The official policy now is that capital punishment is "inadmissible", the Church cannot accept it. He is committing the Church to work with determination to have it abolished worldwide. This is a welcome step forward. Other important policy changes may lie ahead. Many of us hope that official, constant and determined opposition to war for profit will be one of them. This will take a long time but it would be a welcome rebuke to centuries of tolerating war as a profit-making going concern. We have being doing that for far too long.
Church policy on capital punishment was based on the belief
that in some circumstances it was needed to keep communities safely together. Now , it is said, there are more hopes and
even expectations that people who commit crimes can change, or be persuaded to
change, or be held in safe surroundings in conditions worthy of their dignity
as human beings. Christians believe in
conversion and so acting on that belief has become part of modern church policy
: we know so much more about our human nature nowadays that we can deal with
its problems without killing. The idea that Death Solves Problems can be challenged. There are many
presumptions here and dealing with crime by private enterprise building of
supermaximum security prisons in the USA is a menacing warning not to become
too optimistic about what modern ideas of "rehabilitation" or
"national security" or "the common good" really mean when
financial gain is available to those merchants who favour profit above human
beings.
Change in church policy means some change in belief, or some
change in our evolving understanding of what our beliefs must really mean in
our world. There have been changes in a church's public worship for instance ,
church buildings have been re-shaped , there is less separation of the congregations
by class, architects sometimes making concrete pillars look like concrete
rather than pretending to be marble (no pretence in church please), re-designing
of sanctuaries, the focus points of churches, a gradual change of emphasis on
what should be foremost in worship - and therefore in belief. In a church
at peace changes can be slow and subtle,
in churches not at peace change has often been violent. At present the Roman Catholic Church is in a
period of relatively peaceful - but sometimes hotly contested - evolution.
The Pope is saying that whereas in the past people thought execution
was necessary "to protect the common
good" now we know more about human
nature and what is needed for human beings to live together without killing each other.
This may seem a too optimistic view of the abilities of our modern methods of
"rehabilitation" but it rests on the idea of an inherent dignity of
human beings which nothing can take away. Christian belief is that no amount of
good or bad can remove the fundamental dignity of , as Christians say, a person
created by their God and renewed by divine presence and lifted up by divine enlightenment.
This had to be said many times during recent conflict in
Ireland when there were objections to church funerals for active members of political/military
groups . It had to be argued - sometimes against church officials - that the church, to be true to itself, must
insist that no political association, no activity good or bad could take away or
improve these basic divine gifts the
church believes we have. A church funeral was not about someone's membership of
this association or that, it was about divine gifts given to this person
that no one - not even himself or
herself - could take away. It was often
difficult to get that Catholic principle fully recognised by and
for everyone.
The pope's statement about capital punishment is a reminder that we do not change our ideas of morality or ethics simply to make life easier, but because we are now
understanding better what we human beings need and what our real potential is. We may get it right or wrong , but continual
adjustment of our ideas may be necessary ( even changes to our changes!) but
the better we understand the meaning of our potential and our needs the more likely our changes will be honourable.
So when we are inclined to change our ways of worship , our
understanding of our own beliefs, our
sensitivity to the meaning and demands of a moral code we have to take a good
look at the reasons why. Are we really looking for a soft life ? Or for a life,
hard or soft, suitable for our beautiful world and our human nature in it
? That is, a life recognising a relationship between the human,
the divine and the superhuman about which Christians and millions of others are
learning and understanding more and more ?
So with Francis are we watching a church coming of age then ?
For a new age ?
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