Innocence and Guilt

One

Innocence vs. Guilt

The Catechism of the Catholic Church says that the right to life is specified by Exodus 23:7, “Do not slay the innocent or the righteous.” 

This makes it seem as though sometimes the difference between whether someone is guilty or innocent can make a difference in how we treat them. But why should that be true? 

After all, God loves everyone, and His sun shines and his rain falls on the innocent and the guilty – so what difference does the fact that someone is guilty in a specific way make to how we treat them?

And, more specifically, why would it matter in the case of taking a life?

Two

Some things we can’t have taken away – but we can deprive ourselves of them.

The first point to be made is that we are capable of losing what cannot be taken away from us. This means, first of all, our moral innocence.

No one can take away our innocence. Nothing anyone can do can force it from our possession. But we can lose it. We can throw it away. And we do that by choosing evil actions. 

We lose our innocence through sin, and especially through grievous sin. 

Very importantly, when we lose our innocence, we damage our relationship with God and with other people – and we lose our right to expect certain things from them.

Mortal sin, for instance, deprives us of our claim to Heaven. Lying to people deprives us of our claim to their trust. In fact, people will take their trust away from us if we deceive them often enough. This shows that it is sometimes reasonable to take things away from guilty people, even if otherwise they would have a right to them.

Three

Right to something that we lose

There are plenty of things that the Church says we have a natural right to – in that they are good for us, and if we’re innocent, we shouldn’t be directly deprived of them.

However, if we abuse that right, then the thing we normally would say we have a right to can be taken away.

We may have the right to private property, and to bear arms, and to freedom of mobility: but if you use your gun to hijack a convenience store, you are going to use your right to call that gun yours, and to carry any weapon, and you’re going to lose your freedom of mobility for a while too. 

Again, no one can take our innocence from us, and they can’t take away the rights that come with innocence – but once we cast away our innocence, then sometimes society is justified in protecting the innocent from the guilty, by taking away those things the guilty have forfeited by wrongdoing. 

And, at least in principle, that can sometimes include taking away a guilty person’s life.

Four

Capital Punishment and Just War

Pope St. Pius X made this point very clearly about the right to take life in a just war, or, in certain cases, in the case of capital punishment. He stated, “It is lawful to kill when fighting in a just war, or when carrying out by order of the supreme authority a sentence of death in punishment of a crime.”

Pope Pius XII made a similar declaration in 1952, “Even when it is a question of the execution of a condemned man, the state does not discard the individual’s right to life. In this case, it is reserved to the public power to deprive the condemned person of life in expiation of his crime when, by his crime, he has already dispossessed himself of his right to live.” 

Again, no one can take away our innocence. But when we have freely lost our own innocence, a society may defend itself by taking away the property, freedom, parental authority, and even life that we have forfeited by our guilty behaviors.

Five

Don’t lose the distinction

Now it’s true that the last several popes have strongly encouraged the abolition of the death penalty. They implore governments to show clemency and to find other ways of defending society against criminals. 

This is well and good. But we must remember this: There is a fundamental difference between guilt and innocence.

It is that difference between guilt and innocence that separates angels and devils. It is that difference that will separate the souls of those who go to heaven and the souls of those who go to hell. 

So don’t ever, ever pretend that taking the life of the innocent is the same as take that of the guilty.