KILLING. - In the merely physical order, it is the act that deprives the body of life. A murderer is one who, by a human and voluntary act, causes the death of another (v. OMICIDIO); a suicide is one who causes death to himself (v. SUICIDIO).
I. U. AND VOLUNTARINESS. - The voluntariness of the act will be direct when death is in itself (not per accidens) the effect of the lethal act; so that, whenever such an act is performed, it always causes death, unless another cause prevents its execution. It is indirect, on the other hand, when the act by its nature does not lead to violent death, but the effect follows for another reason or through other causes concurring with that act to cause death in fact.
The act that has a lethal effect may be positive or negative; by the positive act a vital action of the organism is rendered impossible—for example, by constricting the throat, respiration is prevented; by the negative act, the elements necessary to life are not supplied; omission occurs when some vital operation is wholly or partly constituted by a human act subject to free will.
II. PRECEPT OF NATURAL LAW: « NE OCCIDAS ». DIRECT U. - Perhaps no moral norm is more universally accepted than this: do not kill. It is the concise norm given as the fifth commandment in the Decalogue ([v.] Ex. 20, 13; Deut. 5, 17). This norm accords with the conscience inherent in man, and God merely recalled an already common rule, as is attested by the murder of Abel (Gen. 4, 8-16). If the Church made a considerable effort to purify morals, in our matter this was rather in the field of applications than of the principle, which was universally accepted. The frequency of certain forms of homicide (for example, abortion) among some peoples and in certain periods, and the lack of condemnation sometimes observed, by no means imply that these acts were considered morally good.
Respect for life is a principle of natural morality, to which Revelation has added nothing.
Man does not possess ownership, but only the use of life; in relation to other human beings he has the right to live, and God alone can take back what He has given him; but, in relation to God, he has the duty to live, to remain in the place assigned to him until the end determined by God, and meanwhile to safeguard the deposit entrusted to him. To God, therefore, belongs the choice of the end. Man must accept life for as long as God leaves it to him. God, moreover, acts and manifests His will through the natural order of which He is the author. Now the equality of nature among all men finds here its strictest application. If all men have the rigorously equal right to tend toward their own end, this is manifested first of all in a strict equality with regard to life. No one, therefore, may ever lawfully kill an innocent person, nor sacrifice another's life for his own. This is so from the first instant of life, in the maternal womb, homicide (v.); and until the final instant of life, homicide (v.); even on the part of the State, because it too is constituted by men who precede it with their natural rights (v. GENOCIDIO), and the burden upon the community, even if it should exist, will not cause the individual impaired in body to lose his natural right to life (v. EUGENICA).
III. EXCEPTIONS. THE EXCEPTION OF THE DEATH PENALTY. — The sole case in which there is a right directly to kill is that of legitimate self-defense against an unjust aggressor, based on the stated principle of equality and on the principle of charity, whose measure is one’s own good (v. DIFESA LEGITTIMA). This principle is fundamentally what justifies, in the international sphere, killing in war and, on the national and social plane, tyrannicide and the death penalty, with the reservations and objections that, also in Catholic circles, are held concerning these last two points. One of the State’s primary duties is to protect the life of its citizens: to establish social security. This protection of life and social security entails the right to take adequate measures against those who might become guilty of attacks on social security, especially against the life of other citizens.
From the most remote times, among almost all peoples, the death penalty was in use, especially in armies and under wartime conditions as an extreme punishment. Its application found constant justification in ancient practical and theoretical thought—in morality, sociology, and law—with very few reactions until around the middle of the eighteenth century, when the movement of ideas that valued the individual at the expense of the authority of the State imposed itself in the history of thought. A sign of the community’s instinctive horror at capital execution is its repulsion toward the person who physically carries out the sentence and toward the judge himself. The former’s profession, in particular, was always regarded as dishonorable, and the latter’s as incompatible with the office of a minister of religion, who is held to be removed from any shedding of blood. irregularity (v.) ex defectu lenitatis. In the theoretical sphere, rare extremist ideologies condemning every homicide, including the application of the death penalty, were already manifested in antiquity (cf. Lactantius, Divinae instit., 1, VI, V. 20) and were later renewed among the Waldensians (v.), Anabaptists (v.), and Quakers (v.), who were also condemned for this by the Church (Denz-U., n. 425). In the genuine Catholic tradition, theologians before the eighteenth century always held the application of the death penalty by society to be justifiable, from St. Augustine (Epist., 47, n. 5) to St. Thomas and the classical moralists. They considered it natural that God could delegate to other human beings a portion of his authority over their fellows, appointing them instruments of just punishment. What God granted by way of exception to certain persons in the Old Testament (for example, to Judith: Iud. 7, 9 ff.), he granted by way of ordinary and general provision to society and constituted authority, authorizing it to defend order against the wicked, punishing them in extreme cases even with the death penalty. Thus, in the Mosaic law, the death penalty is expressly sanctioned (cf. Ex. 21, 12, 14-17, 23; 22, 3 etc.; Lev. 20, 10-18 etc.). Nor did God withdraw in the New Testament this delegation given to public authorities, as is evident from certain passages that presuppose the death penalty (Mt. 26, 32; Rom. 13, 4). This is not, however, an unlimited power: St. Thomas holds that it is lawful to kill a criminal if and insofar as such killing is ordered to the salvation of the whole community, just as it is lawful for a surgeon to remove a limb from a human organism insofar as this is necessary for the salvation of the entire organism (Sum. Theol., 2ᵃ-2ˢᶜ, q. 64 a. 7). Others begin from the concept of unjust aggression. If a private individual may lawfully repel violence with violence, even when this leads to the killing of the aggressor, it is not clear why such a right should be denied to society when it finds itself unable to defend itself otherwise and other penalties are no longer effective for the prevention of crime. The State’s right to apply the death penalty is therefore very limited, even in traditional Christian doctrine. There is no right to apply it either to all offenses or according to the moods of an opinion that holds one crime or another to be expiable only with blood.
The strongest argument advanced against the death penalty is the irreparability of the sentence in the event of a judicial error. But this argument remains unconvincing only to one who neither sees nor acknowledges an absolute and supreme Justice, capable of repairing and compensating in a future life for the possible errors of human justice.
On the practical level, the current of thought hostile to the death penalty met with success, and during the nineteenth century some countries abolished it: Romania (1864), Portugal (1866), the Netherlands (1870), and Italy (1881). The latter restored it in 1926, only to abolish it again in 1945. Numerous States retain the death penalty, for example, the United States, England, France, Spain, Russia, and the State of Vatican City itself. In military codes, however, the death penalty has never been abolished.
In the application of the death penalty, there were not a few examples of cruelty, both because of the range of cases in which it was applied and because of the methods of execution. Today it is carried out by hanging, firing squad, decapitation, or electrocution, according to the criteria governing the various States in which it is retained. The sentence may not be carried out until it has become final, and in its execution those measures must be observed that preserve the respect due to human dignity and, above all, to man’s eternal destiny. The Church has consistently promoted highly pious charitable institutions for the last assistance of those condemned.
IV. THE DEATH PENALTY AND THE POWER OF THE CHURCH
Controversies concerning the death penalty become even more acute when it is a question of determining whether the Church, like the State, also possesses the right to inflict the death penalty. In practical terms, the Church as such has never pronounced death sentences, nor has it applied this penalty. The historical indications that may be found here and there in the canonical sources always refer to the civil law of the Papal States. In fact, death sentences, even for religious offenses alone, were always issued by civil tribunals, which remained such even when ecclesiastics participated in them; they were always pronounced on the basis of civil laws, even if their enforcement was at times requested by the Church by virtue of its mandate as vindicator of justice. Yet non-use cannot be inferred against the possession of a right. And precisely on this question of law, canonical doctrine has divided in this case. In Sacred Scripture, among the Fathers, or in the teaching of the Supreme Pontiffs, there is no decisive proof in favor of either thesis.See U. INDIRECT. — The direct killing of a human being, apart from the case of the death penalty and legitimate self-defence, is, as stated, gravely unlawful. The same principle applies to the killing of oneself, or suicide.
The indirect killing of a human being, and therefore also of oneself, is unlawful, but may become licit when there is a proportionately grave reason not to omit an act by which, indirectly, per occidens, another’s (or one’s own) death is caused. Once the concept of indirect killing has been defined, as above, nothing remains but to apply to individual cases the principle of double causality (v. IMPUTABILITY, II, 3), which, although easy in theory, may sometimes give rise in practice to uncertainties as to whether or not the other condition is present. The casuistry in this matter, varied and abundant, concerns problems of different kinds, such as care of one’s own body in relation to a more or less justified shortening of life, the determination of the prevailing right in cases of conflict between individual and social welfare, etc. It will suffice to recall a few general norms.
As regards his own life, man may not dispose of it; but he is not obliged to desire to live: he may desire death because he awaits a greater good in the life to come. The Christian who longs for death in order to see God demonstrates a complete understanding of his faith. When a man has reached the end of life, when age renders him incapable of working, it is reasonable for him to prefer to leave this world rather than languish in II. One may long for death; one may seek it indirectly by choosing an occupation that risks bringing about death. The moral qualification of the act will depend on the motives inspiring II. Throughout its history the Church has rejected the direct seeking of martyrdom, but there has always been admiration for the desire for martyrdom.
With regard to care of health, Catholic moralists teach that one has the duty to exercise ordinary diligence in preserving life. A man struck by great sorrow who stops eating out of weariness and thus allows himself to starve to death is guilty (v. FAME); and the sick person must accept treatment as is customarily done. But it is admitted that he is not obliged to make extraordinary efforts to save his life. This rule applies both with regard to others and with regard to ourselves.
These same criteria can help resolve many other cases in which it is no longer our own life that is at stake, but the life of another, through an action of ours, good or indifferent, which we have either the right or the duty to perform. Many of these cases commonly arise in connection with indirect abortion (v. ABORTO), in connection with acts of war (v. GUERRA), etc. It is not possible, however, to apply the embryotomy (v.), or to the superiority of race to be protected (v. GENOCIDIO; RAZZISMO), etc. For problems of restitution connected with killing, V. RESTITUZIONE.