On Ash Wednesday, Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn signed a law abolishing the death penalty in his state, adding the Land of Lincoln to the growing list of 16 states where capital punishment is no longer an option.
"It is impossible to create a perfect system, free of all mistakes," Quinn said after signing the death penalty law, which takes effect July 1. "I think it's the right and just thing to abolish the death penalty and punish those who commit heinous crimes -- evil people -- with life in prison without parole or any chance of release."
Quinn, who is Catholic, revealed that he turned to his faith -- to the Bible and to Catholic leaders and tradition -- in contemplating the bill lawmakers delivered to him in January.
The governor even quoted Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, the beloved archbishop of Chicago who died in 1996, saying, "In a complex, sophisticated democracy like ours, means other than the death penalty are available and can be used to protect society."
Religious leaders have been at the forefront of the death penalty abolitionist movement in Illinois and nationwide. But there has been a disconnect between their activism and the opinions of their flocks.
According to a 2010 survey by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, 62 percent of Americans support the death penalty in murder cases, with only 30 percent saying they oppose it. That figure is nearly identical to the results of a similar survey in 2007, but lower than a 1996 survey, when 78 percent of Americans said they supported capital punishment for murder and just 18 percent said they were opposed.
Survey results on the death penalty vary little across religious groups -- at least among white Americans. Last year, 74 percent of white evangelicals, 71 percent of white mainline Protestants and 68 percent of white Catholics said they favor capital punishment, according to Pew.
But less than half of black Protestants (37 percent) and Hispanic Catholics (43 percent) said they approve of the death penalty.
"The light of God is shining, shining positively on our state," Illinois state Sen. Kwame Raoul said after Quinn signed the death penalty ban.
Raoul was not alone in thinking that the Illinois ban is a moral as well as a legal victory for people of good faith. As more states examine whether to eliminate capital punishment, some wonder whether the days of the death penalty are numbered and what, if any, role people of faith might play in reaching such a tipping point.
Racial disparities and too many wrongful convictions are often cited as compelling reasons to abolish the death penalty. In Illinois, for instance, the state executed 12 prisoners after the death penalty was reinstated in 1977. During that time, Illinois also exonerated 20 death
row inmates.
"One significant moral problem with the state having the authority of capital punishment is that the decision is irrevocable and so often carried out in ways that are racially questionable -- studies prove this," said Richard Cizik, a former vice president in the National Association of Evangelicals. "My conscience can't accept this appalling reality.
"If it's not a matter of serious reflection ... it should be!" Cizik continued. "To miss the moral questions at stake is to be hard of heart."
According to Mike Farrell, president of the group Death Penalty Focus, many evangelicals and other religious folks still have tough hearts when it comes to moral questions about the death penalty.
What Farrell referred to as the "fundamentalist Christian community" remains "wedded to a political position that embraces state killing and insists that its use is right, holy, biblically ordained and necessary -- `the Lord's work,' as some would have it," he said.
Yet Farrell -- best known for his role as Capt. B.J. Hunnicutt on TV's "M*A*S*H*" -- said he's seeing a change of opinion among rank-and-file Catholics, a shift he attributes to the "strength of their leadership's advocacy."
He sees a similar trend emerging among mainstream Protestants, but senses "that the shift toward abolition in their community of believers is more reflective of a general awakening on the part of the American public."
Farrell believes people of faith can have a significant impact in moving toward a nationwide abolition by addressing capital punishment as a pressing moral and spiritual concern and shedding light on the "sins of the (justice) system."
"I believe we are moving, ever more rapidly," he said, "to a point where abolition is inevitable," Farrell said.
Follow Cathleen Falsani on Twitter: www.twitter.com/godgrrl
Death Penalty Information Center
Abolish the death penalty | Amnesty International
Capital Punishment | American Civil Liberties Union
AP: Federal Prisons Run Out Of Key Execution Drug
Quinn's death penalty ban outrages victims' families
Religion and the Death Penalty | Death Penalty Information Center
Jesus: "So Pilate said to (Jesus), "Do you not speak to me? Do you not know that I have power to release you and I have power to crucify you?" Jesus answered (him), "You would have no power over me if it had not been given to you from above." John 19
Jesus: Now one of the criminals hanging there reviled Jesus, saying, "Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us." The other, however, rebuking him, said in reply, "Have you no fear of God, for you are subject to the same condemnation? And indeed, we have been condemned justly, for the sentence we received corresponds to our crimes, but this man has done nothing criminal." Then he said, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom." (Jesus) replied to him, "Amen, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise." Luke 23
Jesus: "You have heard the ancients were told, ˜YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT MURDER" "Whoever commits murder shall be liable to the court". But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court; and whoever shall say to his brother, "Raca", shall be guilty before the supreme court and whoever shall say, "You fool", shall be guilty enough to go into fiery hell." Matthew 5
There may be other "religions" that do not support the death penalty, but Christianity is not one of them.
But it is moot because in Christianity it is not the killing but taking the judgment into your hands to do it that offends God. You don't have the right to make that choice as God gave that life and He will take it away. And that is what Moses brought down the mountain not a perverse "Christiane Based" excuse to kill.
"the problem with you is your religion"
Do you really want to use our system? Because 100% certainty would make it impossible to actually punish people with the death penalty.
Oh, and seriously, the law and punishment part of the Bible is ours and the hippy lovey stuff is yours, its not a "judeo-christian" tradition as worshiping a statue of a man or making images of angels/God is already against the Old Testament because it fails commandment 1 or 2 (depending on your faith) "You shall not make for yourself an idol".
Until then he is not.
Until then, prisoners are forced to find their own rehibilitation and that is coming more and more through religious extremism.
Ignoring rehabilitation in one area, death row inmates, with no hope of exit, carries over to the general population because "punishment" is part and parcel of one's mindset.
No kudos for the governor.......yet.
He has a responsibility to the public he serves to understand and address the issue of violence.
One of my pet peeves, though, is the inconsistency of liberals, who are so pro-life when it comes to murderers and rapists (even the doubtless guilty ones), yet are so opposed to life (or silent) when it comes to the truly innocent--the baby in the womb.
I have repeatedly made this offer to my liberal friends: I will become rabidly anti-death penalty if they will become staunchly pro-life. So far I have had no takers. I guess the sacredness of life is not exactly a principle for them, but merely a slogan.
Saint (& Pope) Pius V, "The just use of (executions), far from involving the crime of murder, is an act of paramount obedience to this (Fifth) Commandment which prohibits murder." "The Roman Catechism of the Council of Trent" (1566).
All interpretations, contrary to the biblical support of capital punishment, are false. Interpreters ought to listen to the Bible’s own agenda, rather than to squeeze from it implications for their own agenda. As the ancient rabbis taught, “Do not seek to be more righteous than your Creator.” (Ecclesiastes Rabbah 7.33.). Part of Synopsis of Professor Lloyd R. Bailey’s book Capital Punishment: What the Bible Says, Abingdon Press, 1987.
Pope Pius XII: "When it is a question of the execution of a man condemned to death it is then reserved to the public power to deprive the condemned of the benefit of life, in expiation of his fault, when already, by his fault, he has dispossessed himself of the right to live." 9/14/52
"Death Penalty Support: Christian and secular Scholars"
http://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2009/07/death-penalty-support-modern-catholic.html
Christianity and the death penalty
http://www.prodeathpenalty.com/DP.html#F.Christianity
Catholic and other Christian References: Support for the Death Penalty,
http://homicidesurvivors.com/2006/10/12/catholic-and-other-christian-references-support-for-the-death-penalty.aspx.
All that being said, I would argue that perhaps it is time to eliminate the death penalty for the purely pragmatic reason that we have far too many innocents put on death row. Recent cases, using new DNA and other forensic tools, have shown that prosecutors have sent innocent people to death row.
At least by not using the death penalty, those on death row have some reasonable chance of perhaps being found innocent. The real problem is that we have a faulty legal system, not a justice system, where trials are conducted by very stringent rules of evidence and even prosecutors who are more than willing to circumvent fairness in order to get a conviction.
That is indeed the best argument against capital punishment, IMO. The problem, for me, is it means the State cannot impose justice on people who are clearly guilty because of concerns that some other person, currently unknown but to be tried at some future date, is innocent.
I am not willing to let people who are clearly guilty of the hook because in other cases a mistake might be make. We have a number of people on death row here in Connecticut. I have never seen any suggestion that any of them were not guilty of the crimes for which they were sentenced.
Yes, I know of cases here in Washington State, one concerning a cop-killer, where there is no doubt on the guy, but still I am concerned. How exactly do you distinguish these clear cut cases from the gray areas, that is what worries me.
Supposedly, juries are supposed to convict on the basis of no reasonable doubt. However, that doesn't always play well in certain parts of the country when the defendant is of another race or ethnic group. In theory trials are supposed to be fair, but are they in reality? Human nature being what it is, I doubt that. Humans all have biases toward other people and it is almost impossible to rule that out.
That is an understatement.
When a legal system judges 'murder' as illegal...... depending on who does it, that is not a legal
system at all. Its a system of appeasement.
If murder is illegal, it is illegal. It can't be both legal and illegal.
But then, we're a country that loves to fly in the face of reason... and get by with it.
While, I think our legal system is faulty, I wouldn't be complaining too much. Most other countries have systems just about as bad.
The Commandament is best translated as thou shalt not murder or thou shall not commit an illicit kiling. This has been well known for many millenia.
Saint (& Pope) Pius V, "The just use of (executions), far from involving the crime of murder, is an act of paramount obedience to this (Fifth) Commandment which prohibits murder." "The Roman Catechism of the Council of Trent" (1566).
All interpretations, contrary to the biblical support of capital punishment, are false. Interpreters ought to listen to the Bible’s own agenda, rather than to squeeze from it implications for their own agenda. As the ancient rabbis taught, “Do not seek to be more righteous than your Creator.” (Ecclesiastes Rabbah 7.33.). Part of Synopsis of Professor Lloyd R. Bailey’s book Capital Punishment: What the Bible Says, Abingdon Press, 1987.
OT: God: "You shall not accept indemnity in place of the life of a murderer who deserves the death penalty; he must be put to death." Numbers 35:31 (NAB)
full context www.usccb.org/nab/bible/numbers/numbers35.htm
God/Jesus: 'Honor your father and your mother,' and 'Whoever curses father or mother must certainly be put to death.' Matthew 15:4. full context - Jesus used this reference to condemn the Pharisees for their intentional misinterpretation of God's Word, emphasizing that the Truth of God's Word must be enforced, which is precisely what He was doing with this well known passage. www.newadvent.org/bible/mat015.htm
If this isn't clear then just what are the teachings of Christ good for?
And of course, fundamentalists *want* to erect the Ten Commandments all over the place!
Even in the New Testament, the death penalty is approved of. Government is seen as "bearing the sword," and of course, when Jesus returns to conquer his enemies, rivers of blood flow.
But then, Jesus said to the Pharisees bringing a woman accused of adultery to him, "Let him that is without sin among you cast the first stone." He did not condemn the woman. He simply urged her to "go and sin no more."
In today's world we are finding incredibly sloppy police and forensics work, and people who are innocent of the crimes against them sentenced to death. Legislators in Texas do not want to let people on death row have access to forensic testing to prove their innocence. We have certainly killed many innocent people in the name of justice.
I am against the death penalty. I admit to getting pretty angry at some people (like Scott Walker), and almost -- almost -- wishing .... But I believe that we are not God and cannot know everything about a situation. At worst, life imprisonment is a deterrence against further crime. The death penalty is applied in a racially discriminatory way and is associated with bad police work. Get rid of it.
Just to verify -- where do you see a death penalty attached to these?
"Thou shalt not commit adultery." See Lev. 20:10 and 21:9. Leviticus 18.
"Thou shalt not murder." See Exodus 21:14. Unless, of course, the one you kill is your own slave, in which case you have just lost your money. Exodus 21:20-21
Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image -- Ex. 30:38 is not quite that. It is using the formula for a holy perfume for personal use. Nevertheless it is much the same kind of offense as a graven image -- thinking one can contain or manipulate God for one's own purposes. Also, the consequences of making a graven image, Exodus 32. Another example is eating the fat of an offering. Lev 7:22-25.
Thou shalt have no other gods before me. See Exodus 32. Also Leviticus 17. Lev. 20:1-3, 27. Deut. 13.
Taking the name of the Lord in vain. Lev. 24:10-17
Keeping the Sabbath Day: Exodus 31:13-15. Exodus 35:1-3. Numbers 15:32-36.
Thou shalt not steal. Several passages: Leviticus 6:1-5 - 20% penalty. Exodus 22 - a 400% penalty or a 100% penalty, depending. Lev. 21:16 Kidnapping a death penalty offense.
Lying in court could get a death sentence: Deut 19:16-21
Thou shalt not covet. Note Numbers 11, a result of complaining, coveting good food (as in meat). The Lord used a plague.
Honor your father and mother. Lev. 20:9, Deut. 21:18-21.
I'd had a complete list at one time. This is a start.