(Genesis 9)
Defenders of the death penalty often cite the reading from Genesis today. They believe that God validates capital punishment for murderers since He tells Noah, “If anyone sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed.” According to these apologists, abolishing the death penalty would be tantamount to replacing the will of God with the opinion of an elite minority.
The Church actually straddles the issue. It recognizes a society’s right to take the life of a murderer. But it also teaches that in the modern world it is not necessary to exercise that right. Where ways exist to eliminate the threat of a murderer to society, the Church thinks that her (or she) should not be executed. We can find a parallel for not exercising an established right in a religious sister’s vow not to marry.
It is critical for us to understand the basis of the Church’s reasoning. In contemporary times human life has been debased by such practices as abortion and mass execution. Society needs to affirm the preeminent value of human life by withholding the right to execute even those who have taken life. The Church hopes that this position will restore human dignity to its proper place. That is, human beings are of infinite more worth than animals although still of infinite less stature than God.
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