrument for the salvation of the world.

		‘Why, then, has the Holy Father asked for the abolition of the death penalty at this time? Because, the Pope argues, society’s need to protect itself no longer demands capital punishment of criminals.’

Rather, Jesus was against self-righteousness in all its forms: political, religious, personal, racial or cultural. Self-righteous persons have no need of a savior; they are self-sufficient. Self-righteous persons are spiritually blind, whether they are Roman governors or members of the Pharisee party, rocket scientists or global traders, theologians or bishops. If we are righteous on our own, Jesus was a fool to go to his death on the cross for our salvation, and we are fools for calling him Lord (I Cor. 15: 3-19). But Jesus knows us and our sinfulness, even when we try to hide it from ourselves. Jesus was against self-righteousness, wherever he found it. Jesus blessed the humble, those who know they’re not self-sufficient, wherever he met them.

As we contemplate the crucifix this Lent, we might reflect not only on our personal sins and the sins of our society, which brought Jesus to the cross, but also on our society’s use of execution to punish criminals. Execution in the Roman empire was by crucifixion for those whose death was to be a form of especially cruel punishment. Roman citizens, with a status higher than that of most inhabitants of the empire, were executed quickly by being beheaded. In the various states of the United States, we have moved from state execution by hanging or firing squad, through death by electrocution, to death by lethal injection.

Unlike abortion, which is the taking of an innocent life, capital punishment for criminals who place everyone in danger is morally justified in itself, since the State has the obligation to protect its citizens from danger. When all else fails to protect society from a criminal, the criminal’s execution by the State is morally justified. Why, then, has the Holy Father asked for the abolition of the death penalty at this time? Because, the Pope argues, society’s need to protect itself no longer demands capital punishment of criminals. If the circumstances which made capital punishment a moral possibility have changed, then the moral justification for its use vanishes. Today, because imprisonment for life, without parole, is available, recourse to execution is no longer necessary and is therefore no longer morally justifiable.

In his encyclical letter on The Gospel of Life (1995), Pope John Paul II wrote: “...the nature and extent of the punishment must be carefully evaluated and decided upon and ought not go to the extreme of executing the offender except in cases of necessity: in other words, when it would not be possible to otherwise defend society. Today, however, as a result of steady improvements in the organization of the penal system, such cases are very rare, if not practically non-existent.” Last month, the bishops of Pennsylvania wrote: “Reliance on the use of the death penalty creates a greater harm to society by reinforcing the idea that violence is a solution of society’s problems. The death penalty will not overcome violent crime any more than abortion will end the problem of unwanted pregnancy or euthanasia will solve the problems of aging and illness.”

Behind this argument rests the assumption that our society embodies a quality of civilization which, some would argue because of the high incidence of violence around us, we have not yet attained. Nevertheless, abolishing the death penalty would diminish our society’s use of violence to fight violence. Reasons for abolishing the use of capital punishment run from the positive recognition of the infinite value of every human person made in God’s image and likeness, even those who do not recognize that dignity in themselves, to the negative recognition that, as Governor George Ryan has said, the system isn’t working. There are too many cases of people condemned to death who turn out to be innocent to sustain our trust in the present system of criminal justice for capital cases. The State executes criminals in the name of each of us; many of us now ask that the State stop doing that because a permanently incarcerated criminal is no longer a threat. Incarceration for life offers, as well, time for conversion and preparation for the death that comes to all of us.

The plight of those who have been victims of a criminal’s actions demands attention from all, especially from the Church. Much of the time of those involved in prison ministry is spent with the families of the prisoners and also with the families of those who have been harmed by a prisoner. The murder of a family member kills not just the one murdered but, in a different but real way, “kills” also the family and friends of the one murdered. Nothing, not even the death of the murderer, can bring back one who has been killed. Nor does vengeance on the killer help to heal the hole in a grieving parent’s or spouse’s heart. The living, especially in the community of faith, must try to be present to these other victims. Forgiveness brings healing, but it sometimes takes time for people to reach a point where they can forgive. During that time, sympathy and prayers and presence shape the Church’s ministry.

The upcoming execution of Timothy McVeigh in the federal prison in Terre Haute, Ind., will be a moment when discussion of the use of execution to punish a criminal will be intensified.

McVeigh has killed not only 168 people in the Oklahoma City Federal Building, he has injured their families in a dreadful way and has deliberately attacked society itself. If any case justifies the use of the death penalty, his does. He is not a “victim” of anything except his own evil action, and it is a travesty of every human sentiment to try to argue against executing him by making him into other than a mass murderer. Precisely for that reason, examining our own hearts in reaction to his crime and the kind of punishment which should be given him will tell us how far along we are on the path of learning how to love our enemies.

Jesus loved his enemies, including all of us who are sinners. He went freely to his death for our salvation. We should have his crucifix in hand as we think about the death penalty. God bless you.

Sincerely yours in Christ,

Francis Cardinal George, OMI
Archbishop of Chicago

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