Catholic Revelation

Is the Death Penalty Ever Justifiable?

One day not so long ago, I was on a theology website that I log onto from time, and a question was posed to all the subscribers: “Is it okay to hate?” As I reflected upon this question I remembered the book of Psalms. In the book of Psalms, the psalmist laments the suffering he endures at the hands of his enemies, but at the same time he praises God who destroys the wicked who inflict the suffering. The psalmist brings his hate to God and does not sugar coat his feelings. He gives to the Lord a very honest and shocking account of his feelings:

“Let their own table before them become a snare; let their sacrificial feasts be a trap. Let their eyes be darkened so that they cannot see; and make their loins tremble continually. Pour out thy indignation upon them, and let thy burning anger over take them. May their camp be a desolation, let no one dwell in their tents.” Psalm 69:22-25.

It is hard for many Christians to understand how this verse and others like it belong in Holy Scripture. How do we reconcile such hate with the Lord’s command to love our enemies? However, I think the real question is: Are we being honest with God if we say that we have never experienced such hate or never wished for the demise of our enemies? After all, we do not have to go very far to find evil, and when we do we expect justice to be swift and harsh. Sometimes, we feel that the only appropriate punishment for the perpetrator of such evil is death.

I have felt just like the Psalmist pouring his heart out to God. It happened once about 16 years ago when I opened my newspaper to see a fireman tenderly cradling a dying baby in his arms. The baby looked to be about two years old and she was the victim of the Oklahoma City bombing. My youngest daughter was about the same age as this child and so it was difficult not to imagine my own baby in the arms of that fireman, the victim of a horrific crime. The feeling I had toward Timothy McVeigh was sheer hatred; there is just no other way to describe it. I yearned for justice to be swift and harsh and nothing less than death seemed right. I felt completely justified in my hatred, for I did not see Timothy McVeigh as a human being, but as the devil. It is not wrong to hate the devil and desire his demise. God gives us a conscience and an ability to hate evil so that we gravitate toward good. We, like the Psalmist in the book of Psalms, lament such evil and often beg God to answer our call for justice.

The day of justice for Timothy McVeigh would come several years later when my oldest daughter was in middle school. All day long one day, several days before Timothy McVeigh’s execution, my daughter obsessed over the pending death of a man she grew up understanding to be an unremorseful murderer. In the halls at school I imagine she could hear chatting and laughing and every now and then a comment about Timothy McVeigh and the preparations being made for his date with death. Soon, an execution would take place. One could only guess what was going through the minds of the man who knew he was about to take his last breath, and the one who would was assigned to plunge the needle into his vein and watch the life drain from his body. And of course, there was his family. We knew nothing about Timothy McVeigh’s family, but it wouldn’t be natural not to wonder about his mother. Was she alive and would she be present to witness her son’s last breath? Would she recall the day she gave birth to him and the times she cradled him in her arms when he was a baby? Should we feel sorry for her or was it her fault that she raised a son who became a cold blooded and ruthless killer? There were many unanswered questions. For some of us, it felt as though God had abandoned us and left us to suffer in a dark world.

As we headed into the garage of our home after returning from school I looked in my rearview mirror to see my daughter crying. She simply couldn’t fathom the reality of all that was set to take place. Timothy McVeigh was set to die at the hands of others who decided he was not fit for life. I asked her what was wrong and she poured out her heart. She sobbed, “I know that Timothy McVeigh has done horrible things and I feel very badly for his victims, but I just can’t accept that human beings have the right to take his life. The Catholic Church says that God has mercy for all of us, even the greatest of sinners, and up until we die we have the right to repent and be saved. Yet, we take that right away from those who need it the most. “ I felt sorry for my daughter who was clearly confused and distraught over her feelings. I told my daughter I was proud of her desire for all souls to be saved, but that some souls are beyond saving. I said, “Timothy McVeigh has shown no remorse for his actions, and he is not just any human being. He is the devil. Someday you will have a child of your own and you will understand how a mother like myself could never feel sorry for a man who murdered babies. We need to rid the world of these people so that innocent people deserving of life can live in peace knowing that we are a society that does not tolerate such evil. I am not crying for Timothy McVeigh. I cry when I think about the mothers who lost their babies!” The conversation came to an abrupt halt at that point, but my daughter’s words would haunt me for years after. “We take that right away from those who need it the most,” were the words that I could not get out of my head.

I don’t think my daughter felt sorry for Timothy McVeigh. I think she felt great sadness that a human being, any human being, could come to such a tragic end and that the world could speed up that end without so much as a pause or a desire to help God rewrite the ending. This is not God’s plan for human beings. To be truly human is to answer God’s divine call to reflect His Grace.

Jesus commands us to evangelize, but he does not tell us to go out and make disciples of only those who seem worthy.

and he said to them again, 'Peace be with you. 'As the Father sent me, so am I sending you.' John 20:21

Go, therefore, make disciples of all nations; baptize them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,

and teach them to observe all the commands I gave you. And look, I am with you always; yes, to the end of time.' Matthew 28:20-21

So, to take someone’s life is to decide he or she is not worthy of God’s Grace, This, according to the command of Jesus, is not a determination for man to make and to make such a determination goes directly against His command to make disciples of one another. A man separated from God through mortal sin who is put to death in the state of such sin, can never become a disciple.

My daughter seemed to understand at some level that loving our enemies means that we desire and hope for their conversion. Loving our enemies does not mean that we approve of their actions, like them as people, invite them into our homes and our lives, and hang out with them. It doesn’t mean that we don’t think they should pay for the pain they inflict. It means that we do not hope that they rot in hell.

What can become of a man like Timothy McVeigh that would give any of us here on earth even an ounce of satisfaction? If he spent his life without remorse he is evil, and God will judge him as such. But, God’s mercy is powerful and glorious and there is tremendous satisfaction in seeing the conversion of sinful souls. St. Paul was a great persecutor of Christians and yet today, we celebrate his sainthood and his teachings. We rejoice that he was transformed by the Grace of God into the saint we try to model. I can think of no greater satisfaction than a ruthless killer coming to acknowledge his sins with deep remorse and a desire to repent.

Maybe death isn’t the harshest of consequences. If it is the sinner’s justifiable suffering we are after, what greater suffering can there be than for one to understand the unspeakable suffering of others caused by his own hands? It appears that Timothy McVeigh may have spent his life unrepentant and therefore, never suffered the sorrow of a sinner. Where is the justice in that? Perhaps he never developed compassion for the babies he destroyed or their mothers. It seems quite likely that he remained no more than an animal until his life was snuffed out and his chance to become human removed right along with it.

There is no satisfaction of justice in an unrepentant soul because such a soul has no ability to perceive justice or feel suffering for the pain they caused. Such a soul never connects tragedy and pain to his own actions. And so, it is quite likely that we never proved anything to Timothy McVeigh while he was on earth.

I told myself and my daughter that Timothy McVeigh was beyond ever coming to a state of remorse and repentance because I forgot that with God all things are possible. I wouldn’t be very honest if I said that I don’t find it extremely difficult to believe a person like Timothy McVeigh could ever develop a conscience. However, if he did, it would surely be a miracle, and I believe in miracles.

This is my story about the day my Catholic conscience waged war against my heartfelt support for the death penalty. My Catholic conscience won.