Religion and the Death Penalty: Editorial Responses to Justice Scalia's Statements Regarding Capital Punishment

Return to Issue: Death Penalty

On January 25, 2002, Justice Antonin Scalia spoke at a Pew Forum conference at the University of Chicago, "A Call For Reckoning: Religion and the Death Penalty," outlining his views on the intersection of his faith, his convictions about the morality of capital punishment and his responsibilities as a justice on the nation's high court. Months later, when Scalia's provocative remarks were adapted for an article published in the May 2002 issue of First Things: A Journal of Religion and Public Life, they sparked a lively debate in the press. The following are just a few of the editorials and op-eds published in response to Scalia's comments.

The New York Times, Monday, July 8, 2002
From Justice Scalia, a Chilling Vision of Religion's Authority in America
By Sean Wilentz

Earlier this year Antonin Scalia decided to share some aspects of his worldview with the public. His inspiration seems to have been the death penalty: recent debates with his colleagues on the Supreme Court and his general reflections on the legitimacy of the state taking to itself the power to kill a citizen. Justice Scalia spoke on these matters at the University of Chicago Divinity School in January, beginning with the ritual disclaimer that "my views on the subject have nothing to do with how I vote in capital cases"; his remarks appeared in the May issue of First Things: The Journal of Religion and Public Life. They are supplemented by his dissent to the court's decision on June 20 that mentally retarded people should not be executed. Justice Scalia's remarks show bitterness against democracy, strong dislike for the Constitution's approach to religion and eager advocacy for the submission of the individual to the state. It is a chilling mixture for an American.
Read more

National Review, July 11, 2002
Wilentz's Fabricated Scalia; The Princeton historian outdoes himself
By Peter Berkowitz

In the fall of 1998, testifying before the Judiciary Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives, Princeton historian Sean Wilentz prophesied that history would regard as "zealots" and "fanatics" members who sincerely believed they had good reason to vote to impeach President Clinton. In November 2000, days after the presidential election ended in stalemate, Wilentz assembled a bizarre group that included some of our nation's top professors of constitutional law (including Bruce Ackerman, Ronald Dworkin, and Cass Sunstein) mixed together with actors and other celebrities (including Robert De Niro, Rosie O'Donnell, and Bianca Jagger) and persuaded them to sign their names to a full-page ad in the New York Times that spoke of Al Gore's having won a "clear constitutional majority of the popular vote," even though the Constitution says nothing about the popular vote in presidential elections and is perfectly clear that victory goes to the candidate who receives the most electoral votes. However, on Monday, in his scurrilous attack on Justice Scalia, "From Justice Scalia, a Chilling Vision of Religion's Authority in America," featured on the New York Times op-ed page, Wilentz outdid himself.
Read more

Christianity Today, August 5, 20002
"Mind Control" and the Christian Citizen; Historian Sean Wilentz's misguided attack on Justice Antonin Scalia
By Caleb Stegall

In the May issue of First Things http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft0205/articles/scalia.html, Antonin Scalia published some of his views on the intersection of his Catholicism and his job as a Justice of the Supreme Court. Scalia made the case that the Vatican's general opposition to the death penalty is not a "binding" teaching requiring adherence by all Catholics. This is important to Scalia because as a Supreme Court Justice, he is often called upon to make the final decision to impose capital punishment.

In July, Sean Wilentz, a distinguished professor of history at Princeton University, responded with an op-ed in The New York Times, decrying Scalia's "Chilling Vision of Religion's Authority in America." According to Wilentz, Scalia "seeks to abandon the intent of the Constitution's framers and impose views about government and divinity that no previous justice, no matter how conservative, has ever embraced." This is a startling assertion, and deserves some careful attention.
Read more

The Washington Post, Monday, August 12, 2002
God, Death and Justice Scalia
Editorial

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, in a recent article published in a religion journal called First Things, offered thoughts on the moral foundations of the death penalty and the relationship between God and the democratic state. Justice Scalia is one of the court's most impressive intellects: His views command attention. In this instance, they are striking for a different reason: their radicalism.

The purpose of Justice Scalia's article, published in May and adapted from an earlier speech, is not to defend the death penalty – about which the justice professes neutrality – but to argue "that I do not find [it] immoral." In doing so, Mr. Scalia – a devout Catholic – aligns himself with the moral views of St. Paul, whom he paraphrases as saying "that government...derives its moral authority from God. It is the 'minister of God' with powers to 'revenge,' to 'execute wrath,' including even wrath by the sword (which is unmistakably a reference to the death penalty)." This view of government, the justice acknowledges, was complicated by the emergence of democracy. But, he insists, "The reaction of people of faith to this tendency of democracy to obscure the divine authority behind government should not be resignation to it, but the resolution to combat it as effectively as possible."
Read more