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Article: Just punishment?(Correspondence)(Letter to the Editor)
- Article from:
- First Things: A Monthly Journal of Religion and Public Life
- Article date:
- December 1, 2004
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2004 Institute on Religion and Public Life. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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In "Capital Punishment: The Case for Justice" (August/September), J. Budziszewski makes a strong argument for capital punishment based on justice in accord with Scripture. However, I think that in focusing on justice and clemency rather than on signs or sacramentality he focuses on the wrong issue. What we need to ask is: What does capital punishment say sacramentally? That is, what is the deeper, supernatural reality that God wants us to understand when He prescribes the outward sign of capital punishment for certain crimes? What is God teaching us?
Although Professor Budziszewski refers to murder as categorically deserving capital punishment, he fails to ...