Saddam and the Death Penalty

I thoroughly enjoyed John Allen's All Things Catholic column this week in the National Catholic Reporter, which touched on Saddam Hussein and Catholic teaching on the death penalty. His commentary proposed the viewpoint that capital punishment may have reached the status, like war, of actions that might not be absolutely prohibited in every case, but seem to be, as a practical matter, "unambiguously wrong" in our day and age.

Allen refers to the Catechism, which states (#2266-7): "The traditional teaching of the Church has acknowledged as well-founded the right and duty of legitimate public authority to punish malefactors by means of penalties commensurate with the gravity of the crime, not excluding, in cases of extreme gravity, the death penalty ... [But] If bloodless means are sufficient to defend human lives ... and the safety of persons, public authority should limit itself to such means." He then quotes various Vatican sources that have condemned the execution of Hussein.

However neither Allen nor any of his quoted sources refer to the fragility of public authority in Iraq, and the possibility that an "imprisoned-for-life" Hussein might not someday be freed to once again wreak his savage cruelty upon his political enemies. Vengeance is rightly cited as insufficient reason for the death penalty. But what about fear, which is certainly one of the driving forces within the current situation? Certainly during his reign, Hussein was one of the most feared of figures, not just in Iraq but in many areas of the world. Does public authority, weak as it is in Iraq, not have the right to protect its people from possible harm?

I'm surprised by my reaction to this one. I've always been against the death penalty, and did appreciate very much that Pope John Paul II spoke against the death penalty, even intervening successfully with the governor of Missouri several years ago on behalf of a condemned man, when he was visiting our country. When the Catechism was promulgated, I also appreciated its treatment of the death penalty as something very strictly limited. And in the US, since we do have the public capacity to safely incarcerate criminals for life, capital punishment seems to have no justification for any case that I can conceive of.

But I doubt that that capacity exists in Iraq, especially for someone like Saddam. And I think it's odd that I don't see/hear anyone recognizing this point.