Church against death penalty

Making the point yesterday, Roman Catholic Archbishop Joseph Harris said that two months ago, the Antilles Episcopal Conference issued a statement opposing the use of capital punishment, and asked the Governments of TT and Barbados to change their laws on the issue.

Harris quoted Pope Francis as saying, “More and more it is seen as an offence against the inviolability of life and the dignity of the human person, which contradicts God’s plan for man and society, and His merciful justice, and impedes the penalty from fulfilling any just objective. It does not render justice to the victims, but rather fosters vengeance.” The archbishop’s’ comments were in response to parish priest of St Charles Borromeo RC Church, Tunapuna, Fr Ian Taylor, who called for the death penalty to be restored during his homily at Saturday’s Mass in response to the killing of Republic Bank employee Shannon Banfield.

Harris quoted the pope’s letter to the president of the International Commission Against the Death Penalty in which he expressed the church’s opposition to the death penalty and called it “inadmissible, no matter how serious the crime committed.” The pope, Harris said, acknowledged society’s need to protect itself from aggressors, but added, “When the death penalty is applied, it is not for a current act of aggression, but rather for an act committed in the past. It is also applied to persons whose current ability to cause harm is not current, as it has been neutralised.

They are already deprived of their liberty.” On questions of methods of execution, Harris quoted the pope as saying there were discussions in some quarters about the method of killing, “but there is no humane way of killing another person.” He also quoted Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI in calling for an end to the death penalty as a legal sanction. Both popes noted that significant progress was made “in conforming penal law both to the human dignity of prisoners and the effective maintenance of public order.” The bishops of many countries have spoken to the same effect, the archbishop said.

He added that the Catechism of the Catholic Church says the traditional teaching of the church “does not exclude” recourse to the death penalty when it is “the only practicable way to defend the lives of human beings effectively against the aggressor.” It adds, however, that today such cases are “very rare, if not practically non-existent.” The doctrine on capital punishment has developed and has moved from accepting the right of the State to impose capital punishment.

Fr Taylor in a release said that church’s centuries- old teaching on death penalty has been, and still is, that the State has the right to exercise the death penalty, but it has not demanded that the right be exercised, and leaves it to the discretion of the State.

He quoted from the Holy Bible to support his call for putting to use the death penalty, but, like Harris, noted the church’s recent position on withholding the death penalty citing the sacredness of life and the dignity of the human person.