Below are the contents of an e-mail I wrote in response to a Viewpoint article yesterday. I did not send it to the Observer, but rather directly to the person who would write such things about a student who is defending life and the unborn on national television. (As a note to my readers: Though I was never enrolled as a student at ND, I took more than a semester's worth of classes at Notre Dame while a student at Saint Mary's College and participated in almost all of my extra-curricular activities there, which is why I justify calling myself a "former student of Notre Dame".)
If you wish to see the original letter to the Observer to which I am responding you can find it here: http://media.www.ndsmcobserver.com/media/storage/paper660/news/2009/04/08/Viewpoint/Partisan.Hand-3701481.shtml
Dear Ms. Burns,
I write to you as a former student of Notre Dame and one who was offended by the contents of your article published in today's Observer. Your comment that "the death penalty is an even more egregious affront to life since it is the government taking an active role in snuffing out life" is simply untrue. Obama's actions and policies that he has created already within his first three months in office paint an ominous picture for pro-lifers indeed. I am sure you have read enough about his recent record of lifting a ban on funding abortions overseas, federal funding of embryonic stem cell research, and repealing, perhaps as I write, legislation protecting health care providers from doing procedures against their consciences, among other anti-life policies. The possibility of Obama passing FOCA, which he promised in a speech to Planned Parenthood to sign, is the largest threat to the pro-life cause at this time. Our government is taking an extremely "active role in snuffing out life" indeed; through sanctioning and funding countless abortions in this country every year.
Ms. Donahue spoke correctly in not equating abortion and the death penalty. As Cardinal Ratzinger wrote in a 2004 memorandum to American Catholic bishops (the year before he became Pope) called "Worthiness to receive Holy Communion -- General principles," "not all moral issues have the same moral weight as abortion and euthanasia. For example, if a Catholic were to be at odds with the Holy Father on the application of capital punishment or on the decision to wage war, he would not for that reason be considered unworthy to present himself to receive Holy Communion. While the Church exhorts civil authorities to seek peace, not war, and to exercise discretion and mercy in imposing punishment on criminals, it may still be permissible to take up arms to repel an aggressor or to have recourse to capital punishment. There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not however with regard to abortion and euthanasia."
Simply put, what you said, in the eyes of the Catholic Church, is incorrect. Particularly as one preparing to defend our country's laws and legal system, I pray that you are able to come to a thoughtful conclusion about the relative gravity of the life issues, and are able to defend the pro-life cause accordingly. This is not to say that the issue of the legalization of the death penalty is unimportant or should not be a point of concern for Catholics, but that abortion is simply the greater issue at hand and needs to be addressed promply and with great ferverance.
Thank you for your time,
Sarah Galgano
3 comments:
Do you have ANY idea how many completely innocent people are killed by capital punishment each year? Do you care that poor blacks are VASTLY more likely to be killed, because racism is still rampant in this country and because they can't afford a lawyer?
How can you POSSIBLY still defend Bush, who didn't give a shit about the deaths and suffering he was causing in Iraq?
Abortion issues will be important when we learn how to care about those who are already born.
A. She's not defending Bush, she's claiming that abortion is worse than capital punishment in Catholic teaching, and it should be admonished as such. Please, educate yourself on Catholic teaching in this issue before posting any more rants about how capital punishment is worse for Catholics. It is obvious you are just reacting instead of thoughtfully looking into the matter for yourself.
B. I would estimate a thousand times more humans are killed via abortion than capital punishment. (300,000 last year by PP alone) These are humans which have done nothing to deserve death. Capital punishment is death directly caused by the government, but so is abortion. Who funds Planned Parenthood? Who pays for the destruction of embryos for research? Who pays for abortions abroad? Who made up the right for women to kill their offspring legally? The government. And one easy legal switch could take it all away (except for the "tough cases" like the life of the mother, which were allowed pre-Roe v Wade) and we could focus on the other pressing issues.
C. The right to life is the most basic of any human right. Without it, no other rights can be granted. It follows from Divine, as well as Natural, logical law that the right to life must be guaranteed BEFORE any other right. Otherwise there is no reason to help anybody out. Some people, through their actions, forfeit that right because they have heinously denied others life and they have a high chance of doing it many times again. They need to be stopped for the protection of society. In a society where they cannot be adequately detained, they can be put to death. This is probably no longer needed in our society, but if you look at the pure numbers, and the innocence of the ones killed, as well as the detriment to society, capital punishment pales in comparison to abortion. And it is a shame that there is inherent racism in the system. But you simply cannot claim that capital punishment is worse than abortion.
I urge you to put an end to your willful ignorance of Catholic teaching in this matter and others and take time to educate yourself and understand. While you may be frightened that this process will force you to confront any sinful decisions you have made in the past or continue to make, this is no reason to persevere in blindness. Please, open your mind up to the possibilities of Christ.
I did not defend Bush once in my letter. I wrote about the profound difference between the morality of abortion and the death penalty. Though I understand that these issues are connected, they are not the same. Ranking the death penalty of tried criminals who have been found guilty (whether they are or not, I grant, is a different matter) above the murdering of our children for convenience's sake is illogical and a twisted way of looking at the world.
Of course, it would be impossible to know the number of innocent people who are killed by the death penalty, but I don't even endorse the use of the death penalty for the most guilty of criminals in the US at this time. We have the means and the technology to keep one detained for the remainder of their lives, and it is in fact proven that it is more cost effective for the government to detain these criminals than to kill them. This may not be the case in other places in the world, even now. In a third world country where the means and technology are not available to detain a hardened murderer who is more of a strain on society than can be handled, capital punishment may be permissible. One of the beauties of the Catholic Church is that it relates to all peoples and times, and therefore on this point, it cannot make a definitive ruling on this--there are too many variables.
However, we can make an objective conclusion about abortion based on natural law. Scientifically, at the moment of conception, a unique live organism, a human being!, is created. This is not debatable.
Even assuming that EVERY SINGLE person who was killed through capital punishment in the US last year was unjustly put to death--there were 53 executions that took place in 2006. In 2005, there were some 1,200,000 abortions. That is more than 2200% more abortions than executions on death row. Where is the problem happening in respect to our regard to human life? The death penalty isn't even legal everywhere in the US. In my own state, capital punishment is illegal. This is why the abortion issue takes precedent.
Fun fact: From 2000 until 2008 the number of executions have steadily decreased. In 2009, they are expected to spike again. Who was in office from 2000 until 2008 again?? Oh yeah, that was Bush.
Learn the facts, and then start talking.
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