THANK YOU, MR. POPE SIR!

By Edwin Cooney

First of all, a disclaimer. Murder is always wrong and must be severely punished.

Yes, I know that Francis The First shouldn’t be addressed as “Mr. Pope Sir,” that he should be addressed as “Your Eminence” or even “Your Distinguished or Holy Eminence,” but I’m so pleased that human civility seems to have made an institutional breakthrough on the wings of the Pope’s latest proclamation, that some form of lighthearted expression of joy is most appropriate. Capital punishment has finally been declared by the oldest, and still the largest, Christian faith institution - the Roman Catholic Church - to be wrong in all cases. Praise the Lord and pass the wafers! Up until recently, the Catholic Church has only conditionally declared capital punishment acceptable when its use could somehow be seen as a possible prevention of future crimes. Now, it’s absolutely and under all conditions unacceptable.

Much of my life I’ve favored capital punishment:

First, because murder or severe bodily harm cruelly obliterates or, at the least cripples, the undeserving victim and members of his or her family and loved ones;

Second, I believed that revenge was both understandable and justifiable because it legitimately relieved the natural tension of living family members and friends;

Third, I believed that the threat of legal murder would always sufficiently prevent any increase in unlawful murders;

Fourth and finally, I believed that one who used murder as an instrument to achieve personal satisfaction simply deserved to suffer, within reason, the same fate as his or her victims.

One of the oldest human instincts is the desire for revenge against murderous enemies. We reason that the threat of death is the only workable antidote sufficiently powerful enough, short of his or her own demise, to stop a potential murderer. That assumes that most if not all murderers are rational. We also have a tendency to believe that, in his or her heart of hearts, murderers simply know better than to commit murder. In other words, murderers are as rational as you and me. So, from that standpoint, it’s preventive to have the threat of murdering the murderer on the books to protect society. “We’ll send the murderer a message,” goes the legitimate outcry of a righteously enraged society. History however demonstrates, as I see it, that no matter how legitimate may be our resentment toward both the act of murder and the murderer him or herself, duplicating the act of murder ultimately merely results in more and more as well as various types of murder.

Legal death is by its nature dispassionate justice, the dispassion aspect of it, supposedly removing the self-righteous aspect of the punishment. But, clearly, removing the outrage behind the administration of legal death by no means prevents its being outrageous on its own. Amnesty International can cite you case after case of prisoners who have been wrongly convicted, many of whom have gone to the gallows, the chair, the firing squad, the gas chamber and lately to the lethal stretcher.

Another aspect of “legal death” is war itself. War, devastating as it is, has historically been more manageable and preventable than pure murder because as they develop, rogue nations more readily display their defects than are possibly detectable in the workings of the private mind and heart.

My opposition to capital punishment has nothing to do with sympathy for any murderer. I’m totally sympathetic with the victims of crime. Not to have sympathy for the victims of crime is morally insensitive to say the least about it. Crime, and murder in particular, is anti-social. To be anti-social is to be anti-human. I have no objection to the permanent separation of the killer from society - in fact I vehemently support that.

Most debates over the legitimacy of capital punishment center on two propositions. The first one is that taxpayers should not be paying for the room and board of convicted killers. Room and board can cost as much as forty thousand a year. This argument can be countered by the fact that the continuous costs of legal appeals to avoid the death penalty vastly out costs the annual price of prison room and board. Also, prisoners eligible for capital punishment constitute only about three percent of the prison population. The second major argument favoring capital punishment is that the execution of a murderer provides the victim’s families with an understandable sense of closure in the wake of the horror of the crime. However, more and more lately perpetrators, especially of mass murders, often either commit suicide or are legitimately, as I see it, themselves killed by police during their acts of committing their crimes. Thus, there is no defense against such acts of mayhem.

The irony of all that is the public’s ongoing demand for fewer restrictions on the sale of assault rifles and the like.

My guess is that you and I, during our lifetimes, will be forced by both tradition and human behavioral habit, to suffer with the crucible of murder. It’s just possible however, that Pope Francis’s proclamation against what I like to call “legal death” over the years may well condition future generations to sufficiently abhor capital punishment.

One more thing: As I see it, it’s inconsistent to oppose abortion and to support capital punishment. If life is sacred, then it must always be sacred.

Insofar as I’m aware, no Pope has received the famous Nobel Peace Prize. My candidate for this October’s Nobel Peace Prize is Pope Francis the First.

Mr. Pope, Sir, “you’re a jolly good fellow!”

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY