Knowles: We are punishing people
because they have offended justice,
because they've committed the crime.
And I don't see any reason to believe that this means
we can give them a parking ticket,
but we can't possibly enact capital punishment.
Student: I know that you oppose
the official Catholic church position on the death penalty.
Knowles: I don't think I do but go on.
Student: So I'm against the death penalty,
as I think that is the current position
of the Catholic church as Pope John Paul II
also has some great wisdom on that topic.
So I was just wondering if you could talk about that
for a little bit.
Knowles: Pope Saint John Paul II
never said that it is somehow wrong
for a Catholic to support the death penalty.
Neither did Pope Benedict XVI.
The confusion has arisen here
because of a change in the language in the catechism
by Pope Francis.
But you'll notice even the language
that Pope Francis used was very, very particular.
He stopped short of saying that capital punishment
is intrinsically evil.
He can't say that capital punishment is intrinsically evil
because it is defended not just by the great saints
and doctors of the church,
Not only because it was practiced by great Popes,
some of whom have been beatified.
I'm thinking of Blessed Pope Pius IX
who took care of a fair share of criminals
with capital punishment in the papal states.
But it's also defended explicitly in the Bible.
It's defended explicitly in the writings of Saint Paul
among other places.
So the church can never say that it is at all times,
always intrinsically evil to pursue capital punishment.
Now, there were some statements
made by Pope St. John Paul II
who said that as a prudential matter,
really capital punishment should not be carried out
all that often, but you know,
it's still legitimate. And Pope Benedict XVI
put it very well
and very diplomatically and very clearly,
which unfortunately there seems to be a lack of clarity
often in this pontificate,
but Benedict put it very clearly when he said that
Catholics can have a legitimate difference of opinion
on the matter of capital punishment.
I support capital punishment
along with Blessed Pope Pius IX.
I've never carried one out like he did,
but I support it
because I think we've lost a real sense of justice.
Your question is excellent
because it gets to the heart of our topic tonight.
What is justice?
And what do we mean by a criminal justice system?
There are three purposes of criminal justice.
Rehabilitation, that's the one
we talk about all the time now.
Deterrence, that's another one.
And retribution, retribution.
And that's not just like a kind of old fashioned
third one that maybe we should forget about it.
That's the primary purpose.
If rehabilitation is the primary purpose
of criminal justice,
then we should all go to jail at some point, right?
I've got plenty of habits
that I could use some rehabilitation.
I think we all do.
If deterrence were the primary purpose of criminal justice,
then it doesn't matter if the person
that we're punishing is guilty or not.
We're just trying to make an example of somebody, right?
We're just trying to deter other people
from committing a crime.
Retribution, that is the primary purpose.
We are punishing people because they have offended justice,
because they've committed the crime.
And I don't see any reason to believe
that this means we can give them a parking ticket,
but we can't possibly enact capital punishment.
"Capital punishment is cruel and unusual."
Certainly not by the standards of the Constitution.
The definition of a felony was capital punishment
at the time of ratification.
So I don't think our founders meant that.
You might say that life imprisonment
would be cruel and unusual punishment,
certainly by the lights of the Constitution.
So I think there's a good argument
to abolish life in prison
and replace it with a swifter death penalty process.
I think there's a good argument to be made
that the death penalty is unevenly carried out,
very rarely carried out at all,
people languishing on death row for 30 years.
I don't think that's particularly just,
but I don't think that the state holds the sword in vain,
to get back to the biblical basis of some of these issues.
And I also would say that while the retributive effect
and the deterrent effect of capital punishment
are well-established despite some popular protestations
to the contrary,
few people acknowledge the rehabilitative effects
of capital punishment.
Little bit of a morbid business here,
but it actually can have quite a rehabilitative effect
to quote Dr. Johnson, hanging concentrates the mind.
What I mean by that,
and his full quote is,
"When a man knows he has to be hanged in a fortnight,
depend upon it, sir, it concentrates his mind wonderfully."
And if the real purpose of justice here
is to bring this person's soul back into order,
really to rehabilitate it,
a man might languish on death row
for 30, 40 years, no end in sight.
He might die of some disease later on,
never come face to face with this question of justice,
but when he's facing the scaffold, he very well will.
And so certainly, it would seem to me in my humble opinion,
and the humble opinion of the greatest doctors of the church
and scripture, that capital punishment is justified.
But I think there is a pressing social aspect to it here,
a pressing political aspect.
And I think it is compassion
for the very people who would suffer it.