Thursday, February 16, 2023

Thursday of the Sixth Week in Ordinary Time

(Genesis 9:1-13; Mark 8:27-33)

Today’s first reading authorizes capital punishment in cases of murder.  What other conclusion can be drawn from God’s statement to Noah that if someone sheds the blood of another, the killer’s blood will be shed?  Yet the Church has come to prohibit capital punishment.  What going on?

Nothing in the gospels annuls God’s declaration to Noah.  The New Testament letters presume capital punishment and acknowledge the state’s authority to administer it.  The prohibition has resulted from the need to shore up human dignity in recent times.  The carnage of twentieth century wars, the arbitrary killing in procured abortions, and the inequitable way the death penalty is adjudicated has necessitated the call for a prudential halt in executions. 

Perhaps someday the Church will reconsider its position.  We might hope and pray not.  Our motive is not the continuance of violence demanding a sign against it.  Rather we want to see a more peaceful society showing how capital punishment may be permissible but is also counterproductive.       

Thursday, February 16, 2017

Thursday of the Sixth Week in Ordinary Time

(Genesis 9:1-13; Mark 8:27-33)

When Osama bin Laden was killed by U.S. Navy Seals, there was no outcry from Catholic hierarchy.  Pope Benedict must have recognized the legitimacy of the execution even though there was never a trial.  Taking alive bin Laden, whose guilt for mass murder was widely recognized, and putting him on trial would have surely resulted in violent outbursts around the world.  The incident provides the exception that proves the rule for the Church’s opposition to capital punishment.

Following today’s passage from Genesis, the Church does not deny the validity of capital punishment when a life has been unjustly taken.  It also notes, however, that there are an inordinate number of innocent lives taken today, especially by procured abortions.  To bolster its affirmation of life, then, Pope St. John Paul II and his two successors have taught that the state should never execute a human being except in extraordinary situations like bin Laden’s arrest.

We need to constantly reassert our support of life.  We should be participating in the campaigns abortion, capital punishment, and euthanasia.  We might also check our appetite for violence in entertainment.  If we relish viewing wanton slaughter, we are abetting the culture of death which will inevitably hurt those whom we love.

Homilette for Thursday, February 19, 2009

Thursday of the Sixth Week in Ordinary Time

(Genesis 9:1-13; Mark 8:27-33)

Remember the campaign question, “Where’s the beef?” It did more than inquire into political benefits. It hinted at the human craving for meat. We see this predilection for the flesh of animals in the first reading today.

Noah has just emerged from the ark with representatives of all animal species. They have journeyed together for at least forty days and more likely a year. They have shared a common diet which certainly did not contain any meat. Then Noah, without being asked, sacrifices some meat to God. No doubt, he thinks that since humans have a taste for meat, God would savor it as well. God then makes a concession to humankind. Because of their liking, humans may eat the flesh of animals as long as they respect their life blood.

Also, God demands that human society execute murderers. As much as abolitionists might like to overlook the command, the imperative is clear. “If anyone sheds the blood of man,” God says, “by man shall his blood be shed...” Then how can the Church teach that capital punishment is no longer to be practiced? A few considerations are in order about Pope John Paul II’s 1995 appeal to end the death penalty. First, he never claimed that the death penalty is intrinsically evil, only that that governments which are able to remove murderers from society without executing them should do so. Second, he allowed for governments which cannot safely put away murderers to execute them. Third, he proclaimed the need to stop killing criminals as urgent today to counter the culture of death that has become so prevalent with mobsters and abortionists getting away with murder. We might say that the pope is asking God to make a concession as He did in allowing humans to eat meat. As early humans were likely to have rebelled if they were not allowed to eat meat, so too will members of our society continue killing one another gratuitously if we do not provide cogent example of not killing anyone.