Joseph Cardinal Höffner CHRISTIAN SOCIAL ... - Ordo Socialis

accordance with the will of the legislator, are supposed to be passed on to the consumers such
as the tobacco tax. For other taxes, however, such as the income tax, immediate aid, and the
equalization of burdens, this does not hold. Here tax theory and tax policy have the task of
examining concrete conditions and eliminating insofar as possible any abuses that have arisen.
c) Tax laws are binding in conscience. The high amount of taxes, their anonymity, the lack of
an obvious return, the complicated procedures of tax shifting, and not least the spread of that
attitude that is usually called „marginal morality“ have caused tax morality to sink considerably.
Tax evasion, many say, has become so universal that the one who does not join in is in
danger of succumbing in the competitive struggle. In opposition to this attitude, Christian social
teaching emphasizes that the duty to pay taxes is a duty of conscience: „Pay each one his
due: taxes to whom taxes are due; toll to whom toll is due; respect and honor to everyone who
deserves them“ (Rom l3:7). The opinion held by many theologians as probable that tax laws
are mere penal laws which are not binding in conscience is untenable. The one who evades
excise taxes collected from the buyer is also liable to pay compensation. The liability to pay
compensation is likewise given whenever the evasion of just taxes leads to an even greater
burden for others. If the citizens consider the tax laws to be in need of improvement, the solution
does not lie in tax evasion, but in a tax reform to be striven for in a democratic way. The
citizen should also consider that high taxes are conditioned by the urgent tasks of the state and
that the state may possibly be confronted with the dilemma of either imposing high taxes or
pursuing an inflationary policy, and the latter course would without a doubt be much more
ruinous for the common good. Therefore, the Second Vatican Council rightly calls tax evasion
fraud (Cf. Gaudium et spes, 30).
2. The Right to impose the Death Penalty
The right of the governmental authority to execute a criminal through the enforcement of a
non-appealable sentence was, apart from a few Church Fathers and the Waldensians, undisputed
in the West up until the Enlightenment. Today, the discussion about the death penalty is
exceedingly lively. Some passionately reject the death penalty. The arguments advanced include
the following: No human institution has the right to dispose of a human life, which God
has reserved for himself. Nor should any judge arrogate to himself the decision whether
someone has incurred a guilt deserving of death. Crimes are frequently conditioned by social
conditions, so that a good social policy is the best criminal policy. As a remnant of medieval
corporal and capital punishment, the death penalty contradicts the modern idea of humanity
and must be rejected in consideration of possible judicial murders. The frequently advanced
opinion that the threat of the death penalty acts as a deterrent to crime is refuted by experience.
For the rest, lifelong imprisonment can protect society from the further encroachments
of criminals.
Others consider the death penalty necessary in modern society also: Holy Scripture and the
theological tradition have unambiguously taught that the governmental authority is entitled to
use the executioner’s sword. Through the death penalty, the sanctity of the divine order,
which criminals have violated in the most grievous way, is forcibly and effectively recognized
and restored. Elimination of the death penalty also poses a threat to the lives of the prison
guards, since the murder of a guard cannot bring an increased sentence to one condemned for
life, but may bring the possibility of escape. Incidentally, many criminals have converted in
the face of death, whereas a long penitentiary life wears people down and is in no way a favorable
‘time of salvation’.
Christian social teaching advances three principles concerning the governmental authority’s
right of the sword:
a) The state and only the state is lawfully entitled to pass and execute the death sentence as a
punishment for serious crimes. The teaching of Holy Scripture is unambiguous: „If anyone
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