Editor’s note: This text by Bishop Marian Eleganti was written in German and translated by LifeSiteNews with permission from the bishop.
(LifeSiteNews) — The latest document from the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith is entitled Dignitas infinita and ascribes “infinite dignity” to human beings. I prefer the term “inviolable dignity.” We should instead reserve the category “infinite” for God, because it only really applies to Him. All creatures are “finite” or “contingent.” “Infinite dignity” for humans sounds grandiose and somehow irrational.
In the Book of Genesis, the death penalty is justified by the fact that man is made in the image of God. According to the first book of the Holy Scriptures, if someone kills a fellow human being, he deserves to die. Why? Because he has disregarded the dignity of being the image of God in his neighbor and has not respected the inviolability associated with it. By committing murder, he forfeits (latae sententiae) his own right to life. He is punished with death.
The death penalty is thus justified here with the dignity of man as the image of God, while in the document of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, it is rejected with the same argument. This is a contradiction. Pope Francis and his protégé and ghostwriter, Cardinal Fernández, are moving away from tradition with their position and are taking on great Catholic scholars who have thought differently in this regard and have justified the traditional doctrine of just war and the death penalty with criteria based on justice in a rational way bound by the theology of revelation.
READ: Pope’s change to Catechism on death penalty is distressingly ambiguous
Their arguments should be addressed, and better ones should be provided. But we wait in vain. So how can Ukraine’s self-defense be justified if acts of war or wars cannot be justified in any case – not even in self-defense (cf. the traditional doctrine of just war)? There must be objective and rational criteria for this. The traditional teaching of the Church has provided them. Today, we simply rewrite the catechism.
I am not a fan of the death penalty, and the experience of how and by whom it has been and is practiced worldwide in the past and present gives reason to question it and reject it in this form. However, anyone who outlaws it as the ultima ratio in every case is taking issue with the Word of God and, based on this, with the teaching tradition of the Church. They assume that they know better today. Doubts are appropriate.
As a reminder (CCC [The Catechism of the Catholic Church] 1997/2003):
2267 [on the death penalty]: 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, non-lethal 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.
Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an offense incapable of doing harm — without definitely taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself — the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity “are very rare, if not practically non-existent” (Evangelium Vitae 56).
READ: Allowing death penalty is Catholic doctrine and cannot be overturned: two Catholic profs
2309 [on just war]: “The strict conditions for legitimate defense by military force require rigorous consideration. The gravity of such a decision makes it subject to rigorous conditions of moral legitimacy. At one and the same time:
- the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain;
- all other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective;
- there must be serious prospects of success;
- the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. The power of modern means of destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition.”
READ: Swiss Bishop Eleganti warns ‘Synodalism’ is undermining the true nature of the Church