When our government bombed Tripoli in an attempt to kill Khadafy, and instead only killed innocent bystanders, we feel justified, given the nature of our national grievances against Khadafy, even after we find that he was innocent of the specific terrorist act that led to the bombing. These are not easy questions to answer and never have been. Whatever the Denver jury decides will be fine with me, because I know there are a dozen lives and perspectives weighing all the social and moral implications. To get a broader perspective, I asked Peter Signorelli, my colleague at Polyconomics, and a fellow who thinks about these things from his conservative, Catholic perspective, to examine the issue and share his thoughts with you on the website. There is less room for capital punishment in his thinking than in mine, but the subtleties are worth considering and pondering.
Moral theology holds that no evil act is justified by a good intention.
No act that is wrong in itself can become good, however lofty the end proposed, however spontaneously or sincerely performed. All cultures, even the most primitive, have always viewed as a hideous offense the taking of innocent human life. There is imprinted in the human heart a knowledge that the murder of a human being is a grievous offense. By this criterion, there is no justification whatsoever for Timothy McVeigh's bombing in Oklahoma City. However, by the same moral criterion an argument can be made that he be spared the death penalty for his crime.