Homily
for April 27, 2003
Year
B -
Cycle I
Divine Mercy Sunday
By Fr. John Carney
Topic: The Church's Stand on
Capital Punishment
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Gospel
John 20:19-31
“On the evening of that first day
of the week, when
the doors were locked, where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews,
Jesus
came and stood in their midst and said to them, ‘Peace be with
you.’ When
he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. The
disciples
rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace
be with
you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.’ And when he
had said
this, he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy
Spirit.
Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are
retained…’”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Do
you believe that Jesus is the Christ, the son of God? Do you
believe that
Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God? Well, blessed are you.
You
heard that, in the words of Jesus Christ. Blessed are you, for
you have
not seen and yet you believe.
Today
is Divine Mercy Sunday. Jesus said this to St. Faustina: He
said,
“Write this. The greater the sinner, the greater the mercy.
Summon
all those to confidence in the incomprehensible depth of my mercy, for
I desire
to save all. The well of mercy was opened wide with the lamb on
the cross
for all souls. I do not exclude anyone.” I want to talk to
you
today about a difficult and controversial subject, but a subject that
is very,
very important. And that is the subject of the Death Penalty, or
capital
punishment. It’s a subject that has stirred great passion and opinion,
and is a
political “hot potato.” But we need to talk about it, because in
37
states in
To
sum up briefly, the Church teaching today, in the year 2003, on capital
punishment is that it is not necessary. Society has a right to
protect
itself against the doings of evil people, and that right includes the
taking of
another life in self-defense. But today, with the system of
prisons, we
can incarcerate those who are dangerous. We don’t need to kill
them after
we capture them.
Now,
this teaching of the Church has evolved. When I was a child, I
don’t
recall hearing this message from the pulpit. I think, more or less at
that
time, the Church was ambivalent about its stand on capital
punishment.
And obviously it never was all for it, but under the leadership of our
Holy Father John Paul II, the teaching of the
Church has
evolved into a very direct statement. Indeed, the Holy Father has
elevated it to the magisterial level, in his encyclical Evangelium
Vitae,
The Gospel of Life, which addresses the fact that capital punishment is
not
necessary. He also takes every opportunity at every forum to
speak about
this. Here’s what he said at a papal mass in
But
it is important for us to understand that the Church, at least in my
opinion,
opposes capital punishment as a matter of principle. We should be
a
people of principle. And we should make our decisions based on
principles; not on feelings and emotions, but on principles…the
principles that
Jesus Christ gave us. The Church’s opposition is not primarily
because
capital punishment is not fairly executed - we know it’s not.
There’s no
question about that. Studies have proven that there’s a racial
and an
economic bias in the implementation of the punishment. If you’re
black
and poor, you’re much more likely to be executed than if you’re white
and rich.
We just know that. Big money buys big lawyers. Big lawyers
don’t
send their clients to the death chamber. Indeed, sometimes they
even get
off scot-free, or “OJ-free,” or whatever you want to call it. And
so it
is not a matter of fairness. Indeed, we know that innocent people
have
been executed and no doubt will continue to be executed; it’s just a
matter of
averages. But that’s not the opposition of the Church. The
Church’s
opposition is one of principle. And I’ll talk about that in a
minute.
It’s
also not a matter of empathy for the criminal. We don’t pretend
to
empathize with these guys. They are bad, bad people, who have
done
terrible things. We don’t like them. That’s right – we
don’t like
them. But we are called to love them, and to treat them
humanely.
Sometimes Christians have this mushy sense of the Gospel, and that
we’re
supposed to like everybody. Let’s face it – there are some people
who are
unlikable. Some are in your family, right? So don’t come to
confession and say, “I just don’t like him.” Well, no one else
does
either. Get over it and love him. It’s not a sin.
The
Church’s opposition is not a matter of international pressure. The EU,
the UN,
Amnesty International are calling on us to decry the
The
Church’s stand on capital punishment is a matter of principle, and the
principle is that human life is sacred. Human life, each and
every person,
is created in God’s image, and therefore has a spark of the divine, and
therefore is sacred. That’s why we don’t execute them. “The
well of
mercy was opened wide with the Lamb from the cross for all souls.
And I
do not exclude anyone,” says Jesus Christ.
Some
of you saw the movie “Dead Man Walking.” It’s a true story; a
terrible
story, about two criminals who went on an eight-day rampage of horrible
crimes. One of their names was Robert Lee Willy.
Him and
his accomplice kidnapped and tortured one 18-year-old girl, and killed
her
after raping her. Another girl was sexually assaulted, tortured
and left
for dead. Her boyfriend was tortured, shot, and is still
paralyzed.
And Robert Lee Willy was executed for this crime, as the
movie
showed. But the girl who was left for dead is named Debbie
Morris.
And for eighteen years, she never had a good day after this
crime. For
eighteen years she wrote that she could not put this out of her mind
even for
an hour. The horror of what she had experienced, and the hatred,
and the
shame, and all those terrible feelings just led her life for her for
eighteen
years. Until one day she forgave Robert Lee Willy. By the
way, she
is happily married now, with two sons. Here’s what she
wrote. She
said, “I know people who are incredulous at the thought of forgiving
someone
like Robert Willy. I felt the same way until I ran across a book
by Louis
Smeds called Forgive and Forget in which he points out that if
monsters
are beyond forgiving, we give them a power they should never have, to
keep
their evil alive in the hearts of those who suffer most. By
forgiving
Willy, I in no way absolve him of the responsibility for what he
did. But
the refusal to forgive him meant that I held on to my pain, my shame,
my
self-pity. People often ask me now how I feel about the death
penalty.
The truth is, I am ambivalent. But I do know this; justice didn’t
do a
thing to heal me. Forgiveness did.” The point is that
Willy’s
execution did nothing to help Debbie. Forgiveness did.
If
you can’t forgive someone, even a loved one for a past hurt, remember
that you
can’t get even. Justice won’t do a thing to heal you. Only
forgiveness will. And I believe, really believe, that maybe when
we begin
to value the lives of the guilty, we will begin to value the lives of
the
innocent. In our nation, this nation that we love, we don’t do
either
very well. We don’t value the lives of the innocent, especially
the child
in the womb. And we don’t value the lives of the guilty.
Was Jesus
serious about his mercy? He said, “Summon all those in confidence
to the
incomprehensible depth of my mercy. For my desire is to save
all.
Tell all of mankind to draw close to my merciful heart, and I will fill
them
with peace. Mankind will not find consolation until it turns with
confidence to my mercy and love.” Jesus was dead serious about
his
mercy. His justice is his mercy, and his mercy is his justice.