Reno on the Death Penalty

Over at First Things, R.R. Reno describes what I consider to be one of the more thoughtful positions on the death penalty:

Although I’ve come to think capital punishment wrongheaded, I welcomed the decision to uphold lethal injection. The death penalty is not a simple matter of justice or injustice. As Avery Cardinal Dulles argued in First Things a few years ago, the consistent teaching of the Catholic Church has affirmed capital punishment. In his considered judgment (and when is his judgment not considered), “to vindicate the order of justice and to sustain the moral health of society and the security of innocent people against potential criminals it may be appropriate to punish certain crimes by death.” Clearly, from a Catholic perspective, capital punishment is not like abortion or racism. It’s not intrinsically evil, and its use is not, on its face, a sign of a deeply unjust society.

Acknowledging the moral legitimacy of the death penalty is important, because the rhetoric of a “consistent ethic of life” tends toward a simplistic view that makes our bishops, priests, and leaders seem morally untrustworthy. You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to see that condemning the death penalty as a “violation of human dignity” involves making no distinction between guilt and innocence, a failure of moral reasoning that is rightly repugnant to any well-formed conscience. The same line of reasoning will cause us to reject any and all uses of lethal forces for the protection of the common good from assault. It’s a conclusion that troubles anyone who has a sense of civic responsibility.

Yet recognizing that capital punishment is morally permitted does not rule out a practical judgment that it ought to be set aside.

I recommend the entire article. Go read it.