GOD'S JUSTICE AND OURS: A RESPONSE TO ANTONIN SCALIA 

I hesitated for a long time to write a response to Antonin Scalia's speech on the death penalty which he titled "God's Justice and Ours".  Initially I thought that the speech was not worthy of a response.  However, because of Scalia's position as a justice on the U.S. Supreme Court,  I decided that a response was necessary to comment on some of the statements that he made. I don't try to cover every aspect of his talk.  I base my remarks on my experience of working on the death penalty for many years as well as my study of the Catholic Church's position on this subect.  

 Scalia based his speech on Romans 13 which he believes authorizes the government to take human life where necessary.  He sees the government as the "minister of God" with power to "execute wrath", including wrath by the sword which he believes is a reference to the death penalty.  He believes that people who are strong Christians are more likely to support the death penalty.  Thus, he believes that the death penalth is more strongly supported in the United States because we are more Christian  than the nations of Europe where the death penalty has been effectively abolished.  I am sure that some Europeans would disagree with Scalia on this point.    

 Scalia, like many conservatives, conveniently ignores the teaching of Jesus regarding compassion, mercy and forgiveness.  He ignores the fact that most Christian denominations in the U.S. are opposed to the death penalty.  He ignores the emphasis on the sanctity of human life by many Christian denominations. I would come to the opposite conclusion than Scalia did regarding the death penalty.  I believe that the more Christian a nation is (meaning the more seriously it takes the teachings of Jesus), the more likely that nation is to abolish the death penalty.

 When Scalia states that the government has the moral authority of God to impose the death penalty,  he seems to forget that a number of governments in the history of the world, such as Nazi Germany,  used their "authority" to kill millions of people.  Were these slaughters authorized by God?  I doubt it. 

 Scalia goes on to say that a Christian is more likely to regard the death penalty as moral because, for the believing Christian, death is no "big deal".  This flys directly in the face of the concept of the sanctity of human life as taught by many Christian denominations.       

 Scalia states that the current opposition to the death penalty by the Catholic Church is the legacy of Napoleon, Hegel and Freud rather than St. Paul or St. Augustine.  I would argue that the Church's current opposition to the death penalty has more to do with the teachings of Jesus than anything else. Furthermore, it can be reasonably argued that that neither St. Paul nor St. Augustine were in favor of the death penalty.   

 Scalia believes that retribution is the primary purpose of punishment and that the death penalty is the only form of punishment appropriate for certain heinous crimes.  He clearly embraces an eye-for-an-eye approach to punishment which is rejected by Jesus and the Church. 

 Scalia implies in his speech that punishment of death row prisoners by long-term incarceration is not appropriate because prisoners have nice clean cells, television sets,

exercise rooms, wonderful meals and conjugal visits.  It is clear that Scalia has not been in Texas recently.   

 Scalia disagrees with Catholic Cathechism which states that use of the death penalty in this day and age should be "very rare, if not practically non-existent".  By doing so,  Scalia clearly classifies himself as a "cafeteria Catholic" at best.   Or does he believe he is God?  

 David Atwood