Letter from America
In failing to challenge Donald Trump on his moral inconsistencies, Catholics have also failed their Church
One of my all-time favourite television shows is The West Wing, the seven-season epoch chronicling life inside the White House’s executive office. At the helm of the nation is President Jed Bartlett, a Catholic Democrat who is a proud University of Notre Dame graduate who often waxes eloquently on theology, and where a rosary is never far from his grasp.
Like a lot of people, I’ve been watching a lot more (read: too much) television these days, but one re-run of The West Wing I stumbled upon recently seemed an all too fitting of a lesson for our present day.
‘Vengeance is mine saith the Lord.’ You know what that means? God is the only one who gets to kill people. That was your way out,’ the priest responds…”
In an episode during season one, President Bartlett is faced with the decision of whether to commute the death penalty sentence of a drug dealer after his appeal has been rejected by the Supreme Court. Throughout the episode, Bartlett searches for technical legal reasons in the case to intervene. When that fails, he turns to moral ones, even calling the Pope, and inviting his parish priest, Fr Tom Cavanaugh, to the Oval Office.
“I’m the leader of a democracy, Tom. 71% of the people support capital punishment. People have spoken, the courts have spoken,” Bartlett says to the priest.
“‘Vengeance is mine saith the Lord.’ You know what that means? God is the only one who gets to kill people. That was your way out,” the priest responds.
When an aide arrives to slip Bartlett a note informing him that the execution has taken place, the priest, who had previously used the formal title of ‘Mr President’ to address his parishioner, looks at him and asks: “Jed would you like for me to hear your confession?”
Tensions
The scene is a masterful exploration of the tensions of living out one’s faith while in public office – a topic worthy of consideration of its own column – but seeing this episode the very day that the President Donald Trump’s administration proceeded with the first federal execution in 17 years was particularly striking.
The executed man was Daniel Lewis Lee who had been charged and convicted with the murder of three members of an Arkansas family in 1996. Lee’s final words were a declaration of his innocence, and the family of the victims adamantly opposed his execution: “This is not being done in our name; we do not want this,” they pleaded.
Support for the death penalty is in steep decline in the US, with a poll last month finding a ‘Record-Low Percentage of Americans Now Find Death Penalty Morally Acceptable’. For five years in a row now, there have been fewer than 30 death penalty executions and fewer than 50 death sentences throughout the country.
Yet despite this decline in public opinion and continued evidence that those who are executed are often mentally ill and that the practice is plagued with system racial biases, President Trump’s administration decided to abandon a moratorium that both Republican and Democratic presidents have upheld for nearly two decades in bipartisan fashion. Along with Mr Lee, the federal government plans to continue executions for death row inmates in the coming months.
Last month, in a softball interview with EWTN’s Raymond Arroyo, the president was asked about his stance on capital punishment in comparison to the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, Joe Biden.
“I am totally in favour of the death penalty for heinous crimes, that’s the way it is. I’m pro-life, he’s not,” the president said.
Mr Arroyo did not attempt to challenge him – ignoring the fact that Pope Francis, along with the US bishops, have declared the death penalty to be “inadmissible”.
Following that interview, the Catholic Mobilising Network Against the Death Penalty responded to the president – who has boasted of being the most pro-life president in American history – saying “pro-life values are meaningless when inconsistent…The death penalty is a life issue, regardless of how that might complicate one’s political agenda.”
In failing to challenge the president on his moral inconsistencies, both Mr Barr and Mr Arroyo have also failed their Church”
Carrying out the president’s policy on federal executions is Attorney General William Barr, who also happens to be the highest-ranking Roman Catholic in the Trump administration.
In failing to challenge the president on his moral inconsistencies, both Mr Barr and Mr Arroyo have also failed their Church. And like that scene from The West Wing, it’s time for some confessions to be heard.
Christopher White is the national correspondent for the National Catholic Reporter and is based in New York. Follow him on Twitter @CWWhite212.