DATE: Saturday, October 11, 1997            TAG: 9710110005

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B8   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Opinion 

SOURCE: BY JOSEPH N. KICKASOLA 

                                            LENGTH:   83 lines

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT AND THE BIBLE

A s a Protestant Christian who has been a real fan of some aspects of the 1994 Catechism of the Catholic Church, I was disappointed in the manner in which Stephen M. Colecchi endorsed the troublesome section of this Catechism which strengthens the Catholic Church's opposition to capital punishment. His Another View (Sept. 25) titled ``The Catholic Church and capital punishment'' seriously misunderstands the biblical material.

I here offer ``another view'' in defense of capital punishment, specifically another biblical view of both the ``moral'' and ``respect'' postulates of my Christian brother's conclusion, ``Capital punishment serves no moral purpose; in fact, it undermines respect for human life.''

In my view, the Bible clearly teaches that God's reasoning on capital punishment is that it is a ``moral'' necessity, a civil duty, because it is simple justice and that it actually undergirds ``respect'' for the dignity of human life, because man is in the image of God. Space will allow only one foundational biblical example in turn for each of the following ``moral'' and ``respect'' arguments for capital punishment.

First, it is amazing that this special assistant to Bishop Walter Sullivan, director of the Richmond diocesan Office of Justice, never mentioned justice - not once. This is not a minor oversight due to limitations of space, for justice is the supreme rationale in the Bible for capital punishment. The supreme biblical example for showing that capital punishment is ``moral'' is that it is the very basis that made the death of Jesus Christ necessary. Biblical atonement is the archetype of how God deals with all who have ever sinned. The Apostle Paul speaks of the crucifixion of Christ in Romans 3:25-26 specifically in terms of justice: ``God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice . . . at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies the man who has faith in Jesus.''

God was ``just'' and demonstrated ``justice'' by upholding the principle that ``the wages of sin is death'' (Romans 6:23), and he was also the ``one who justifies,'' by demonstrating his love in providing Christ as the substitutionary victim for the required death of all those who have sinned but now believe on him. Capital punishment is demonstrated justice, and justification is demonstrated love. Capital punishment is so moral that it is the very basis of God's action in the necessary physical death of Christ.

Is it any wonder, therefore, that both justice and justification are demonstrated by the fact that the actual event of the state's execution of the murderer is traditionally viewed as a necessary act of obedience to God? God's justice is demonstrated at that moment by forfeiting the murderer's physical life, similar to what happened to Christ, and God's justification love is demonstrated by the state as a matter of law in that the murderer must be allowed ``benefit of clergy'' for the murderer's spiritual life.

According to the Bible, capital punishment not only is justice but it also teaches justice. This is a vitally important lesson to a generation that desanctifies human life. I, for one, am proud to have a civil ``minister of God'' (Romans 13:4) in public justice, such as the honorable Gov. George F. Allen, whose actions uphold this principle, tradition and law.

Secondly, Calecchi rightly wants to uphold in the most respectful way, even in punishment, ``the dignity of the human person.'' But man gets his dignity from the fact that only he is created in the image of God. It is exactly here in regard to man's dignity or God-likeness that Calecchi's dignity-logic against capital punishment is precisely the opposite of the Bible's dignity-logic for capital punishment. A literal rendering of the Hebrew text of Genesis 9:6 says, ``Whosoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for it is in the image of God that He made man.''

Brother Calecchi says that capital punishment ``undermines'' the dignity of human life, but in the text just quoted, God says that capital punishment is necessary and is ``moral'' precisely because of the dignity of the victim's human life. This capital-punishment dignity is of the highest kind, that grounded in the image of God in man. The Bible teaches that the villain too is in the image of God, and this is why the Bible teaches the due-process presumption of ``innocent until proven guilty'' (Deuteronomy 17:6, 19:15, John 7:51). American jurisprudence is squarely built on this biblical teaching both in regard to victims and to villains.

It is my prayer for God's honor that the new Catholic Church will reverse itself once again and return to its more traditional teaching that the civil magistrate is a minister of God ``who bears not the sword in vain'' (Romans 13:4). The ``sword'' is not an instrument of rehabilitation but of death to the physical life of the one guilty of taking the physical life of another. ``Turning the other cheek,'' not ``an eye for an eye,'' has always been the principle of proper interpersonal conduct, as Jesus warned, but an eye's worth of criminal punishment or civil restitution for an eye's worth of wrong is the only possible fair standard of proportionality in public justice.

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