It is the first anniversary of your young daughter's kidnapping and presumed death, and you are sitting at home lost in your thoughts of your precious little one and what might have been. In the middle of the night the telephone rings and on the other end of the line is your daughter's assailant, identifying himself by the information he reveals about your daughter. He is still at large and he has called to taunt and torment you.
How would you react? Would you burst out with rage and anger, wishing you could travel through the phone line and tear him apart limb from limb? Or would you adopt an extraordinary Christ-like attitude, reach out, comfort, and offer forgiveness to the person who brought terror to your dreams? Would you seek and perhaps even pray for this person's death as payback for what he did to your daughter? Or would you offer him an alternative form of punishment because you respect the sacredness of life, even his?
"I had to overcome my rage," said Marietta Jaeger-Lane as she recounted the horrifying events of a quarter-century ago, still seeming like yesterday. "Rage was consuming me for many weeks after my daughter's kidnapping. I basically had two choices: either let the anger and hostility devour me, or adopt a more Christian outlook."
Twenty-six years ago, Jaeger-Lane's then seven-year-old daughter, Susie, was kidnapped and murdered in Montana. As any loving parent would react, Jaeger-Lane was filled with a most bitter sadness and enormous rage, ready to pounce on the person who stole her precious daughter's life.
But as the days passed into weeks, a remarkable transformation began to take place within Jaeger-Lane. She began to see things in a different light, learning to accept God's will and fill her heart with feelings of compassion and mercy.
Then the telephone rang. It was the first anniversary of Susie's kidnapping, and her assailant called to gloat and verbally torture Jaeger-Lane, perhaps hoping to cause greater pain and suffering. Instead, what he discovered was a calm and caring Christian woman offering healing to his tormented soul.
"He was totally undone by my demeanor and attitude," Jaeger-Lane explained. "In fact, he was so completely caught off guard that he stayed on the phone long enough and revealed things about himself that made it possible for the FBI to identify and apprehend him."
A short time later, however, Susie's assailant somehow managed to escape the authorities and again called Jaeger-Lane, once more serving up a batch of taunts and intimidation that once again fell on appropriately Christian deaf ears. "During this conversation I called him by his name," Jaeger-Lane said, "and, taken aback by my friendliness, he incriminated himself again and revealed his whereabouts. This time there would be no escape."
Shortly thereafter, Jaeger-Lane was able to meet with her daughter's killer. "He was suspected of being a serial killer, but he would not confess to any murders," explained Jaeger-Lane. "Montana has a death-penalty statute that was in effect in 1974, but I asked the prosecutors not to impose it in this case. I wanted them to seek a mandatory life sentence instead. They agreed, and in my meeting with Susie's killer I was able to convince him to confess to the crime. He never did confess to other murders that carried a death-sentence penalty," Jaeger-Lane said.
Jaeger-Lane has since gone on to become a founding board member of various organizations that help the families of murdered victims, including: Murder Victim Families for Reconciliation; and Journey of Hope: From Violence to Healing. Through her work she continues to speak out against capital punishment.
"In all of my experiences, I've discovered that the death penalty simply does not heal families traumatized by murder," Jaeger-Lane stated. Hate destroys; it does not heal, and it is healing that these families need."
Jaeger-Lane also sounds a clarion call for Catholics to get more involved. "Catholics should be up front and out loud," she said. "The death penalty must be eliminated, and the Catholic Church, being a prophetic Church, must take a leadership role."
Prophetic indeed was and is Jaeger-Lane's witness to the sanctity of life, for she was some 20 years ahead of the curve concerning capital punishment. It would take a remarkable man (he, too, demonstrated extraordinary Christ-like forgiveness in a famous meeting with his would-be murderer) to steer the Church in a different direction with a new emphasis and understanding of Church teaching on capital punishment.
Without any hesitation or fear of contradiction, the Catholic Church has always defended a State's right to execute criminals who pose serious dangers to the safety and well-being of its people.
But as eminent natural-law expert Professor Charles Rice of Notre Dame Law School explains, "Church teaching regarding capital punishment has recently undergone a substantive development, first as set forth in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (1994), and more forcefully propounded by Pope John Paul II in The Gospel of Life (Evangelium Vitae, 1995)."
Summing up the essence of both of these important Church documents concerning capital punishment, Rice declared: "Pope John Paul II has issued a direct challenge to the State's authority to claim the power of God. From now on, that authority can only be exercised where it is absolutely necessary to protect innocent lives from a particular criminal who cannot otherwise be constrained from causing harm."
Rice, himself a onetime proponent of capital punishment, added that he "could not imagine such a situation in the United States that would warrant the implementation of a general death-penalty statute, even given the fact that some prisoners do escape from time to time."
Nevertheless, many God-fearing people, including some Catholics, are either ignorant of the Church's current teaching or they choose to ignore it and, in its place, offer a combination of Old Testament claims of justice and secular concerns as their prime motivation in support of capital punishment.
Michigan enjoys a long and proud tradition of operating without a death-penalty statute, but capital-punishment advocates have pushed for such a statute on numerous occasions. Their latest effort is a bill now pending in the Michigan Legislature (SJRC).
The bill was introduced earlier this year by State Senator David Jaye, R-12th District. It calls for imposition of the death penalty for criminals convicted of first-degree murder. Under the rules of the Constitution of the State of Michigan, the bill must first pass both houses of the State Legislature by a two-thirds majority vote, and then it would appear on the November ballot for a general vote of the people.
Senator Jaye, a Catholic and strong anti-abortion advocate, sees the issue of capital punishment as one involving justice and finance. He points to the "brutal killing of Dr. Deborah Iverson" in 1996 by "dangerous animals" who "should be put to death." Jaye also said, "Taxpayers are victimized twice by keeping violent murderers in prison, costing some $30,000 a year to house each prisoner."
"Very cheap by comparison," according to Elizabeth Arnovitz, President of the Michigan Coalition Against the Death Penalty. "Numerous studies like those published by the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, D.C., clearly demonstrate that in the states where a death penalty is in effect the average costs to the taxpayers exceed $2 million over and above the costs of life imprisonment."
Of even greater significance to Ms. Arnovitz is the fact that "convicted first-degree murder felons in Michigan simply do not see the light of day. There has never been a case in Michigan where a first-degree murder felon escaped and committed another murder, so the pending legislation is costly and simply not necessary to ensure the safety of the people of Michigan."
Despite the facts, Senator Jaye's is the voice of a common outrage and anger that people of good will feel when brutal violence is visited upon innocent human beings, especially loved ones.
However, "The thirst for vengeance that is joined at the hip by an appeal to monetary interests plays into the hands of the culture of death that looks for any excuse to bring more death into the world, including the death of those individuals who have committed unspeakable crimes," said Professor A. B. Michaels of The Institute of College Professors and Students in southeastern Michigan.
It is precisely this culture-of-death mentality that Fr. Tom Firestone, pastor of St. Mary's Student Parish in Ann Arbor, often speaks out against, especially as it pertains to capital punishment. "Support for the death penalty is part of an inconsistent ethic that touches the worst part of us: revenge," lamented Fr. Firestone. "Moreover, the culture-of-death advocates frequently say that it will be much cheaper for a society to have abortion, euthanasia, and the death penalty.
"And there is an awful fly in the ointment offered by death-penalty advocates," Fr. Firestone said. "Many prisoners on death row are still being found not guilty. Some are mentally incompetent. Why do we even consider using the death penalty? It is not a deterrent, and it is not a tool for justice."
St. Kenneth Parish pastoral associate Joanne Bellaire expressed similar sentiments, seeing the issue of capital punishment from a very broad pro-life perspective. "If we are going to be pro-life, we must be consistent in our respect for all life," she said. And this respect for life must go even deeper. "We need to become more and more a Gospel people, always ready to seek and offer forgiveness and rehabilitation as well. The Holy Father is educating us to a better way. That way rejects capital punishment."
Does the lack of support for a death penalty mean softness on crime, or a callous disregard for the victims of violent criminal acts? Of course not.
As the Catechism teaches, all innocent human life is entitled to the protection of the state, so justice does indeed require the removal of violent criminals from society. This, however, does not include killing them unless it is absolutely necessary. Therefore, following the lead of Pope John Paul II in The Gospel of Life, the key to protecting society is the ongoing improvement of the penal system.
In this regard, Michigan Gov. John Engler, also Catholic, has always favored and pushed for stiffer penalties to be imposed on violent criminals. The governor's position is that violent criminals "should do hard time," according to his press secretary John Truscott. "The governor does not favor the death penalty; he does not believe it is needed in Michigan, and he does not think the current initiative will pass through the legislature," said Truscott.
Amen to that, but however comforting the governor's stance and confidence may be that the votes are not there to pass the proposed legislation, the culture of death and its capital punishment minions will not simply vanish. There remains much to be done to combat these forces of darkness. As the great British conservative Edmund Burke once said, "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." Therefore, it is incumbent upon everyone opposed to capital punishment to speak out against the pending legislation, as well as any such legislation contemplated in the future.
Indeed, Paul Long of the Michigan Catholic Conference said that his organization has "encouraged all parishes to get the word out that any death-penalty legislation is terrible and violates Church teaching, especially as it applies to this country."
Long also said that his organization is "working closely with the Michigan Coalition Against the Death Penalty," and he anticipates increased activity, including seminars and talks by prominent spokespersons beginning next month when the Michigan Legislature comes back into session.
In the end, capital punishment and the culture of death is about the kind of people we choose to be. For Marietta Jaeger-Lane, the Holy Father, and like-minded people, the issue has been resolved in favor of the sacredness of all human life. As she herself put it when reflecting on what her daughter's memory should be, Jaeger-Lane stated, "I didn't want my daughter's legacy to be defined by revenge through the death penalty. Susie was too beautiful and sweet for that."
As a society, we too can have a beautiful legacy if we choose life.
A slightly edited version of this story first appeared in print on August 30, 1999 (CREDO)