In his moving book, Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption, lawyer Bryan Stevenson posits that the true character of our society and our commitment to justice, the rule of law, and equality are not found in how we treat people who are wealthy, powerful, and privileged but rather how we treat "the poor, the disfavored, the accused, the incarcerated, and the condemned."
Stevenson's judgment is echoed in Catholic Social Teaching. "A basic moral test" the Catholic Bishops of the United States have noted on their website, usccb.org, "is how our most vulnerable members are faring. In a society marred by deepening divisions between rich and poor, our tradition recalls the story of the Last Judgment (Mt 25:31-46) and instructs us to put the needs of the poor and vulnerable first."
I write this brief reflection on Good Friday. As we reflect on the unfathomable depth of God's self-sacrificial love for us, we also confront the injustice of Jesus' persecution, trials, condemnation, and execution. Contemporary historical accounts of Pontius Pilate suggest that he could be callous and cruel. In the gospels, he is described more sympathetically, but that has more to do with the polemical needs and theological purposes of the authors than his character.
In dealing with Jesus, Pilate was driven more by expediency than justice. In trying, condemning, and executing Jesus, he was giving the mob what they wanted and making sure that everyone knew that he was "a friend of Caesar."
In a similar way, our system of criminal justice is driven far more by political and bureaucratic expediency than by justice. Mercy is either an afterthought, the refuge of the privileged, or derided as weakness and being "soft on crime." Appearing tough while spending billions of dollars dealing with the consequences of centuries of prejudice and failed educational and social policies is more likely to garner votes than doing the hard work of confronting those prejudices, challenging and changing those policies, and reprioritizing our public spending.
The engines of failed system are fueled by racism, classism, fear, and anger. As Bryan Stevenson points out in Just Mercy, "Fear and anger are a threat to justice. They can infect a community, a state, or a nation, and make us blind, irrational, and dangerous."
Jesus found himself before Pilate primarily because of fear and anger. Those who accused him feared him and the gospel he preached, and they were angered by what they perceived to be his arrogance, unorthodox teachings, and his claims to be God's Son. Their fear and anger mailed him to the cross. Pilate, who mockingly placed a sign in several languages proclaiming Jesus "King of the Jews," provided the wood, nails and legal machinery to accomplish it.
In the wake of Stevenson's Just Mercy, Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, and Isabel Wilkerson's Caste: The Origins of our Discontents, as well as the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Elijah McClain by law enforcement officers, there are renewed cries for reform of our criminal justice system. That will be a daunting task. Fixing our broken legal machinery is daunting enough. Addressing the fear, anger, and other dark forces that have forged and fueled that machinery will be even more difficult. It has taken generations for us to get here. It will take years of sustained effort to change.
John Celichowski, OFM Cap.is the Director at the NAPCC Novitiate in San Lorenzo Seminary & Friary in Santa Ynez, California..
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