Let death be not proud

"And now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy hand;...a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth. And the LORD said unto him, Therefore whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold. And the LORD set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him."
- Genesis 4:11-15

"Thou shalt not kill."
- Exodus 20:13

I am only one day from completing the final exam of the semester, so this will be my final "guest" article. It is the editorial from the NYT editorial staff in the December 20th issue. Still celebrating NJ's decision to join the better part of humanity in recognizing the barbarism of the state murdering its own, I was happy to see the UN make this declaration (non-binding though it may be). It is fascinating that a state like Rwanda, that now must sift through the remains of genocide, has seen fit to eliminate state-ordered murder as retribution. You'd think of all the victims that would have a "right" to cry out for the blood of criminals, victims of genocide and crimes against humanity would want the right to see those criminals executed. Instead, they took the moral high ground - something almost unrecognizable in American foreign policy over the past few years.
To think that there is a slow but steady moral awakening in this country (as evidenced by NJ's decision) is all the promise of peace on Earth and goodwill towards men one could hope for as we celebrate the birth of he who said, "Let he that is without sin among you cast the first stone."

A Pause From Death

The United Nations General Assembly voted on Tuesday for a global moratorium on the death penalty. The resolution was nonbinding; its symbolic weight made barely a ripple in the news ocean of the United States, where governments’ right to kill a killer is enshrined in law and custom.

But for those who have been trying to move the world away from lethal revenge as government policy, this was a milestone. The resolution failed repeatedly in the 1990s, but this time the vote was 104 to 54, with 29 nations abstaining. Progress has come in Europe and Africa. Nations like Senegal, Burundi, Gabon — even Rwanda, shamed by genocide — have decided to reject the death penalty, as official barbarism.

The United States, as usual, lined up on the other side, with Iran, China, Pakistan, Sudan and Iraq. Together this blood brotherhood accounts for more than 90 percent of the world’s executions, according to Amnesty International. These countries’ devotion to their sovereignty is rigid, as is their perverse faith in execution as a criminal deterrent and an instrument of civilized justice. But out beyond Texas, Ohio, Virginia, Myanmar, Singapore, Saudi Arabia and Zimbabwe, there are growing numbers who expect better of humanity.

Many are not nations or states but groups of regular people, organizations like the Community of Sant’Egidio, a lay Catholic movement begun in Italy whose advocacy did much to bring about this week’s successful vote in the General Assembly.

They are motivated by hope — and there is even some in the United States. The Supreme Court will soon hear debate on the cruelty of execution by lethal injection. On Monday, New Jersey became the first state in 40 years to abolish its death penalty.

That event, too, left much of this country underwhelmed. But overseas, the votes in Trenton and the United Nations were treated as glorious news. Rome continued a tradition to mark victories against capital punishment: it bathed the Colosseum, where Christians once were fed to lions, in golden light.