Catholic Death-Penalty Response Marked by Care for Souls, Heightened Rhetoric

National Catholic Register, 31 July 2020

Cardinal Tobin’s letter to President Trump, requesting clemency for a convicted murderer, drew attention to a pair of important aspects of the Church’s contemporary consideration of capital punishment.

When an American faces execution, it is now standard for the local bishop to write to the governor asking for clemency. In his 1999 visit to St. Louis, St. John Paul II asked Missouri Gov. Mel Carnahan to grant clemency to Darrell Mease, guilty of a triple murder of grandparents and their grandson. Carnahan did — a gesture of goodwill to the papal request — and now the routine is familiar. A scheduled execution is accompanied by a clemency plea from the bishop.

This time, it wasn’t routine. After a voluntary moratorium of 17 years, the federal government resumed executions in July. Dustin Lee Honken was executed on July 17, found guilty of killing a family of four, including two children.

Ahead of his execution, Cardinal Joseph Tobin of Newark, New Jersey, wrote to President Donald Trump, asking for clemency. The letter draws attention to two important aspects of the Church’s consideration of the death penalty: pastoral care for the condemned and a heightening rhetoric of condemnation of the death penalty.

Pastoral Care

Visiting prisoners has been part of the Christian life since the beginning, as reflected by the very clear mandate of the Lord Jesus in Matthew 25. And since the 1995 film Dead Man Walking highlighted the work of Sister Helen Prejean, the work of visiting prisoners on death row has become better known.

Cardinal Tobin’s letter was singular in that he could offer his personal experience. Cardinal Tobin had visited the convicted killer in person.

“I have known Mr. Honken for seven years,” Cardinal Tobin wrote to the president. When Cardinal Tobin was archbishop of Indianapolis (2012-2017), he visited Honken several times a year at the federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana.

“His present spiritual guide, Father Mark O’Keefe, OSB, confirms that the spiritual growth in faith and compassion, which I had witnessed in our meetings some years ago, continues to this day,” Cardinal Tobin continued in his letter.

Honken’s conversion was genuine. His final words before the lethal injection was administered was a prayer to Mary. He also recited Gerald Manley Hopkins’ short poem Heaven-Haven.

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