Expert: Fr. Michael - 1/23/2010

Question
Father, what is the Church's posotion on the death penalty and the right to bare arms?  

Answer
       The teaching of the Church from the earliest centuries, as
represented, e.g., in the writings of St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas
(Summa Theologica, IIa IIae, Q. 64, A. 2), and St. Alphonsus Liguori (all
Doctors of the Church), as well as in the Encyclical Casti Conubii of Pope
Pius XI, is that society has the authority to inflict punishments upon its
members, and even to deprive a criminal of his life, for the necessity of the
common good:  (1) primarily, to vindicate the moral order and expiate the
crime, (2) secondarily, to defend itself, (3) to deter other would-be
offenders, and (4) to reform the criminal or deter future crime.

       Pope Pius XII, in an address ("Ce Premier Congress") on the moral
limits of medical research and treatment to the First International Congress
of Histopathology of the Nervous System, held in Rome on September 13, 1952,
contrasted the right to life with the benefit of life in the case of a justly
condemned criminal:  "Even when there is question of a person condemned to
death, the state does not take away the *right* of the individual to life.  
It is then reserved to the public authority to deprive the condemned person
of the *benefit* of life in expiation for his guilt, after he himself, by his
crime, has already deprived himself of his right to life.  (Acta Apostolicae
Sedis XLIV (1952), p. 787)

       The dogmatic Council of Trent decreed:  "[well founded is] the right
and duty of legitimate public authority to punish malefactors by means of
penalties commensurate with the gravity of the crime, not excluding, in cases
of extreme gravity, the death penalty."

       It should be noted that to vindicate the moral order means not the
taking of vengeance upon the criminal, but imposing upon the criminal
some act or loss or suffering as a form of compensation to right the
balance of justice.  Of such "vindictive" punishment, Pope Pius XII
stated:  "It would be incorrect to reject completely, and as a matter of
principle the function of vindictive punishment.  While man is on earth,
such punishment both can and should help toward his eternal salvation,
provided he himself raises no obstacles to its salutary efficacy"
(Discourse of December 5, 1954, Acta Apostolicae Sedis, XLVI, p. 67).

       Given these purposes, an execution may take place if the following
conditions are met:  (a) the guilt of the prisoner is certain; (b) the
crime is of major gravity; (c) the penalty is to be inflicted, after due
process, by state authority, not by private individuals or by lynching,
and (d) the prisoner is given the opportunity to make his peace with
God.

       Given these criteria, Catholics may differ in their prudential
judgments as to whether a particular society needs to employ capital
punishment for its own protection.  To say that it is wrong per se or
never justified is contrary to the traditional teaching of the Church.  
A Catholicm may not add his prudential judgments to the list of Church
doctrines and enjoin them as obligatory.  However, the state may always
choose to commute the deserved penalty.

       It should be noted that heinous criminals are not innocent persons
(like unborn children), but are objectively guilty in natural law of
grave crimes against the common weal.  As Pope Pius XII explained it:  
"Even in the question of the execution of a man condemned to death, the
state does not dispose of the individual's right to life.  It then falls
to the public authority to deprive the condemned man of the good of life
in expiation of his fault after he, by his crime, has already deprived
himself of his right to life."

       Our Lord Himself confirms this power of capital punishment in the
interview with Pilate before His crucifixion:

       Pilate therefore saith to him:  Speakest thou not to me?  Knowest
       thou not that I have power to crucify thee, and I have power to
       release thee?  Jesus answered:  Thou shouldst not have any power
       against me, UNLESS IT WERE GIVEN THEE FROM ABOVE.... (John 19:10-
       11/DR)

       He also seems to speak of the appropriateness of capital punishment
in another passage:  "But he that shall scandalize one of these little ones
that believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone be hanged about
his neck and that he should be drowned in the depth of the sea" (Matthew
18:6/DR).

       The principle is also represented in the words of St. Dismas, the
Good Thief on the cross beside Christ, who was being crucified for robbery
(the Rheims and Confraternity versions translate the Greek "kakourgon" in
Luke 23:39 as "robbers," but it is really more general than that;
"malefactors" would be the literal translation or, more generally,
"criminals").  He says to his fellow criminal on the other side of Christ:

       Dost not even thou fear God, seeing that thou art under the same
       sentence?  AND WE INDEED JUSTLY, FOR WE ARE RECEIVING WHAT OUR
       DEEDS DESERVED, but this man has done nothing wrong."
       (Luke 23:40-41).


As to the second matter, it is a principle of natural law that one can defend himself and others.