Friday 10/17/14

This week’s Life Teen Question of the Week comes from Dan Roche. Dan asks:

I think most people would consider not killing a non-negotiable, although with every rule there are exceptions or gray area. Considering instances like assisted suicide, self-defense, and combat, is killing ever justified? Is it ever condoned as well or must it always be confessed?


Good question, Dan! I love talking about who you can and cannot kill. Theologically, I mean.

This has actually come up a bit in the last couple of weeks. Last Thursday’s post discussed the Church teaching on the death penalty. The day before that, I discussed Just War Theory in Wednesday’s Link of the Week. You can read that post here. It would be a lot of reading for you to go back and read both of those and then continue on to read the rest of this one, so I will touch on those two teachings in this answer, and you can know that they are there if you need a more in depth answer.


Death Penalty

The Church teaches that a state has the right to execute a dangerous criminal if it is the only possible way to preserve innocent life. If there is any other method (such as jailing a criminal for life) then capital punishment should not be used. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has come out a number of times condemning the use of the death penalty in the United States because we have the means to securely jail prisoners. In third world countries with high levels of prison corruption or no secure prison facilities at all, a government could, in theory, execute a criminal with Church approval, but the situation would have to be very extreme.


War

There is a thing called “Just War Theory” which outlines the rules for a war which would be acceptable by Christian standards. It is pretty complicated, and there are a number of criteria. The war needs to be fought to prevent some future evil, not to avenge a past one. The evil prevented by the war must be greater than the inherent evil of the war itself. The parties must formally declare war. Every attempt to preserve innocent life must be made. There needs to be a very real possibility of victory, otherwise you are just wasting innocent life. There are a lot more rules, but those are the biggies. If a soldier carrying out orders in a just war kills someone without breaking any of the rules of Just War Theory, then he would be in the clear.


Assisted Suicide

The Church teaches that every human life has intrinsic value, and that pain, be it physical or emotional, does not reduce the value of that life. For that reason, suicide and assisted suicide are both against the teaching of the Church. We do not know what sort of good can come out of our suffering at the end of our lives, and to end them prematurely eliminates the possibility of our pain transforming the world around us. Even atheist doctors should be opposed to physician assisted suicide because the oath they take to become doctors (the Hippocratic Oath) states, “I will maintain the utmost respect for human life.”


Self Defense

If a person’s life is threatened, he may use as much force as is required to remove the threat. He should not use excess force. In other words, if in the process of being attacked, I fight back and my attacker dies, that’s okay. However, if my attacker punches me and starts running away and I shoot him in the back, that’s not okay. It is important to make sure that the methods you are using to defend yourself are not over the top either. If a ten year old is kicking you in the shin, you probably aren’t justified to pull a deadly weapon on him.


Accidents

If you are behaving in a responsible way, but by some unforeseen chain of events someone dies as a result of one of your actions, you are probably in the clear. For example, if you and some friends are having chicken fights for fun and someone, God forbid, falls and dies, it is tragic, but not a sin. On the other hand, if your actions are highly likely to harm an innocent life, say for example, driving under the influence, then you are responsible.


Abortion

The Church teaches that human life begins at the moment of conception. With that life come all the rights of a person, most fundamentally, the right to life. Under Church teaching, denying this right to an innocent child is never acceptable. Even if the child is a result of some evil (rape or incest) the child itself is innocent. Frequently, people use the argument “I would never get an abortion because I don’t personally believe that they’re right, but I support a woman’s right to one.” That misses the point. It is akin to saying “I would never commit genocide, but I support a foreign dictator’s right to” or, “I would never kill a baby, but I support a family’s right to.” Killing an innocent person is never acceptable. The fact that the unborn cannot speak for themselves should make us defend them all the more, not turn a blind eye.


Conclusion

So there you have it, my brief rundown of when it is and is not alright to kill someone. It is probably not an exhaustive list. As to your question about whether or not you should confess any of these, a good rule is this: if you feel guilty, confess it. If you don’t feel guilty, don’t confess it. Confessing something that the Church might not consider a sin can lead to a wonderful conversation with the priest and help bring peace into your life. Confessing something that you do not really feel sorry about would be deemed insincere, and sincerity is required for absolution.


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