I am a pro-life Republican, and I mean pro-life in all senses of the word. Catholic conservatives today face the question of whether society and government should sanction the death penalty. The Republican party platform as it currently stands supports the death penalty whereas the Catholic Church officially opposes it. There are a number of different arguments against the death penalty, whether from the point of economics or the perspective of liberalism, but I come to argue on the grounds of modern conservative ideology and Catholic theology.
The most compelling case against the death penalty from the Bible comes from the Ten Commandments. In these, God gave the Israelites a set of rules to live their lives by in a very simple form. The 6th command says ‘Thou shalt not kill.’ In a very blunt straight to the point statement, God says that you cannot kill. God does not then provide instances where one would be allowed to kill others. God does not then say that if someone breaks this commandment that one is then permitted to break it again with capital punishment. God simply says that you cannot kill and Jesus reaffirms this in the New Testament in Matthew 19:18 when he says ‘You shall not murder.’ However, this then raises the question: is self-defense allowed, and if so, is capital punishment a form of self-defense?
One of the best distinctions I have come across to alleviate the complexity of this situation is to divide self-defense into three separate categories. Personal self-defense is the defense of oneself such as against a home intruder. National self-defense would be to defend your nation through war. Social self-defense is the use of lethal force to protect society, for example, executing criminals that are a danger to society; this is one of the examples someone in the pro-death penalty camp might use to justify their beliefs. All of these forms of self-defense are allowed in Catholicism, but the problem in the instance of social self-defense is that in a modern society like the United States, once these people are arrested, they are no longer considered a threat to society. They are put into a level of security in prison where they are with criminals who committed similar crimes. Any act of capital punishment that is used against these murderers by the state is then unjust since they pose almost no threat to society in such a state. Today, these maximum security prisons, where murderers are housed in, have reduced escapes to nearly zero. Someone who is convicted and sentenced to death should instead have a life prison sentence to contemplate the sin he has committed and then, hopefully, repent.
However, this does mean that execution would be allowed just because someone poses a threat to society This is only the case in a society that is not modern, unlike the United States. In medieval Europe where life was much more chaotic and less safe, it is reasonable why one might execute someone as they could pose a legitimate danger to society, which is permitted by the Catholic Church. Additionally, in a tribal setting, where one does not have the means to detain people, it would be a wise choice to execute a serial killer. These do not conflict with Catholicism, but needless killing does.
Americans are not seeking the death penalty to protect society, as those that receive the death penalty would otherwise spend their life in prison. Instead, many Americans seek the death penalty for revenge. This was made blatantly evident when anti-death penalty candidate Michael Dukakis, in his 1988 run for president, was asked in a debate whether he would support the death penalty if his wife was raped and murdered. In response, he stood by his principle, and calmly explained why he would say “no.” This was seen as a gaffe by many, but the most notable point that arose from the exchange is the question’s key revelation as to the American outlook on the death penalty. Dukakis was not asked whether the man was a danger to society, but whether he would personally want to seek revenge for the rape and murder of his wife. It is made very clear in the Bible that seeking revenge is prohibited, for God will give what every person deserves on Judgment Day.
Despite the aforementioned arguments, I find the secular arguments in situations like these to be even more compelling, especially as pertaining to secular nations. As a conservative, the question of how much power the government should have always comes to mind when discussing politics, and the death penalty is no different. An argument against the death penalty is an argument for limited government. The government should not be given the ultimate power to choose whether people live or die. In the American spirit of standing against tyranny, for the people to willingly give the government the power to kill,while the people have no such power, is a very dangerous choice. For the same reason one might support the Second Amendment to ensure that the government can never become tyrannical, one should never support the death penalty and the life or death power that those who support it entrust in the government.
Government has a long history of being ineffective at doing certain tasks, and this is why centrally planned economies, government-run health care, and socialism are all opposed by American conservatives. States such as the Soviet Union have shown the government’s ineffectiveness in excessively managing the functions of everyday life and operations. This shows in the United States through the justice system, with the widely agreed statistic that 4% of convictions are false, including those sentenced to capital punishment. This would mean that the government has the right to kill, and indeed has killed, innocent people. This should scare anyone, for that the United States government has the capability to kill you and anyone you know through a false conviction.
For clarification, I do not believe that the United States is in immediate threat of devolving into a tyrannical regime, but I do believe that if certain powers are not safeguarded in a way that prevents the state from excessively exercising them, then we run the risk of dangerously expanding government power. Prominent Democrats that have gained national support in presidential campaigns such as Beto O'Rourke have put out a proposal for a mandatory gun buyback program for what he would classify as ‘assault weapons.’ American conservatives would agree that this would be a gross overreach of power and that it would limit the American public’s ability to protect themselves from state tyranny. But, when the similar issue arises of allowing state-sponsored murder that could fall on innocent people, many do not have a problem.
The death penalty in a modern society is state-sponsored murder prohibited by the Bible. The American public justifies this by seeking revenge against those convicted who are now rendered contained and helpless at the whim of the government. The death penalty has no place in a modern society that could devolve into tyranny and totalitarianism, and should not be tolerated by those who seek to act in a Godly way or those who fear tyrannical government power that has plagued human history.