Sadam Should Be Swinging Soon

Sadam Hussein has been sentenced to death but in a predictable wave of protest, Cardinal Renato Martino, head of the Vatican's Council for Justice and Peace, said “carrying out the death sentence would be an unjustifiably vindictive action.”

The Cardinal and many other good Catholics who have been parroting the same nonsense need to do a review of the Scriptures and make their decisions on the basis of what sayeth the Lord.

Nothing I have read to date has been grounded in biblical theology but church tradition, or personal opinion.

The sentence of death was implemented by God for three reasons primarily. 1.Was to serve as a warning to other would-be murders that they would pay the ultimate price for a capital crime. 2. Deterrence though was not the bottom line. The higher goal was to remove the evil from the community such that the quality of life of the innocent was improved. This was and is to be the focal point of any penal system. Under such a rubric even the extreme penalty of execution is not seen as barbaric but in fact, merciful.

3. It was to demonstrate that the human being is unique in all of creation and to murder another human being who was the image bearer of the Creator was to offend that Creator. In removing the murderer by taking his life, showed the value of the human race at large.

Sadam Hussein was a mass murderer executing hundreds of thousands of men, women and children simply because he could. No clearer case of the warrant for the ultimate punishment exists in recent history.

It is disturbing that the Catholic Church is missing the point on this issue. It is disturbing because it shows an utter ignorance of Biblical theology or an utter disregard of the same.

“When the sentence for a crime is not quickly carried out, the hearts of the people are filled with schemes to do wrong.” Eccles. 8:11

The Justice system of Iraq has determined Sadam should be executed within *30 days. The only consideration that should preclude his execution is if his remaining alive will somehow serve in bringing to justice other war criminals. Otherwise, let him dangle.

(In fact, he may have already been hanged.)