The Big Punchline

"They think they're killing me. They think they're punishing me. They've already punished me. I've already had 16 years of punishment. They're releasing me. They're letting me go. That's helping me out. That's the way I look at it."

- Convicted murderer Patrick Knight,
facing his impending execution.

Meat Sacrificed To Idols

1 Corinthians 8:

5 For even if there are so-called gods whether in heaven or on earth, as indeed there are many gods and many lords,

6 yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom are all things and we exist for Him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we exist through Him.

7 However not all men have this knowledge; but some, being accustomed to the idol until now, eat food as if it were sacrificed to an idol; and their conscience being weak is defiled.

8 But food will not commend us to God; we are neither the worse if we do not eat, nor the better if we do eat.

9 But take care that this liberty of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak.

10 For if someone sees you, who have knowledge, dining in an idol's temple, will not his conscience, if he is weak, be strengthened to eat things sacrificed to idols?

11 For through your knowledge he who is weak is ruined, the brother for whose sake Christ died.

12 And so, by sinning against the brethren and wounding their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ.

There has been much discussion in circles catholic about the Death Penalty and Saddam Hussein, and that discussion is mainly about the permissability of capital punishment in catholic tradition and doctrine. But, does being permissible also make it good?

Saddam Hussein was hanged for his crimes against Shiites, and would have been for his crimes against the Kurds as well, not as a protection against future crimes. This application follows from America, where juries are given to option of Life Without Parole as an alternative to execution. The executions, are not necessary for the protection of society, but are revenge for the crimes of the accused. If one needs evidence of this revenge, witness the celebrations that follow such executions.

The people who desire retribution are our weaker brothers, and the rope an idol of justice. Let's not encourage their worship of revenge by justifying the sacrifice of meat to their idols. Instead, we should be continually preaching mercy and redemption. Imagine if Saddam had a conversion while in prison, like Tim McVeigh before his execution, what a powerful witness that would have been. Now, we'll never know.

Double-Edged Rope

So, Saddam got the short drop, and a sudden stop. While Shiites and Kurds (and not a few NeoCons) will be dancing with glee, something tells me that the world has not been markedly improved with the execution of Saddam Hussein. The blood on his hands and in the Iraqi soil, still cries out, but will get no answer. There will never be any penance, and never any reconciliation.

It was a foregone conclusion that Saddam was going to hang, from the moment that they pulled him out of his hidey-hole, and he knew it as well. Despite the efforts to put on an apparently fair trial, it will always the seen as just a veneer of civility to an otherwise delayed execution. There was never any question as to the eventual outcome, it was just a matter of observing formality.

There was a TV movie, in 2000, about the trials at Nuremberg. In the movie, Hermann Goering sums up the trials as such; Yes, I understand, we lost the war and now you're going to hang us. To him, and by extension, many others now, Saddam's hanging will be seen as only a consequence of losing an armed conflict with the United States.

Plank: Crime and Punishment

Criminal offenders are citizens, and human beings with inherent dignity, regardless of their poor choices and pernicious habits. The corrections system should be corrective, to educate the offender on socially expected behaviors, and mitigate factors that contribute to the inclination to offend. Yes, it's more expensive than throwing them in a prison for a few years, as the current corrections environment is not conducive to reformation. A concerted effort to implement restorative justice should be made.

- The Death Penalty should be a punishment of absolute last resort, not a violent reaction to a violent offense. Efforts to rehabilitate a violent offender should be proportional to the crime itself.

- Many, if not most, offenders will need treatment for mental illness, as well as substance abuse, and will aid in their rehabilitation.

- Offenders at all levels should be rehabilitated to the point where they are an asset to the community versus an ongoing liability.

anyone else want to chine in?

Hope for the Worst

h/t Sparki, fellow Lincolnite.

A story of a priest and Timothy McVeigh's redemption:

"When I first came in (to see him) I thought 'God is the owner of my life,' and I went to him and he threw his feces on me and called me all types of names and said, 'You can't be a priest because I've never seen a you-know-what as a priest,'" Father Smith said Aug. 5. "The devil was messin' with me."
...

But Father Smith persevered in his ministry to McVeigh and the convicted murderer, who was a baptized Catholic, began to repent. "He did a lot of things, but in the end we had confession, reconciliation. In the end he asked me a question a lot of people ask me. He asked, 'Father Charles, can I still get to heaven?'"

Wow, I hadn't heard the end of that story. Maybe there's hope for murderers, with time and patient ministry of the Gospel. It maybe a good enough reason for the period of time between conviction and execution, time for the hardened to seek God and His mercy. Though an evil of claimed necessity, the death penalty may be a mercy in itself, if one has been reconciled with God before death, slain by the State in a state of Grace.

I certainly hope that Timothy's repentance was genuine, and that he's washed his robe in the Blood of the Lamb.