In November 1994 the Catholic bishops of the US issued a call for a moral revolution, a call largely unreported in the national media. They said: "We need more than new jails and we don't need assault weapons. We need a moral revolution. Beyond the violence in the streets is the violence in our hearts."
The bishops condemned abortion and violence associated with anti-abortion protests. But they dealt with more than violence and abortion in American society.
They also criticised the death penalty, saying: "We cannot teach that killing is wrong by killing. We reject capital punishment . . . as an affront to the human dignity of both those on whom it is inflicted and those in whose name it is employed."
Many good Catholics feel that the death penalty should be used; they argue that it is a deterrent, that it is the only way of making our cities and streets safer, that it protects against the abduction of children in our community, that it is the most efficient and economical way of ensuring a safer and better society for all.
The US bishops have addressed these and other related issues. First, they point out that the death penalty is not a deterrent. Various studies have shown that the states in which the death penalty has been introduced suffer from a far higher murder rate after its introduction than before. The death penalty, rather then being a deterrent, is an incitement to even more violence.
Second, there is always the risk of somebody innocent being executed, as has been documented all too often, and all too late. The criminal justice system is not flawless: it is administered by fallible human beings and mistakes are made. But death is a very final solution, and there is no remedy for the injustice that occurs when the innocent are executed.
Third, the administration of the death penalty in the US and elsewhere is disproportionate. Most often those condemned to die are poor and usually black. The death penalty is a major area of inequity in justice systems and gives the appearance that justice can be bought with sufficient funds for the best legal aid. The rich live, the poor die.
Finally, the bishops addressed the economic argument, that it is cheaper to execute than to have life imprisonment. That is a fallacy. The average cost of an execution in the US is at least $3 million, while life imprisonment is about $500,000. It costs society much more to execute criminals than to incarcerate them for life.
The words of the bishops do not adequately portray the injustice of the death penalty as administered. The following figures are a major cause for concern:
Blacks who kill whites are three times as likely to be sentenced to death as whites who kill whites.
In a study of almost 20,000 executions in the US, only 31 were for a white killing a black.
Of 455 men executed for rape, 405 were black. No white man has ever been executed for raping a black woman.
The US now joins China, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the former Soviet Union as nations that execute or intend to execute large numbers of citizens.
Murder, rape, serial killing, child abuse and drug-pushing are all evil. The reality of such evil demands of every Christian an appropriate response. The death penalty is an inadequate and fundamentally unjust solution. The real issue in the evil events of our time is the underlying assumption that human life is cheap.
HUMAN life will always be cheap without lasting and genuine justice. The challenge to our legislators is not to impose the death penalty as a panacea for all our social woes, but rather to introduce genuine social and legal reform to ensure justice and equality for all.
The death penalty hinders in the task of creating a sense of the value of human life. Perhaps our task is to show that we value human life in all its variety, and that we are open to searching for justice. The gospel demands an untiring effort to discern the truth. The task of working for a just society is as much ours as it is that of our legislators.
The beginning of that task must be in the individual heart with repentance before God for what has been done in our name, possibly with our silent or non-verbal compliance. It is only when I can say that the quality of life of every individual, rich or poor, black or white, prisoner or free, matters to me as much as the quality of my own that I can begin to assist in the work of finding a solution.
If society lowers itself to the level of the murderer by taking human life, it debases itself and demeans its value system. The US bishops put it very well: "The appeal to vengeance is beneath our dignity as citizens. At the same time we do not minimise the suffering and the agony of the innocent who are the victims of violent crimes. We have the utmost compassion for families destroyed by violent deadly crimes. But death is never the answer."
Dr Michael J. Breen is head of department for media and communication studies at Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick