Spare Saddam Hussein, urge Catholic leaders, Dalai Lama

Top Catholic leaders and Tibet's spiritual head, the Dalai Lama have urged that Iraq's deposed dictator Saddam Hussein be spared from the death sentence.

Pope Benedict XVI's top cardinal has condemned the verdict of death sentence passed by an Iraqi court on former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, saying that killing the former Iraqi leader was against Christian teaching.

"God gave us life and only God can take it away… The death sentence is not a natural death," Cardinal Renato Martino said on Vatican Radio, adding that had Saddam been put in the hands of an international court, he would not have faced the death penalty.

"For me, to punish a crime with another crime, such as killing out of vengeance, means that we are still at the stage of 'an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth,'" he said.

"Unfortunately, Iraq is one of the few countries that have not yet made the civilised choice of abolishing the death penalty," said Cardinal Martino, effectively the Pope's justice minister.

Incidentally, Cardinal Martino had raised the ire of the United States government three years ago when he said the U.S. troops had treated Saddam "like a cow" when they captured him.

Roman Catholic Church teaching is against the death penalty except in the most extreme circumstances, stating that modern society has all the means needed to render a criminal harmless for the rest of his natural life without capital punishment.

Jesuit priest Father Michele Simone, deputy director of the Vatican–approved Jesuit journal Civilta Cattolica, however, said opposing the death penalty for Saddam did not mean accepting what he had done.

"Certainly, the situation in Iraq will not be resolved by this death sentence. Many Catholics, myself included, are against the death penalty as a matter of principle," he told Vatican Radio.

"Even in a situation like Iraq, where there are hundreds of de facto death sentences every day, adding another death to this toll will not serve anything," Fr. Simone said.

"In the common mentality of Iraqis, not carrying out the death penalty (on Saddam), perhaps for internal political reasons, might be interpreted as a privilege, because killings are so common every day," he added.

"But saving a life – which does not mean accepting everything that Saddam Hussein has done – is always something positive," he said.

Mercy Sister Mary Ann Walsh, spokeswoman for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, said it is important to remember the dignity of the human person when debating the death penalty in so–called "tough cases."

"On a human level, he might 'deserve it,'" said Sr. Mary Ann. "But all life is sacred, even in Saddam's case."

She said she could not imagine a scenario where the civil unrest would warrant executing Hussein.

"You would have to do a hard analysis," she said.

But Michael Novak, a theologian who argued the United States' case at the Vatican for going to war in Iraq, said that there are circumstances where Church teaching would allow for capital punishment.

"And if there ever were an exception, this would be it," said Novak.

Paragraph 2267 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church states: "The traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor."

But the Catechism also makes clear that if non–lethal means can protect society from the aggressor, "authority will limit itself to such means."

"The cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity 'are very rare, if not practically nonexistent,'" states the Catechism, quoting Pope John Paul II in Evangelium Vitae.

Novak thinks that the civil unrest in Iraq could make a sentence of death necessary.

"Consider the burden of Iraq in a very troubled situation," said Novak. "There’s all kind of people that would have a reason to liberate him from prison."

Novak also said that Hussein's atrocities play a factor.

"He is responsible for hundreds, if not thousands, of deaths. He gave it full consideration over many years, soaking people in acid, chopping up people little by little," said Novak. "If there were ten exceptions in a century, he would be one of them."

However, Princeton University Professor Robert George thinks that Catholic teaching now leaves almost no ability to justly execute Hussein.

"If you can put him in jail and prevent him from issuing orders to kill people, then the death penalty is not justified," said George.

George also felt that the risk of Hussein’s getting out of jail or coming back to power is very slim.

"The fact that they got him through a trial on television shows that they can control him," said George.

The decision to execute a criminal cannot be swayed by how heinous the crime is, said George. "You can't say the act is so bad, the sheer wickedness justifies the death penalty. Not under Evangelium Vitae. It just can't be. It's not purely retributive, no matter how grave the offense," he said.

But Steven Long, a professor of theology at Ave Maria University in Naples, Fla., disagreed with George and agreed with Novak that the extent of Hussein's brutality could be factored into the decision.

"The number of deaths has to be taken into consideration, as it was in Nuremberg," said Long. "The Church does not teach this as an evil in itself. A lot of folks want to see more in Evangelium Vitae than is there."

"Evangelium Vitae didn't set out to undo the tradition of the Church, it set out to apply it to the circumstances of the culture of death," he said.

Meanwhile, the Dalai Lama has urged Iraqi authorities to spare the life of Saddam Hussein, sentenced to death this month, saying the guilty should get a chance to reform.

A U.S.–backed Iraqi court found Saddam guilty of crimes against humanity and sentenced him to death for his role in the killing of 148 Shi'ite villagers after a failed assassination bid in 1982.

"The death penalty, although fulfils a preventive function, is clearly a form of revenge," a statement from the Dalai Lama's office in India said. "However horrible the act committed, His Holiness believes that everyone has the potential to improve and correct themselves."

Human rights groups and legal experts have called Saddam's year–long trial, during which three defence lawyers were killed, deeply flawed. He might have an outside chance of escaping execution through an appeals process which could take months.

Tibet's spiritual leader, who lives in exile in India, praised the European Union (EU) for opposing the death penalty for Saddam.

"His Holiness hopes that in this case, as in all others, human life will be respected and spared," the statement said.