Really?
From LifeSiteNews, via Ad Dominum:
Legatus, a membership organization for Catholic business leaders, will present President George W. Bush with its prestigious Cardinal John J. O’Connor Pro-Life Award at its annual Summit, Feb. 4-6, in Dana Point, Calif.
Say what you want about Notre Dame’s presentation of an honorary degree to President Obama–I think it was a mistake–but at least the university made it clear that they disagreed with Obama’s stance on abortion and stem cell research. I wonder if Legatus, in presenting this award to President Bush, will say anything about his well-known affinity for the death penalty? I realize that executions aren’t nearly as prevalent as abortions in the U.S., but I’m also pretty sure that Barack Obama has never personally performed an abortion. Bush, by contrast, personally signed off on 131 executions while he was the governor of Texas (he also personally signed off on the Iraq War–the one condemned by Pope John Paul II and quite a few other religious leaders). One of the inmates executed by Bush, Karla Faye Tucker, had converted to Christianity while in prison and was identified by the warden as a “model prisoner” who “likely had been reformed.” Various political and religious leaders, including John Paul II, Pat Robertson, and Newt Gingrich, along with the brother of Tucker’s victim, asked then-Governor Bush to commute her sentence. He refused.
I realize that the Catholic Church’s teaching against the death penalty, unlike its teaching against abortion, is not absolute. But, contrary to the assertions made by many conservative Catholics, this does not mean that it is solely a question of personal judgment. According to the Catechism, “If bloodless means are sufficient to defend human lives against an aggressor and to protect public order and the safety of persons, public authority must limit itself to such means, because they better correspond to the concrete conditions of the common good and are more in conformity to the dignity of the human person.” In other words, it is only acceptable to execute someone if there is no other way to protect society from that person. If keeping them in prison is enough to stop them from killing again, the state cannot execute them. In this context, the notion that there could be any justifiable reason to execute a repentent and reformed inmate like Karla Faye Tucker represents the height of moral relativism.
Now, President Bush (like President Obama) is not Catholic, so perhaps it’s unfair to expect him to understand the Church’s teachings on capital punishment. But Legatus (like the University of Notre Dame) is a Catholic organization. Therefore, it (like the University of Notre Dame) should not give an award, least of all a pro-life award, to someone whose actions as an officeholder were so gravely contrary to those teachings (gravely, and directly–Bush didn’t just vote in favor of capital punishment the way Barack Obama voted in favor of abortion; he personally approved those executions). But what are the chances that there will be any kind of outcry from the conservative Catholic community comparable to what we saw around the Notre Dame scandal? What are the chances that Legatus will at least feel compelled to make it clear that they do disagree with and by no means endorse the former President’s views and actions with regard to the death penalty, the way Notre Dame did (however anemically) when they gave an award to the current President? I’m thinking those chances are pretty much nil.
UPDATE:
Though I primarily focus on the death penalty in this post, it’s worth noting that Bush also supported (and personally approved) the use of torture against suspected terrorists. Torture is identified by the Catholic Church as an “intrinsic evil,” meaning that it (like abortion, and unlike the death penalty) is considered to be wrong in every instance, without exception. For an explanation of this teaching, see Mark Shea’s blog. So I ask again: will Legatus, when they welcome President Bush, make it clear that his actions on capital punishment and torture are gravely contrary to the doctrine of the Church that they claim to represent? I’m not holding my breath.
