Is Capital Punishment right or wrong?

I woke up today to the Michael Smerconish program on the radio, and apparently the police had very recently captured John Timoney, the lead suspect of the October 31st murder of Philadelphia police officer Charles Cassidy. Of course, this brought up some sort of discussion of whether or not the death penalty should be applied to John. Much of the frustration over this case is not only from the barbaric murder of officer Cassidy, but the past killing of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner in 1981 by Mumia Abu-Jamal. Smerconish was attempting to capture the moment of hatred towards the alleged barbaric act of Timoney. The goal was to preserve this moment so that potentially — years down the road — we wouldn’t have crowds of people supporting Timoney and attempting to get him off the death row.

Although I strongly disagree with Smerconish’s attitudes by feeling his objective is not good natured, it brings up an important question — is it right to take the life of someone who took another’s life?

Capital punishment has been stated by the Church morally to be wrong in almost all cases,

“Assuming that the guilty party’s identity and responsibility have been fully determined, the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor. If, however, nonlethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people’s safety from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and are more in conformity to the dignity of the human person.” – Catholic Catechism, 2267.

Simply stating that unless the aggressor can not be stopped from killing further human lives, the death penalty is indeed wrong. Of course, now that Timoney is no longer a threat to any other human life, killing him would indeed be murder and thus be a grave sin.

My take on this is to explain the position a bit further. First you have to understand the definition of murder that the Church has. Murder is the intentional act of killing another human being unless in the defensive act of preserving human life (including self-preservation). Let us not kid around here, the Truth is: murder is being committed by the death penalty for it is not an act of defense. It is wrong. A non-lethal solution such as prison is the right thing to do.

We as people are called to follow in Christ’s footsteps. We must never kill another human. We have to keep our tempers in check and guard against the ‘heat of the moment’ where we’d like to kill someone for killing another.

When Christ was brought before the leaders of the Jewish temple, he was accused in being in league with Satan and was thus condemned to death on a cross. Even though Christ knew this was going to happen, he didn’t strike his accusers down — albeit he would have been right to do so. No, Christ’s message is one of a pure love, a love that always leaves the door open to forgiveness and repentance.

Cassidy and Faulkner have ended their journeys here on this Earth. But Timoney’s journey hasn’t. There must always be given time to him to repent and change his ways, and make up to us as best he can for what was taken.

Christ says, (Mat. 5:44) “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” If Timoney is society’s enemy, he too should be loved and given this chance. For Cassidy’s family, this might be quite possibly the hardest thing they will ever have to do in their entire lives: forgive him. “For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have?”

Christ’s message is a hard one to swallow but it is necessary that we do so. If we are to be like Him, we must aspire to be like His love, a more perfect and wholesome love than what is conventional. For if He could forgive even Timoney, there would be even greater hope for us and our salvation too. Love like Christ.