His Blood Shall Be Shed: Capital Punishment and Scripture

“WHOSOEVER SHALL SHED MAN'S BLOOD, his blood shall be shed; for man was made to the image of God." (Gen.9:6) This is a general principle that underlies the Mosaic law when it comes to capital punishment. Intentional homicide calls for the punishment of death. It cannot be doubted that the God of Israel sanctioned capital punishment as part of the law of Israel. Nor was capital punishment limited to murder. (Ex. 21:12; Le. 24:17) It was also to be applied in the case of blasphemy (Lev. 24:16), idolatry (Ex. 22:19, Numb. 25:5), working on the Sabbath (Ex. 31:15, 35:2), false prophecy (Deut. 13:5, 18:20), kidnapping (Ex. 21:16), homosexuality (Le. 20:13), bestiality (Ex. 22:19, Le. 20:15-16), sorcery (Ex. 22:18, Le. 20:27), striking or cursing one's parents (Ex. 21:15, 17; Lev. 20:9), and adultery (Lev. 20:10). Capital punishment was typically by stoning. (Deut. 17:5-7) There is no time where the death penalty was not part of the law that governed Israel, God's chosen people. It is, in fact, why St. Stephen, the Christian protomartyr--was put to death by stoning under the Old Law. (Acts:7:57-58)

To be sure, there are instances in the Old Testament where God exercises mercy. We have, for example, the decision of God to exercise mercy in allowing Cain to remain alive though guilty of fratricide, indeed, even in protecting his life putting a sign on him that would indicate that anyone who should harm him would receive vengeance seven-fold. (Gen. 4:15) We have the instance where David--guilty of adultery, a capital offense--has his life spared. (2 Sam. 12:13) God seems to have overlooked the adultery and harlotry of Gomer when he asked the prophet Hosea to marry her, as an example of his fidelity to unfaithful Israel. (Hosea 1:1-3) But these seem to be extraordinary interventions.

It is indisputable that capital punishment is well-established in the Mosaic law.

Indeed, capital punishment is confirmed as the proper punishment for murder in everyone one of the books of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible, called by the Jews as the Tanach). (Gen. 9:6; Ex. 21:12; Lev. 24:17; Num. 35:31, 33; Deut. 19:11-13) The provision of capital punishment as the proper response to murder is monolithic.

With this background, where are we to put Jesus, who came to fulfill the Law and the Prophets? (Matt. 5:17) The Law clearly provided for the putting of a man to death. The Prophets had no qualms with those provisions in the Mosaic law which required that a man be put to death. Indeed, Joshua killed Achan's family for breaking the ban on items taken from Jericho (Joshua 7). Elijah,in conformity with the Mosaic law (Deut. 13:5, 18:20), ordered the execution of 450 prophets of Baal. (1 Kings 18:40)

"Terra Terram Accusat" from the Codex Egberti

Indeed, Jesus mentions one of the Mosaic law's death penalties (Ex. 21:15, 17; Lev. 20:9) without a hint of criticism. Quite the contrary, Christ uses this law as the foundation of his own counter-criticism of the traditions of the Pharisees who complain that Christ's disciples do not wash their hands, thereby breaking the tradition of the elders. (Matt:15:3-4; Mark 7:8-11)

He said to them [the Pharisees and scribes] in reply, "And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? For God said, 'Honor your father and your mother,' and 'Whoever curses father or mother shall die.' But you say, 'Whoever says to father or mother, "Any support you might have had from me is dedicated to God," need not honor his father.' You have nullified the word of God for the sake of your tradition.

Is this just obiter dicta?

Not only does Jesus recognize the death penalty provided in the Mosaic law, he seems to recognize the natural law principle that a State may put a citizen to death for murder. For example, he tells Peter--who seeks to protect him from arrest by attacking the high priest's servant Malchus with a sword and severing his ear--that he who uses the sword to put a person to death shall perish by the sword of the State. (Matt. 26:52) He also recognizes Pontius Pilate's authority to put him to death. "You would have no power over me [to judge me and put me to death by crucifixion] if it had not been given to you from above." (John 19:11) Even on the cross, Jesus recognizes the penitent thief's acknowledgment of the propriety and justice of their capital punishment as expiatory. (Luke 23:40-41)

And yet there is something new in Christ's attitude. The harshness of the Mosaic law--which compels the penalty of death--is somehow softened, tempered, infused with mercy. We have, for example, Jesus' teaching in the Sermon on the Mount, where he suggests that strict proportionality between an offense and one's reaction to it (as mentioned in Lev. 24:20, Ex. 21:24, Deut. 19:21) need not be recognized on the part of the one offended. "You have heard that it was said, 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.' But I say to you, offer no resistance to one who is evil. When someone strikes you on (your) right cheek, turn the other one to him as well." (Matt. 5:38-39) We must then, at least on a personal or subjective level, temper justice with mercy, fight against feelings of vengeance and anger, and yield in a way to the wrongdoer. But is this an injunction to the inner life of the believer only? May it also be an attitude that may be adopted by the State?

This proposition is problematic. Clearly, if it was a central principle of the State, it would spell anarchy, injustice, and might would win over right. If you would physically turn your cheek to a Mao, to a Hitler, to a Muhammad, you would soon find yourself without freedom.

One of the basic duties of the State is to protect and defend the common good from those who would do evil to it. Were the State to turn the other cheek and forgive not seven times, but seventy times seventy times, it would be a sure recipe for disaster.

And then we have what may be the locus classicus of Jesus' great mercy, the so-called Pericope Adulterae, the story of the woman taken in adultery (John 8:3-11):

Then the scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery and made her stand in the middle. They said to him, "Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. Now in the law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?" They said this to test him, so that they could have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and began to write on the ground with his finger. But when they continued asking him, he straightened up and said to them, "Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her." Again he bent down and wrote on the ground. And in response, they went away one by one, beginning with the elders. So he was left alone with the woman before him. Then Jesus straightened up and said to her, "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?" She replied, "No one, sir." Then Jesus said, "Neither do I condemn you. Go, (and) from now on do not sin any more."

Terra terram accusat, Sts. Ambrose and Augustine speculated Christ wrote on the dirt. Dirt accuses dirt. Is the Lord telling us that man--who is but dust, and to dust he must return--is not allowed to accuse and put to death another of his own--who is but dust, and to dust likewise must return?*

Though Jesus abjured violence, and certainly put no man to death while on earth, there seems to be nothing in the New Testament that would contradict the Old Testament heritage associated with the death penalty. There is, for example, nothing even remotely akin Jesus' radical reform of marriage and the Mosaic tolerance of divorce. (Matt. 19:18) Had Jesus wanted to abrogate the State's authority to put a man to death, one would have expected some express revelation. But as Avery Cardinal Dulles concludes in his short treatment of Catholicism and Capital Punishment, "No passage in the New Testament disapproves of the death penalty."
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*It might be noted that Jesus here may not have been suggesting that the Mosaic penalty for adultery should be abrogated. It may be that the Pharisees were trying to entrap Jesus. If Jesus upheld the Mosaic law, then he would have violated Roman law (which reserved to itself capital punishment) and could have been accused of sedition. On the other hand, if he did not uphold the Mosaic law, he would have been accused of being a false prophet. Jesus deftly avoided the question, while also suggesting the mercy, forgiveness, and introspection may often take us out of a moral quandary. A similar example of this effort to entrap Jesus would have been the questioning of Jesus on the payment of tax to Caesar.

On Crime and Punishment

ALL PUNISHMENT SAYS THE TRADITIONALIST JOSEPH DE MAISTRE is painful, but it is inflicted as much for love as it is for justice.* Shocking to modern sensibilities, de Maistre insisted that the scaffold was a kind of altar, and there is no civilization unless there is an altar, suggesting, of course, that civilization requires a scaffold.** Jeremy Bentham, on the other hand, insisted that all punishment is mischief, and that all punishment in itself is evil, having ultimately no justification in either justice, much less in love, but only in utility.***

The Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church has a brief excursus on punishment. (Compendium, Nos. 402-405) The Compendium ties punishment down with two ropes: the common good and law. Nulla poena sine lege: no punishment without law goes an old Roman legal principle. This principle is clearly adopted by the Compendium. And since it is a fundamental principle that all law is ordered to the common good of the community, if follows that punishment under the rule of law is justified only with reference to the common good.

In the Compendium's tying punishment to the the rule of law and the common good, we must remember the Church's unique vision of the common good--which is neither a collective concept nor an aggregate concept, but a personalistic and teleological, even theistic one. "The common good of society is not an end in itself; it has value only in reference to attaining the ultimate ends of the person and the universal common good of the whole of creation. God is the ultimate end of his creatures and for no reason may the common good be deprived of its transcendent dimension, which moves beyond the historical dimension while at the same time fulfilling it." (Compendium, No. 170)

Ultimately, the Church seems to be telling us, punishment is justified only in reference to the person, to the good of a political community, and, ultimately, only in reference to God, who is both justice and love. (cf. 2 Thess. 1:6; 1 John 4:8)

In order to protect the common good, the lawful public authority must exercise the right and the duty to inflict punishments according to the seriousness of the crimes committed.

(Compendium, No. 402)

In this succinct statement, we find a number of principles. First, punishment is referable to the common good. It is a means of protecting the common good. Second, it is only lawful public authority that has the monopoly on the use of violence or physical coercion, what Max Weber called das Gewaltmonopol or das Monopol legitimen physischen Zwanges.† Where there is law, there is no such thing as vigilantism. Third, the public authority has not only the right, but a duty to inflict punishment. Fourth, there must be a relationship, a fit, a proportionality between crime and punishment.

Vincent Van Gogh, "Prisoners Exercising" (After Doré) (1890)

There are four traditional justifications for punishment: retribution, deterrence, rehabilitation, and incapacitation. The Compendium appears to embrace all four as justifications for punishment. For example, the Compendium states that punishment arises out of the State's duty to "discourage behavior that is harmful to human rights and the fundamental norms of civil life." (Compendium, No. 402). This is a clear reference to deterrence. The Compendium also states that public authority has the duty to see that "the disorder created by criminal activity" be repaired "through the penal system." (Compendium, No. 402) This a clear reference to retribution. The Compendium further recognizes that punishment has the purpose of "guaranteeing the safety of persons," and this suggests that punishment serves to incapacitate the criminal from harming others. (Compendium, No. 403) Finally, the Compendium adverts that punishment may well be "an instrument for the correction of the offender, a correction that also takes on the moral value of expiation when the guilty party voluntarily accepts his punishment." This is a reference to rehabilitation.

The role of the judicial system--as independent from the legislative and executive branches of government--is emphasized by the Compendium as part of the modern rule of law. There needs to be a division between the law maker, the prosecutor, and the judge.

In a State ruled by law the power to inflict punishment is correctly entrusted to the Courts: "In defining the proper relationships between the legislative, executive, and judicial powers, the Constitutions of modern States guarantee the judicial power the necessary independence in the real of law.

(Compendium, No. 402)

In investigating crimes, prosecuting alleged criminals, sentencing criminals and punishing them, public authority and its officials are to remember two things: truth and the dignity and rights of the accused and convicted, for they enjoy the full dignity and rights of the human person.††

The activity of offices charged with establishing criminal responsibility, which is always personal in character, must strive to be a meticulous search for truth and must be conducted in full respect for the dignity and rights of the human person; this means guaranteeing the rights of the guilty as well as those of the innocent. The juridical principle by which punishment cannot be inflicted if a crime has not first been proven must be borne in mind.

(Compendium, No. 404)

In pursuing their investigations, officials of the public authority "are especially called to exercise due discretion in their investigations so as not to violate the rights of the accused to confidentiality and in order not to undermine the principle of the presumption of innocence." (Compendium, No. 404)

The Compendium prohibits the use of torture, though it does not define the term other than through vague reference to "international juridical instruments concerning human rights." (We leave the subject of what is "torture" for another day.)

In carrying out investigations, the regulation against the use of torture, even in the case of serious crimes, must be strictly observed: "Christ's disciple refuses every recourse to such methods, which nothing could justify and in which the dignity of man is as much debased in his torturer as in the torturer's victim."††† International juridical instruments concerning human rights correctly indicate a prohibition against torture as a principle which cannot be contravened under any circumstances.

(Compendium, No. 404)

Not only is torture prohibited, but so is improper detention or incarceration: "Likewise ruled out is “the use of detention for the sole purpose of trying to obtain significant information for the trial." (Compendium, No. 404)

Finally, trials are to be had expeditiously in a manner in keeping with truth and justice: "excessive length" of trials "intolerable for citizens and results in a real injustice."‡ (Compendium, No. 404)

Finally, no judicial system manned by humans is perfect, and errors in investigation, trial, judgment, and punishment can occur. When public authority becomes aware of these, it must rectify the wrong. Part of this righting of wrongs demands "that the law provide for suitable compensation for victims of judicial errors." (Compendium, No. 404)

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*Joseph de Maistre, Les Soirées de Saint-Pétersbourg, "Fifth Dialogue."
**Ibid., "Second Dialogue" and "Tenth Dialogue." The connection between punishment and belief in God is more intimate than one might first suppose. Even Albert Camus divined it when he observed in his famous essay against capital punishment, "Reflections on the Guillotine," that capital punishment has always been religious punishment, and that justification for capital punishment can only be found in grounded in a religious belief that life on earth is not all there is.
***Jeremy Bentham, Principles of Morals and Legislation, Chp. XVI, § 1.
†Max Weber, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, Chp. 1, § 17 (Politics as a Vocation). It should be noted that Weber's concept seems skewed in favor of the State. In fact, punishment is legitimately pursued by the public authority in any perfect society, which would include the Church.
††A person guilty of a heinous offense maintains what we may call his ontological dignity, one based upon the fact that he is a person. He may have lost what I call the agathological dignity which a man or woman obtains by conforming his or her life to the good. Though both sinner and saint retain their ontological dignity by virtue of being persons, the saint has a much higher agathological dignity than the criminal, who has marred his dignity by his rejection of the good (in Greek: agathos) for evil (in Greek: kakos).
†††Quoting John Paul II, Address to the International Committee of the Red Cross, Geneva (15 June 1982), 5.
‡John Paul II, Address to the Italian Association of Judges (31 March 2000), 4

Conscientious Objection and Resistance

THE CHRISTIAN CITIZEN NAVIGATES between two pole stars, as it were. On the one hand, he recognizes the divine warrant given secular authorities. He remembers that the early Christian, following Christ, respected the civil authority of Caesar. "You would have no power over me," the Lord told the Roman procurator Pontius Pilate, "if it had not been given to you from above." (John 19:11) Sts. Peter and Paul enjoined their flocks to obey all governing authorities, including Caesar who had arrogated to himself powers he did not have, and whose philosophy of government was wholly false. (E.g., 1 Pet 2:15; Rom. 13:1) Ordinarily, Christians ought to be model citizens, conscientiously required to follow the laws of the State.

And yet absolute obedience is never due the State. Any arrogation of divinity by the State is absolutely rejected by the Christian. Here is the veiled teaching behind Christ's answer to the query by those sent by the Chief Priests seeking to entrap him either as a revolutionary or a bad Jew:

"Is it permissible for us to pay taxes to Caesar or not?"
But He was aware of their cunning and said, "Show me a denarius. Whose head and name are on it?"
"Caesar’s," they said.
"Well then," He said to them, "give back to Caesar what belongs to Caesar – and to God what belongs to God."

(Luke 20:21-25). The coin Jesus pointed to, one ought to add, claimed falsely that Caesar was divine. In these soft-spoken words, Jesus ushered in a political revolution. Wherever the words of Jesus take root and sprout, there will be a separation between political power and moral truth, a de-divinized political order. The political order will be demoted, constrained, circumscribed. Its desire to be a "mortal God" will be muzzled.

Denarius (ca. 19-18 B.C.)
"Caesar Augustus" and "Divus Iuliu[s]" = Divine Julius (Caesar)

There are, then, "things of Caesar" and there are "things of God." There are "things of God" that Caesar may not touch, one of which is moral truth, the other of which is the human conscience which is our means of accessing that moral truth. And if Caesar has the temerity, the audacity of trespassing on moral truth or human conscience, the Christian may not respond with the obedience enjoined by Sts. Peter and Paul in ordinary situations. In such extraordinary situations--when Caesar trespasses the moral law and asks from his citizens what God forbids, then we must stand with St. Peter and declare: "Obedience to God comes before obedience to men." (Acts 5:29)

The Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church addresses the issue of when and how St. Peter's teaching that obedience to God comes before obedience to men applies in the modern Christian's life. It is a political reality that American Catholics confront a real threat from their governing authorities. This threat is the result of a unhealthy hodgepodge whose ingredients include the erosion of any moral consensus in the West, the increase in moral relativism built upon false notions of individuality and moral autonomy, a "reductive secularism" which neglects moral and spiritual truths and restricts truth to mere "scientific rationality" or "political power or majority rule," and the increased political intolerance from those with world-views hostile to traditional and Christian morality who have no compunction in imposing their views through the authority of the State.

These ingredients have given rise in a sort of political witch's brew. It is a political witch's brew that Pope Benedict XVI recently referred to as a "radical secularism which finds increasing expression in the political and cultural spheres." This "radical secularism" is backing Christians into those corners where obedience is no longer due civil authority.

Presciently, or perhaps better, prophetically, Pope Benedict XVI foresaw and foresees increasing conflict between American Catholics and a public authority increasingly secularized and increasingly hostile to the moral values of its Catholic citizens.** The conflict is caused by the increasing demands of the State to "to deny the right of conscientious objection on the part of Catholic individuals and institutions with regard to cooperation in intrinsically evil practices." The aggressive secularist State wants freedom of religion to be limited to "mere freedom of worship," and not to "freedom of conscience" which extends beyond the realm of the four walls of a Church into the "public square" of social, civil, political, and economic life.

It behooves us, therefore, to dust off the covers of the Compendium and re-visit the issue of when Christians must oppose themselves to civil authority, either by conscientious objection or, in an extreme situation and under carefully guarded circumstances, rebellion.

Christians may conscientiously object to civil laws if they infringe upon one or more of three things: (1) the law violates the moral order, that is, the natural moral law; (2) the law violates fundamental human rights; or (3) the law violates the teachings of the Gospel, which is to say the teachings of the Church. Laws that trespass against one or more of these three things may not be obeyed, and obedience to them must be refused. In fact, the Christian has both a duty and a right to refuse such a law. And though it may be unrecognized, it is a right that he must exercise regardless of the consequences to him.

The full text of the Compendium on this issue merits quotation:

Citizens are not obligated in conscience to follow the prescriptions of civil authorities if their precepts are contrary to the demands of the moral order, to the fundamental rights of persons or to the teachings of the Gospel. Unjust laws pose dramatic problems of conscience for morally upright people: when they are called to cooperate in morally evil acts they must refuse. Besides being a moral duty, such a refusal is also a basic human right which, precisely as such, civil law itself is obliged to recognize and protect. "Those who have recourse to conscientious objection must be protected not only from legal penalties but also from any negative effects on the legal, disciplinary, financial and professional plane."***

It is a grave duty of conscience not to cooperate, not even formally, in practices which, although permitted by civil legislation, are contrary to the Law of God. Such cooperation in fact can never be justified, not by invoking respect for the freedom of others nor by appealing to the fact that it is foreseen and required by civil law. No one can escape the moral responsibility for actions taken, and all will be judged by God himself based on this responsibility (cf. Rom 2:6; 14:12).

(Compendium, No. 399)

The right of conscientious objection is not the right of resistance, and the two should be carefully distinguished. Moreover, resistance which can be expressed in "many different concrete ways" should be distinguished from the last and desperate recourse of "armed resistance."

The right to resist an oppressive law or an oppressive government is one that is found in the natural law. It is a right which precedes a government, and so is one that is inalienable. Resistance generally is something to be avoided, and it is justified only if there is a "serious" infringement or "repeated" and chronic infringements of the natural moral law, a fundamental human right, or a Gospel precept.

Recognizing that natural law is the basis for and places limits on positive law means admitting that it is legitimate to resist authority should it violate in a serious or repeated manner the essential principles of natural law. Saint Thomas Aquinas writes that "one is obliged to obey . . . insofar as it is required by the order of justice."† Natural law is therefore the basis of the right to resistance.

(Compendium, No. 400)

The right of resistance is not one that necessarily has the overthrow of government in mind. There may be many ways in which resistance may be expressed, and there may be many ends which resistance may have in mind:

There can be many different concrete ways this right may be exercised; there are also many different ends that may be pursued. Resistance to authority is meant to attest to the validity of a different way of looking at things, whether the intent is to achieve partial change, for example, modifying certain laws, or to fight for a radical change in the situation.

(Compendium, No. 400)

Resistance in the sense of armed resistance is something which is a last resort. The Church has identified five conditions all of which must be met before armed resistance is morally justified:

1) there is certain, grave and prolonged violation of fundamental rights, 2) all other means of redress have been exhausted, 3) such resistance will not provoke worse disorders, 4) there is well-founded hope of success; and 5) it is impossible reasonably to foresee any better solution.

(Compendium, No. 401)

As the Church observes, armed resistance, even if morally justified, is generally to be avoided, and passive resistance is to be preferred. Armed resistance is often a Pandora's box which unleashes as much or more evil as it intended to avoid.

Recourse to arms is seen as an extreme remedy for putting an end to a "manifest, long-standing tyranny which would do great damage to fundamental personal rights and dangerous harm to the common good of the country." The gravity of the danger that recourse to violence entails today makes it preferable in any case that passive resistance be practiced, which is "a way more conformable to moral principles and having no less prospects for success."††

(Compendium, No. 401)

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*Pope Benedict XVI's address to the Bishops of the United States on the occasion of their ad limina visit on January 19, 2012 may be found here.
**The threat against religious liberty is, of course, broader than affecting only Catholics. As former Arkansas Governor and 2008 Presidential Candidate (and Southern Baptist) Mike Huckabee stated in a recent speech in the Conservative Political Action Conference referring to the recent mandate by the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services that Catholic institutions are required to provide their employees healthcare that covers contraception and abortifacients, "we are all Catholics now."
***Quotation is from John Paul II's encyclical Evangelium vitae, 74.
†Summa Theologiae, IIaIIae, q. 104, a. 6, ad 3. (principibus saecularibus intantum homo oboedire tenetur, inquantum ordo iustitiae requirit)
††Quotations are respectively from Paul VI, Encyclical Letter Populorum Progressio, 31, and Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Instruction Libertatis Conscientia, 79.

Morality's Hold: Authority and Power

THE POET HORACE WROTE in one of his poems:

Power without wisdom falls by its own weight:
The gods themselves advance temperate power:
And likewise hate force that, with its whole
Consciousness, is intent on wickedness.*

Power must be tempered, guided by something, and in the Catholic Church's view, the fundamental order under which authority's power is to be exercised is the moral law that was established by God, the creator of heaven, earth, and man. Therefore, the Compendium states succinctly the principle that is forever the bane of tyrants: "Authority must be guided by the moral law." (Compendium, No. 396) From the moral order, authority obtains its power to impose obligations and its moral legitimacy.

There is no moral law without regard to God, since the moral order has God as the fons et origo and the finis ultimus:

All of its [authority's] dignity derives from its being exercised within the context of the moral order, "which in turn has God for its first source and final end."

(Compendium, No. 396) (quoting Pope John XXIII, Pacem in terris, No. 270) In fact, recognition of the existence of God is absolutely necessary to prevent the advent of tyranny, because the moral order upon which authority relies "has no existence except in God; cut off from God it must necessarily disintegrate." (Compendium, No. 396) (quoting Pope John XXIII, Mater et magistra, 450) The modern loss of the sense of God therefore suggests not freedom, but oppression.

The moral order precedes authority, and is the basis of authority, which is to say that authority is nothing but tyranny without it. Authority--which is a moral concept--should therefore be distinguished from power--which is a legal, political, social, historical, or practical concept. Tyrants wield power--a legal, political, or practical reality--arbitrarily, without regard to the moral law, and hence they undermine their own foundation. Sic semper tyrannis!

Since power exercised without regard to authority is tyranny, denial of a moral order and of a natural moral law is tantamount to tyranny. And this is true whether the form of tyranny is in the form of one (monarchy or dictator) or the form of many (democracy). Tyranny is not based on form, but on substance. Tyranny exists whenever power--wherever it is to be found and in whatever manner exercised--acts without reference to an objective moral law.

Since authority flows from the moral law, it follows that authority will "recognize, respect, and promote essential human and moral values." These human and moral values are built in human nature so to speak, and, as John Paul II felicitously phrased it in his encyclical Evangelium vitae, "flow from the very truth of the human being and express and safeguard the dignity of the person." These human and moral values, the great Pope continues, are such that "no individual, no majority, and no State can ever create, modify, or destroy." (Evangelium vitae, 71).

The collapse of moral consensus in the West caused by the rejection of an objective moral order--the natural moral law--which leads to a vicious skepticism or relativism in morality therefore forebodes a frightening return of tyranny. This, of course, has been famously referred to as the "tyranny of relativism" by Pope Benedict XVI.

The inability to appreciate an objective moral order is also tied to the increased secularization of social, political, and legal life. We act as practical atheists. We act as if God did not exist.

If, as a result of the tragic clouding of the collective conscience, skepticism were to succeed in casting doubt on the basic principles of the moral law, the legal structure of the State itself would be shaken to its very foundations, being reduced to nothing more than a mechanism for the pragmatic regulation of different and opposing interests.

(Compendium, No. 397)

The world has groaned, and finds itself in this "tragic cloud" were all moral truths are denied and God's providence no longer offers guidance. Our moral vision thus obscured we walk lemming-like right into the pit of tyranny.

Since it is properly anchored in the moral law, authority properly exercised will enact just and moral laws. As the Compendium summarizes the relationship between the natural moral law, authority, and positive laws, citing back to the principles so well-stated by St. Thomas Aquinas:

Authority must enact just laws, that is, laws that correspond to the dignity of the human person and to what is required by right reason. "Human law is law insofar as it corresponds to right reason and therefore is derived from the eternal law. When, however, a law is contrary to reason, it is called an unjust law; in such a case it ceases to be law and becomes instead an act of violence."

(Compendium, No. 398) (quoting S.T. IaIIae, q. 93, a. 3, ad 2)

When human laws conform to the natural law--which is a participation in the eternal law of God--then they bind in conscience. That is why the Compendium states the traditional teaching:

Authority that governs according to reason places citizens in a relationship not so much of subjection to another person as of obedience to the moral order and, therefore, to God himself who is its ultimate source. Whoever refuses to obey an authority that is acting in accordance with the moral order "resists what God has appointed" (Rom. 13:2).

(Compendium, No. 398)

Not only must human laws conform to reason, they must also promote the common good. Indeed, it is the same thing to say that a human law is unreasonable, does not promote the common good,** is against the natural law, or is against God's law, since these are all different ways of saying the same thing.

When human laws do not conform to the natural law, when they are unreasonable, or when they act against the common good, then any tie between God's eternal law and human law is severed, and human law flails in the winds of moral chaos, like some kite that has lost its anchoring string. Such laws have lost their authority, are acts of raw will not reason, and in fact are hand in glove with the central law of the Devil: "Evil, be thou my good!"***

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*Horace, Odes III.4.65-70 (Vis consili expers mole ruit sua; / Vim temperatum di quoquo provehunt / In maius; idem odere vires / omne nefasanim moventis.)
**As the Compendium notes: "[W]henever public authority--which has its foundation in human nature and belongs to the order pre-ordained by God--fails to seek the common good, it abandons its proper purpose and so delegitimizes itself." (Compendium, No. 398) By rejecting the natural moral law and the objective moral order, this seems to be increasingly applicable to most Western governments.
***John Milton, Paradise Lost, IV, 108.

The People is Sovereign Under God

“THERE IS NO AUTHORITY except from God, and those that exist have been established by God," says St. Paul to the Romans (Rom. 13:1). This reality is mediated through human nature, particularly in man's social nature, which finds its ultimate source and in fact its end in God the Creator. It is man's nature to live with others of his kind. It is a necessity that such a common life have an ordering principle, which requires both ruler and rule, government and law, and the authority requisite to both. This natural law chain between authority and God is what is implied in St. Paul's succinct statement.

Drawing from Pope John XXIII's Encyclical Pacem in terris, the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church amplifies on the relationship between human political authority and God and the natural law linkage or chain between both:

Since God made men social by nature, and since no society can hold together unless some one be over all, directing all to strive earnestly for the common good, every civilized community must have a ruling authority, and this authority, no less than society itself, has its source in nature, and has, consequently God for its author.

(Compendium, No.393)

The necessity of political authority is what defines its responsibilities and what defines its limits. The political authority is responsible for ordering freedom and encouraging virtue with a view to the common good of a people of which it has charge:

Political authority must guarantee an ordered and upright community life without usurping the free activity of individuals and groups, but disciplining and orienting this freedom, by respecting and defending the independence of the individual and social subjects, for the attainment of the common good.

(Compendium, No. 394) It is significant that the Compendium speaks of an "ordered" community life as well as an "upright" community life. It understands political authority to have some responsibility for assuring the virtue of its citizens. It advocates something different than some sort of liberalism, where order, but not uprightness, is what authority is about.

Indeed, in the Church's understanding of the foundations of political authority, morality and authority, morality and community, morality and law are never apart. "Political authority, in fact, 'whether in the community as such or in institutions representing the State, must always be exercised within the limits of morality and on behalf of the dynamically conceived common good, according to a juridical order enjoying legal status. When such is the case citizens are conscience-bound to obey.'" (Compendium, No. 394) (quoting VII, Gaudium et spes, 74)

Authority, therefore, cannot be used against the common good and in favor of some groups over others. Authority likewise cannot be used to protect immoral acts--and calling immoral acts "rights" so as to clothe them with the protective mantle of the State is a word game which covers an underlying abuse of authority. Finally, authority must not use immoral means, even to achieve legitimate ends.

It is only a State that understands these moral restraints upon its authority that can issue laws that bind in conscience. An authority that believes itself unattached to the natural law--even one that does dons a contrived multi-colored coat of pluralism, multiculturalism, or liberalism--is really nothing but a naked tyrant.

The ultimate source of public or political authority is God. Yet God acts through a people: Vox populi, vox Dei. It is "the people considered in its entirety" that is the source of political "sovereignty." (Compendium, No. 395) How this sovereignty of the people is transferred or conveyed to public authority, to the organs of government, may vary. The Church allows for diverse regimes that are compatible with the customs, traditions, history, and values of a people. The people, however, in some fashion "preserves the prerogative to assert this sovereignty in evaluating the work of those charged with governing and also in replacing them when they do not fulfill their functions satisfactorily." This sovereignty resident in the people is something no law, no regime, no authority can take away. This "right" in the people is "operative in every State and in every kind of political regime." (Compendium, No. 395). The Church rejects the extreme authoritarianism of Hobbes or Bodin.

For this reason, the Church has recognized the unique value of democratic forms in the contemporary setting since democratic forms seem best to recognize and to allow for the expression of a people's sovereignty. A democratic form of government, "due to its procedures for verification, allows and guarantees [the] fullest application" of a people's sovereignty over its government. (Compendium, No. 395)

The people, however, though in possession of sovereignty, do not have this quality independent of God. For this reason, the "mere consent of the people is not . . . sufficient for considering 'just' the ways in which political authority is exercised." (Compendium, No. 395) No individual is exempt from the natural law. Likewise, no people is exempt from the natural law. The people are not the source of the natural law, and any authority in the people is exercised "under God."

There are times when the vox populi is not the vox Dei. We must not forget that the people chose Barabbas over Christ, and it was democracy in action that forced Socrates to drink his hemlock. Mob rule has never been a pretty sight. Sometimes, as Heraclitus so poignantly reminds us, the wise is one only, not many, and there is the law of one.*

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*Heraclitus, DK B32, DK B33 (ἕν τὸ σοφὸν μοῦνον λέγεσθαι οὐκ ἐθέλει καὶ ἐθέλει Ζηνὸς ὄνομα) (The wise is one only. It is unwilling and willing to be called by the name of Zeus.) and (νόμος καὶ βουλῇ πείθεσθαι ἑνός) (And it is law, too, to obey the counsel of one.)