Raleigh North Carolina Presentation
Called to Act: Why North Carolina Catholics Should Work Against the
Death Penalty
St. Francis of Assisi Parish
September 21, 2002
As | begin this morning, | want to tell you how delighted | am to be here
and have the opportunity to affirm my belief that Catholic opposition to the use of
the death penalty demonstrates that we are a seriously pro-life church that
witnesses to the ever-present love of God for all those he created.
As | begin, | thank Michael Keough for asking me to visit Raleigh and the
faith community of St. Francis Assisi; | thank Marianne and Paul Williams for their
hospitality. | am grateful to Bishop Joseph Gossman, who may not remember me
sitting in a desk in a classroom at St. Mary’s Seminary where he taught me
Canon Law, | am grateful to him for the leadership he has shown in speaking out
eloquently on this issue as he exercises his teaching role in a deeply pastoral
way. | applaud all the North Carolinians, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, non-believing
and otherwise, who have helped make the abolition movement in this state one
of the most effective in the nation. The number of political bodies, faith groups
and other organizations that are demanding a Moratorium on the killing is proof
of your hard work.
Your work and that of individuals and groups around this nation have
changed the entire debate. We are helped by Governor George Ryan’s
declaration of a moratorium in Illinois, Governor Glendenings moratorium in
Maryland, recent U. S. Supreme Court rulings regarding the mentally retarded
and the requirement that jurors mete out sentences in these cases and not
judges.
Within the Catholic community, the writings and speeches of Pope John
Paul II, the subsequent change in the new Catechism, the continuous
condemnation of the death penalty by our own bishops, from 1973 until the
present, have moved this issue into the mainstream.
Ordinarily, when | am asked to speak on this issue, it is to a Kentucky
audience and it is to some civic group, rather than a group of Catholics, though
there is the occasional invitation to preach about it in October, Respect Life
Month. When | mentioned to a former parishioner who is a friend of mine that |
was coming here to talk about Why Catholics Should Work Against the Death
Penalty, Joyce immediately remarked, “Why wouldn’t you be?” Even though her
niece was murdered, Joyce does not hesitate to make her faith visible and her
opposition to the death penalty public. It comes almost naturally to her; for
others, it is more difficult.
Preparing for this morning was difficult, not because | have an second-
thoughts about why we should oppose the death penalty, but because | have
been doing this for so long, | have forgotten how | got to this point, if | ever knew.
| tried to imagine myself in the audience and wondered if | would like to listen to
someone read to me what the Pope has said, words from U. S. Bishops’
documents, and other relatively dry material. Having asked that question, |
answered myself: “No — but | might have to do some of that.” But, | would also
like to bring some of this to life and hopefully make it real for you so it becomes a
part of your daily Christian living, like it has for my friend, Joyce.
First of all, | do not think the reason Catholics should oppose the death
penalty is only to be found in documents promoting the social justice teachings of
the church, most of which are barely 100 years old. | think we must recognize
that what we find in those documents itself has a history and a tradition, a
tradition expressed in word in Scripture and in the action that derives from the
prayer life of the community of faith, especially the eucharistic liturgy. | will speak
about this in a moment.
To understand why we should oppose the death penalty, | think it helps to
begin by recognizing who we are and who we are called to become. | propose
that we take seriously the fact that we are disciples of Jesus and that we are on
mission: “Go and make disciples of all, baptizing them in the name of the father,
the son, and the holy spirit.” We have a task. We are an evangelizing body of
believers who must first be converted to following him and then rejoicing go and
spread the good news to others. The U. S. Bishops have for the past ten years
promoted a plan and strategy for Catholic Evangelization in the U.S. In the 10"
anniversary edition they offer a vision of evangelization that focuses on
conversion of heart and proclaiming the Gospel in a changed and changing
world. It emphasizes the continuing need to be converted, to experience a
change of heart, in a world filled with tensions. This, it seems to me, demands an
openness to God and a trust that Jesus keeps his promise to be with us.
What | am saying is not so different from what you already know,
especially if you have paid attention to the mission statement of St. Francis of
Assisi Parish. In there, you announce what you believe, which leads to a
description of who you are. Then because of who you are, you can describe what
you plan to do so that we can recognize you. So that you will know we are
followers of Christ, we bear witness to those who do not know Christ by living our
faith and spreading the good news, reach out in a special way to those who
hunger and thirst for human dignity, the poor, suffering and oppressed people in
our community and in our world.
That, in itself, should be enough to convince many Catholics why living the
faith necessarily calls for opposing the death penalty. This notion of discipleship
and bearers of good news to the suffering, the oppressed, the sinner finds
expression in these words from Mark Spoto’s book, The Hidden Jesus: “This
attitude of moral vigilance — as if faith and morality were synonymous — is closer
to a fascist police mentality than it is to the attitude of Jesus, who speaks of a
new inner attitude that frees us from a slavish fear of law; he stress, on the
contrary, an attitude of constant conversion, of turning to God. He reminds us
that god rejoices over a sinner’s repentance. And no one knows better than God
that a sinner needs time to repent, which is only one reason why a follower of
Jesus can never, under any circumstances, support capital punishment...
“To argue that some criminals are beyond the pale of grace and
forgiveness — and therefore must be executed rather than allowed a lifetime to
repent — is simply to replace God's ultimately free, forgiving and transformative
action in the hearts of human beings with one’s own presumptive and preemptive
judgment. To endorse capital punishment, in other words, is to play God in more
ways than one — not only by taking a life but also by deciding who can and who
cannot be changed by grace and forgiven by God. ‘| have no pleasure in the
death of the wicked,’ says the Lord to the prophet Ezekiel. ‘I desire that the
wicked turn from their ways and live’ To that end, God has the patience of God.”
In their Pastoral Plan for Pro-life Activities, our bishops make a similar
point when discussing the death penalty: “State-sanctioned killing affects us all
because it diminishes the value we place on all human life. Capital punishment
also cuts short the guilty person's opportunity for spiritual conversion and
repentance.”
Statements such as this are at the heart of the social teaching of the
Gospel. We are called to announce the Good News that all, hear me, all human
life is sacred and has value. So another reason Catholics should oppose the
death penalty is to make this very point absolutely clear. Still speaking about the
death penalty, the Bishops make this point in the Pastoral Plan:
“The consequences of widespread loss of respect for the dignity of human
life—seen in pervasive violence, toleration of abortion, and increasingly vocal
support for assisted suicide and research that destroys human embryos—make it
all the more urgent to reject lethal punishment and uphold the inviolability of
every human life. "Our witness to respect for life shines most brightly when we
demand respect for each and every human life, including the lives of those who
fail to show that respect for others" (Living the Gospel of Life, no. 22). Thus we
are called to extend God's love to all human beings created in his image,
including those convicted of serious crimes. In so doing, we can help to make
“unconditional respect for life the foundation of a new society" (The Gospel of
Life, no. 77).”
The social teaching of the church, as set forth above and in other
documents, is given to us to guide Christ's disciples as we cooperate with his
grace in building a just society and living lives of holiness amidst the challenges
of our modern world. “Our belief in the sanctity of human life and the inherent
dignity of the human person is the foundation of all the principles of our social
teaching. ... We believe that every person is precious, that people are more
important than things, and that the measure of every institution is whether it
threatens or enhances the life and dignity of the human person.”
As disciples, you and | are called to promote “A culture of life ‘where every
human life is protected, respected and celebrated.’ Doing this begins with a
personal decision to respect the dignity of others. But it will take much more than
that. We must bear this culture to others through our words and actions, and
work for public policies that support human life and human dignity.”
OK — | think | have quoted enough from official documents. You can use
the web, your parish library, and other resources to find all these documents from
which | have been quoting and | am sure you are quite capable of reading them
yourselves.
At this point | would prefer to offer some reflections that over time have
helped me understand why it is so important to oppose killing the men, women
and children we house on the death rows of this nation. | am not going to talk
about the racism, the bad lawyering, the prosecutorial misconduct, the desire for
vengeance, the mistaken identity or any of the other reasons, even that of
innocence, that should cause us to oppose killing these people, or at the
minimum declaring a nationwide moratorium as we attempt to get it right.
| prefer to describe some personal experiences and hope you find some
meaning in them for yourselves. Long before Sr. Helen Prejean was famous for
Dead Man Walking she visited Louisville Kentucky to promote the quickly defunct
“Torch of Conscience Campaign.” | think this was the late ‘80's, early ‘90’s of the
last century. Anyway, by chance, friends of mine hosted her and they were
members of a parish, where, again by chance, | was the celebrant of that
Sunday's liturgies. Maybe because Helen was there or maybe because it was
just after Easter and | was somehow conscious that Gregory Wilson, a man still
on Ky’s death row, was baptized and confirmed at Easter, or maybe because
God works in strange ways and constantly helps us see things more clearly. For
whatever reason, when | got to the words in the 3 Eucharistic prayer, “In mercy
and love unite all your children, wherever they may be”, it became crystal clear to
me why | had to oppose the death penalty. The banquet we celebrate is all-
inclusive — it calls for the unity of all God’s children; it matters not if that child is in
a womb or in a cell on death row, we may not deprive God of the opportunity to
distribute his mercy and to open his loving arms and receive that person.
Opposition to the death penalty, therefore, most deeply flows from the sacrifice of
Christ and the banquet he provides for all of us. It became absolutely clear to me
that Gregory Wilson was, indeed, my brother, made so by his baptism into the
death of the Lord; and to kill him, to not stand up to a state that wants to kill him
in MY name, is fratricide. | am Cain killing my brother, Abel. Can | be a true
disciple and do that? | cannot.
As we hear the words of the Eucharistic prayers recited week after week,
we forget to reflect on what they can mean. Therefore, | believe it is important to
make a conscious effort to connect our prayer life with the life we lead when we
leave the sacred space in which we celebrate. So, to pray for the unity of God’s
children implies, to me, that | must cooperate with God's grace outside the
worship space and help bring about that unity, a unity that cannot be achieved by
killing.
In a sense, this might be viewed as putting into practice one of the basic
themes of Catholic social teaching, that of solidarity. This means, “we are our
brothers’ and sisters’ keepers, wherever they live. We are one human family,
whatever our national, racial, ethnic, economic, and ideological differences.
Learning to practice the virtue of solidarity means learning that ‘loving our
neighbor’ has global dimensions in an interdependent world.”
There is another way of understanding our solidarity with our brothers and
sisters and with one another is to recognize not only our common humanity, but
our common sinfulness. Just this past Sunday, Rev. Brian Pierce, a Dominican
from Raleigh who is currently in New York fasting and praying for peace,
delivered a homily in which he states: “We all sin. And, we have all been
forgiven. Recognizing this truth forms a kind of solidarity among all human
beings. We are all in this together!”
Though he goes on in the homily to speak about the impending attack by
the U.S. on Iraq, the closing words of his homily could just as easily apply to us
as individuals who can and must seek to influence the behavior of the state that
acts on our behalf. As you listen, substitute the word “state” for nation. “What
would it be like if our nation took the higher moral ground and began the long,
painful process of forgiving our enemies? What would it mean to really live out on
a national scene the words of Jesus, "Love your enemies?" What if we began to
scatter the seeds of nonviolent love around the world? What if we chose not to
become the killers who kill the killers?”
What if we said “no more killing in our names?”
Allow me to shift gears slightly and offer another way of looking at why
Catholics ought to oppose the death penalty. | want to talk a moment about
victims. What | plan to say is heavily influenced by an address of Rev. Richard
Rohr to participants at the 1998 Los Angeles CCD convention, one of the
country’s largest gatherings of religious educators.
In this address, Rohr alludes to the Victim who forgives and the Savior who
transforms. As | thought about this, | began to reflect that in the case of murder,
not only is the deceased a victim, though certainly the most important one, but so
are the relatives and friends who love him, and so are we who live in the political
boundary in which the murder took place. John Donne is right: “No man is an
island, entire of itself....any man’s death diminishes me, because | am involved in
mankind.”
Because of our outrage at the taking of human life, victims of the violence
directed at another one of us, we have passed laws, we have set down penalties
to hold violators accountable. Citizens in 38 states have decided that in certain
instances those who kill will meet the same fate.
In those states, victims in the broadest sense of that word have decided to
take the pain they have suffered and transmit it to another, to the one who has
caused the pain. But, if | understand what Rohr is saying, there is indeed for us a
Victim we need to pay attention to, a victim who did not transmit the pain to which
He was subjected, but transformed the pain. He did not ask his Father to avenge
his death, nor has he ever asked his followers to avenge his death, and, | would
add, nor does he ask us today to avenge the death of any one of us.
He showed us a New Way, a way that leads to life, a path to end the
violence. We are called to imitate him. He told us how yeast transforms flour into
10
dough that becomes bread, and asks that we be the yeast in our society that
transforms our culture of death into a culture of life.
On that cross, he taught us how to suffer our pain, and by love and
forgiveness, transform our world.
There are family members of murder victims who understand this and they
will tell you — they have told me — how, when they speak to a prosecutor about
not seeking the death penalty, they are marginalized, forgotten, not heard.
Standing with them and supporting their attempt to “love the enemy”, to speak,
as He did, “Father, forgive them”, is another reason for Catholics to oppose the
death penalty.
| am blessed to know several of these family members: Maria, whose
brother was killed in the line of duty as a State trooper in Virginia; she stood
outside the prison asking that his killer not be executed. Paul, whose daughter
was brutally raped and stabbed to death; he became a volunteer Catholic
chaplain at KSP and walked Harold McQueen to the electric chair. And Jane, my
former executive director whose nephew was on the 89" floor of Tower 2.
Jane often testified for the Kentucky Bishops about abolishing the death
penalty before 9/11/2001. I'd like you to listen to her testimony after 9/11/2001.
Some of you may recall in our past conversations that you told
me, if it happened to your loved one, you'd feel differently. Frankly, |
have even allowed myself to wonder about that.
11
| now have an answer for myself and for you. This morning, |
became the newest member of Kentucky Murder Victims Families
for Reconciliation.
My 26-year old nephew, Scott Johnson, was a victim of one
of the most horrific crimes ever to occur on U.S. soil. Scotty was
murdered on September 11, 2001, while working on the 89" floor of
the World Trade Center. In fact, Scotty’s floor in the South Tower
took the direct hit.
As the nightmarish news began to unfold, | began a journey
of many emotions. | have felt pain, fear, fleeting hope, sinking
despair, the depths of sadness which | never felt before.
| have felt such pain for my 89-year old father whose family
was directly struck by the evil of terrorism. He should not have to
deal with such complex tragedy at this stage of his life.
My emotions remain raw — and | struggle with living ina
conflicted country that seeks revenge and kills in an effort to teach
that killing is wrong.
Scotty is gone. My family is in deep mourning. We are
changed, but more killing will only perpetuate the cycle of violence.
This does not mean we do not want his killers or any other killers
held accountable. We certainly do.
12
But taking another life is not the answer. | have always
believed that life belongs to God alone. And | believe that even more
so today. Don’t think you have to kill for me.
Deliberately destroying human life is always a terrible thing,
whether it’s an individual, a group of terrorists, or the State of
Kentucky doing the killing. The abolition movement in Kentucky
recognizes the unspeakable, unbearable things for which death row
inmates have been convicted. Abolitionists recognize the terrible
suffering of the victims’ families. And | now know it personally.
Our first and our final point to you is that we know what these
murderers are, the ones who are truly guilty.
We know the horrible things they have done. But what they
have done is not the only issue here. The question now before you
is not only about what they are - A more important question is this:
who are we and what should we be doing.
The witnesses supporting the death penalty will most likely
describe horrible and cruel murders. We are with them in
condemning these atrocities. But these murders have
been committed for reasons most of us can not fathom, and they are
done - and now the question is should we match them, killing for
killing - or is there a better more responsible way to stop the cycle of
killing. Our testimony is that there is.
13
Don’t think you have to kill.
For Scotty
For me.
Or for any of us.
Thank you.
These family member survivors whose faith is so deep have much to teach
us, the other victims, about how to heed the call of Christ to love one another,
even one’s enemy.
| thank all of you for your kind attention and am happy to try to answer
questions or respond to comments you might have.
14
