Matthew Tyson on Killing

He does what I should have done and situates the Church’s teaching on the death penalty in the context of the rest of its teaching on the fifth commandment in the Catechism, making clear that the approach is always “how can we avoid killing if at all humanly possible” and never “when do we get to kill?”

I well remember discussions of torture over the past few years that were predicated precisely on “Hey!  We get to kill people in war and torture is less serious than killing, so why don’t we get to torture people?”

It was  kind of amazing to talk to people who saw killing as a kind of privilege and who resented being denied the corresponding privilege to torture but I ran into it constantly.  Killing is something we *have* to do in war, not something we *get* to do.  And if it can be avoided, we are morally obliged to do so.  That is why, the instant a combatant becomes a prisoner, killing him is no longer self-defense but murder, because your enemy is still made in the image and likeness of God.  And for the same reason, a prisoner may not be tortured–because he is in the image and likeness of God.

Bottom line:  if wars were fought with phasers instead of gun, we would be morally obliged to set them on stun at all times since that would be sufficient to render an enemy harmless.  Killing is only something done when absolutely necessary.

And that logic applies to the death penalty as well.