Jack Alderman
Today was a day in which the normal liturgical cycle was interrupted at mass. Catholics in England were exhorted to contemplate the cross, and the awful dark power of Rome that employed this agonising form of capital punishment.
Sometimes, Catholics forget that alongside opposition to abortion, the logic of the faith involves an opposition to capital punishment too.
I have argued for a very long time that there are secular arguments to be made against these two policies and that that is what catholics and all citizens and subjects who want to live under a rule of law should do. I want to break my rule about religious arguments in case any reader may be swayed.
I know honourable people on both issues who disagree with my position, and those of my church. I would just ask of any readers who claim to be catholic that they read about the case of Jack Alderman.
Alderman is on death row in the United States. He has been since 1975. On what is reported as the evidence of a schizophrenic paedophile drug addict, he was convicted.
He may have been guilty; I was nowhere near his trial, obviously, though you can read an appeal summary here. In general, though I have met exceptions, my impression of the standards of the American legal world is low.
Ultimately, were Alderman the most vile killer on earth, I would have no right to kill him, and nor would you. That I might do if he had touched my kith or kin is irrelevant. I would, I hope, know in those circumstances that I was doing wrong. A state under law should be better than anyone's vengeful anger. A state under law should not coldly do wrong.
Alderman is scheduled to die by a combination of lethal drugs at the hands of Georgians who had only a bond of citizenship with his alleged victims next Tuesday.
Pray for him, if you pray, and think about him if you don't.
Today was a day in which the normal liturgical cycle was interrupted at mass. Catholics in England were exhorted to contemplate the cross, and the awful dark power of Rome that employed this agonising form of capital punishment.
Sometimes, Catholics forget that alongside opposition to abortion, the logic of the faith involves an opposition to capital punishment too.
I have argued for a very long time that there are secular arguments to be made against these two policies and that that is what catholics and all citizens and subjects who want to live under a rule of law should do. I want to break my rule about religious arguments in case any reader may be swayed.
I know honourable people on both issues who disagree with my position, and those of my church. I would just ask of any readers who claim to be catholic that they read about the case of Jack Alderman.
Alderman is on death row in the United States. He has been since 1975. On what is reported as the evidence of a schizophrenic paedophile drug addict, he was convicted.
He may have been guilty; I was nowhere near his trial, obviously, though you can read an appeal summary here. In general, though I have met exceptions, my impression of the standards of the American legal world is low.
Ultimately, were Alderman the most vile killer on earth, I would have no right to kill him, and nor would you. That I might do if he had touched my kith or kin is irrelevant. I would, I hope, know in those circumstances that I was doing wrong. A state under law should be better than anyone's vengeful anger. A state under law should not coldly do wrong.
Alderman is scheduled to die by a combination of lethal drugs at the hands of Georgians who had only a bond of citizenship with his alleged victims next Tuesday.
Pray for him, if you pray, and think about him if you don't.
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