Trump used for target practice

Two men took shots at Trump in the past two days. Cole Thomas Allen did so literally; Pope Leo XIV, figuratively. Both men missed – the former demonstrably; the latter, in my view.

The nature of democracy, especially in the US, is such that a president has to make regular public appearances. Good people see that as a chance to observe their head of state in action. Bad people see it as an opportunity to kill him.

Donald Trump doesn’t make my list of favourite US presidents, not even the long list. But I thank God for sparing him from an assassin’s bullet again. Murder isn’t a proper tool of political debate – or of anything else.

A criminal firing at a major political figure has in his sights our whole civilisation, especially its cornerstone, the rule of law. That’s why I despise the smirks of Trump’s opponents, to the effect of ‘I wish he could shoot straight’. That’s tantamount to saying that it would be good to reduce the West to a mishmash of banana republics.

While we are on the macabre subject of violent death, the pontiff also took a shot at the US president, specifically at Trump’s introduction of execution by firing squad. His Holiness chose speech rather than gun as his weapon, which is a welcome improvement.

However, against every visceral instinct in my body, I again have to disagree with the pope and agree with Trump. The issue of the death penalty can’t in my view be reduced to an absolute the way Pope Leo does. Nor am I sure his invocation of Catholic doctrine is accurate – in fact, I’m sure it isn’t.

The pope set his stall by establishing his premises, and these are unassailable. “The right to life is the very foundation of every other human right,” he said on Friday, adding that, “In this regard, we affirm that the dignity of the person is not lost even after very serious crimes are committed.”

This is a canonical Christian position, which as far as I’m concerned makes it indisputable in a civilisation founded on Christian positions. Therefore, continued the pontiff, the death penalty constitutes an “attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person”.

Now, this strikes me as a rather debatable point (which is the English for ‘fallacy’) theologically and as a non sequitur logically. But, before I tell you what I think on this subject, here is what two infinitely more authoritative sources thought.

St Augustine, and Pope Leo is an Augustinian, generally accepted that the state’s right to use the death penalty is based on Scripture. However, moving on from the general to the specific, Augustine insisted that the use of that right be leavened with clemency.

He urged magistrates to avoid the capital punishment whenever possible, thereby allowing condemned criminals time to repent. You’ll notice that St Augustine didn’t deliver an absolute repudiation of the death penalty. He merely said that it should be applied in extreme cases only, with magistrates keeping in mind that they are servants not only of the state but also of God.

St Thomas Aquinas went further than that in his Summa Theologica: “Therefore if a man be dangerous and infectious to the community, on account of some sin, it is praiseworthy and advantageous that he be killed in order to safeguard the common good… .”

And: “It is permissible to kill a criminal if this is necessary for the welfare of the whole community. However, this right belongs only to the one entrusted with the care of the whole community – just as a doctor may cut off an infected limb, since he has been entrusted with the care of the health of the whole body.” 

This is close to my view on the subject, but, taking my lead from another great Catholic, I accept that other views may be valid too. Pope Benedict XVI, who, unlike the two subsequent pontiffs, couldn’t be accused of holding wishy-washy Left-wing views, was personally opposed to the death penalty.

However, he believed that, while abortion and euthanasia are “intrinsically evil” and leave no room for debate, there may exist a “legitimate diversity of opinion” on the death penalty.

No one could possibly disagree with that statement. And everyone should disagree with Pope Leo’s absolutist condemnation of the death penalty because it precludes a “legitimate diversity of opinion.”

Taking advantage of the licence generously allowed by Pope Benedict, I’d suggest that, rather than being an “attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person”, the death penalty is their affirmation.

Precisely because “the right to life is the very foundation of every other human right”, the wanton taking of a life can’t be offset by a lengthy prison term. By executing a murderer, society doesn’t seek revenge. It seeks to safeguard its very foundations, of which the value of a human life is among the most sacred ones.

This is the principal argument, but it can be supported by others. For example, these days life in prison usually doesn’t mean life. Sooner or later the murderer may be free to murder again. Many do, as proved by the statistics of recidivist crimes.

And when life does mean life, nothing prevents the convict from murdering another prisoner: a lifer can’t be punished more severely.

Such secular points apart, how does the death penalty tally with Jesus Christ’s commandment to love even our enemies (Matthew 5: 43-48)?

Here we have to ask ourselves what love actually means in that context. Without looking at the concept from every possible angle, let’s just say that we wish to protect our loved ones from the worst that can happen and wish them the best that can happen.

Here I’d propose, again invoking the authority of every significant Christian mind of the past two millennia, that the worst that can happen to a person isn’t physical death. It’s eternal perdition. And the best thing that can happen is eternal salvation.

Hence, loving a condemned criminal, and respecting his dignity, doesn’t necessarily mean sparing his earthly life. It means praying that God save his soul and treat it with mercy in eternity. That’s why a priest always stood next to the executioner at the scaffold.

Peeking out from behind the giant figures of Augustine and Aquinas, I nod my agreement vigorously. There is nothing inherently un-Christian about the death penalty, especially for murder. However, taking my cue from Pope Benedict, I accept that some people may legitimately disagree.

Pulling the issue out of the Church and into the rough-and-tumble of secular life, the most frequent argument against the death penalty is the possibility of an uncorrectable judicial error. This argument can’t be dismissed lightly, but it can be weakened.

First, the death penalty should be reserved for extreme cases only, and, following Augustine’s injunction, judges must be instructed in that vein. Moreover, in cases where the death penalty is on the table, I’d be in favour of changing the required standard of proof from ‘beyond reasonable doubt’ to ‘beyond all possible doubt’.

Also, compared to the time of Augustine and even Aquinas, we have at our disposal much more sophisticated methods of forensic investigation. We no longer have to force a suspect to prove his innocence by marching barefoot over red-hot coals.

Dactyloscopy, the analysis of fingertip patterns, became a widespread forensic tool in the 1880s, greatly reducing the risk of wrongful convictions. And a century later, Sir Alec Jeffreys developed the first DNA ‘fingerprint’, which was then used forensically in 1986 and has since become commonplace.

Such tools reduce the risk of judicial error, but they don’t eliminate it. In this world, we aren’t blessed with perfect systems of anything, and legal judgement is no exception. This does leave room for what Pope Benedict XVI described as a “legitimate diversity of opinion” – something Pope Leo XIV is trying to shut down.

One example from my sinful advertising past, if I may. The advertising industry is extremely contentious, with arguments always frequent, loud and at times violent. But one great adman, Leo Burnett, made all his employees wear a lapel pin saying ‘Maybe he’s right’.

Perhaps it wouldn’t be out of place on the pope’s vestments either, especially when he debates policy with politicians.