CACP - A national advocacy organization working for the abolition of the death penalty in the U.S. -

 1) CATHOLICS' GROWING UNDERSTANDING OF CHURCH VIEWS ON DEATH PENALTY SEEN POSING PROBLEMS FOR COURTS

 Morality of participation by Catholics in 'state-sponsored homicide' among issues discussed at Catholic University conference The U.S. judicial system may be forced to cope with a shrinking pool of judges, prosecutors and jurors willing to take part in capital trials as more and more Catholics accept their Church's teaching on the death penalty, according to speakers at a March 29-30 conference in Washington, D.C.The event, sponsored by the Catholic University of America and entitled "The Morality of the Death Penalty: Challenges for Law, Society and Religion," included talks by 18 legal experts, theologians and other scholars, including newly-named Cardinal Avery Dulles, S.J., of Fordham University.Joining Cardinal Dulles at a panel discussion of theological issues relating to capital punishment was federal judge John T. Noonan Jr., who outlined the dilemma facing Catholic judges who are called on to preside over capital trials and Catholic prosecutors faced with the option of seeking the death penalty.Noonan, senior circuit judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals' Ninth Circuit,is a former law school professor and author of several books on the development of moral doctrine. He said it was clear from the statements of Pope John Paul II and the 1997 revision of the Catholic Catechism that Church teaching considers the death penalty no longer justified in countries like the U.S., where nonlethal means are available to protect the public from aggressors."If the death penalty is unjustified," he said, "the state performs homicide in carrying it out. The state is sponsoring homicide when it performs an unjustified, and, as the Pope says, 'cruel and unnecessary' punishment."We're not saying capital punishment is intrinsically evil. What we are saying is the norm has changed - in order to preserve the value of human life, you must abolish this way of taking it."Asked whether Catholic judges can preside over death penalty trials, Noonan responded: "That's a very serious question. I'm not prepared to give a blanket answer. But I do think it's incumbent on the Church, as an institution, to say now there's no justification - it is cruel, it is unnecessary, it is unjustified, therefore it must be immoral. And the Catholic judge who realizes that does have a serious problem about recusal."Another speaker, New York State capital defender Kevin M. Doyle, pointed out that the nation's jury system is also affected. "The very existence of a sizeable community which absolutely opposes the death penalty poses a terrible political problem," he suggested. It could mean, he said, that "20% to 30% of the population, at a minimum - in New York, where I'm from, it's much higher - are excluded from juries. If you're a Roman Catholic, and you toe the Vatican line on the death penalty, you're disqualified from jury service on these cases."Lehigh University Prof. Lloyd Steffen agreed that such problems are likely to increase as potential jurors become more aware of their church's stance on the issue. He cited a 1994 Tennessee lawsuit in which two citizens barred from jury service because of their faith-based anti-death penalty views claimed their exclusion violated a section of the state's constitution that specifies that "no religious or political test" shall be required as a qualification of jurors. In a 1999 case in New Mexico, the state's three Catholic bishops and other religious leaders claimed that excluding citizens from juries because of their opposition to the death penalty amounted to religious discrimination. Both the Tennessee and New Mexico pleas were denied at the state court level.Doyle said the Church "is in a unique position to give witness to a consistent pro-life approach" by encouraging greater awareness of its opposition to the death penalty among all Catholics, whether they consider themselves "orthodox," "conservative," "progressive" or "liberal." "We should simply speak as Catholics," he explained, "and say 'enough killing'."Formal/material cooperation"We have a long tradition in the Catholic Church," Judge Noonan noted, "of acknowledging that people may be invincibly ignorant of their sins, and of being careful in informing them that they are acting sinfully."He quoted St. Alphonsus Liguori's comment: "The peasants know adultery is wrong; they don't know fornication is wrong. Be careful how you tell them about it. We don't want to put them in bad faith.""We know that in this country," Noonan continued, "there are a large number of Catholic prosecutors and judges who think they are doing the right thing when they proceed to seek capital punishment or impose it. I think one has to go gently. But as an abstract teaching, not focusing on the good faith or bad faith of a particular individual, the case is quite different. "Do we hold back on abortion, because there are people who seek abortions in good faith? No. Why do we hold back on capital punishment? If it is unjustified, if it is therefore homicide, why don't we tell the truth as it is? "Why is it that the bishops - and even the Pope - ask for clemency? Why do they not ask for justice-not imposing an unjustified, cruel and unnecessary penalty?"If you think in terms of the traditional moral theology, of formal andmaterial cooperation, who are the cooperators? Obviously, those who seek the penalty-the prosecutors, the lead counsel and the lawyers assisting him, the judge imposing the penalty, the judges affirming the penalty, or the jury, in cases where the jury imposes the penalty, and the executioner carrying out the penalty. These are all formal cooperators in the sin."Material cooperators are a wider group. One could discuss at some length the casuistry that might permit a certain amount of material cooperation in unjustified homicide. But as far as intentionally imposing death, if they know the truth that it is unjustified, there is this distinct group of people who have moral responsibility that follows inevitably from the major development that has occurred in Catholic moral theology."Cardinal Dulles's talk reiterated his belief that the state has the right toimpose the death penalty under certain circumstances. But he acknowledged that in today's society, the death penalty "promotes a culture of violence and cheapens respect for life," and said he agreed with the pope that it should not be imposed in societies like ours. In answer to a question, the cardinal said he was not excluding thepossibility of some further doctrinal developments on the issue. "It is an area of doctrine where change is conceivable, but I don't think the case has been made," he said. "I tend to agree with the recent statement by the bishops of Pennsylvania that the current change is 'a development in the use of the state's right rather than a change in the teaching of the church on the state's right.' I think that's where we are at the moment."Judge Noonan drew a parallel between the Church's change in its stance on slavery in the 1870s and the recent modification of its teaching on the death penalty. He noted that each was made against a weighty background of "practice, tradition, scriptural silences and scriptural approval," and added:"The problem vexing some theologians is how to account for that change and not appear to be totally inconsistent. It comes up again and again in Catholic doctrine. And it can only be dealt with by making a distinction between rules and values. The rules change; the values do abide."