A Vigil for McVeigh
My Night Among the Protesters at an Execution
by Patrick Henry Reardon
It is mid-evening on Sunday, June 10, 2001, as I leave Chicago, starting the tiresome drive down to Terre Haute after what has already been a long and wearing day. I plan to spend this night at the federal prison where the Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh will be executed tomorrow morning, some twelve hours from now. A calm darkness descends on the corn and sorghum fields of northern Indiana as I drive along. The night is still warm, though showers are predicted. This would not surprise me, for we had several days of rain last week, and the sky is somewhat overcast even now.
I had hoped to be going to Terre Haute tonight as an official member of the press corps, but my written request to the Bureau of Prisons for a press card was never answered. When I called their public relations desk in Baltimore a few weeks ago to plead my case, the lady on the other end of the line, though unfailingly polite, extended no hope for the project. The bureau, she explained, had been deluged by thousands of such petitions from newspapers, radio stations, and TV channels all over the world, but the decision had been made that just a few large news agencies would be given access to the prison grounds. No, she said again patiently as I pressed the point, there was precious little chance of my obtaining one of those very limited authorizations. Yes, she agreed, it would be an unmitigated tragedy for those myriad Touchstone readers waiting breathlessly for my report, but there was nothing she could do. I went on to query how this could be. After all, when America’s Founding Fathers upheld the freedom of the press, wasn’t it chiefly Touchstone they had in mind? She sighed a faint hint of uncertainty on the point.
So here I am now, obliged to journey to the prison in the only other capacity available to the public at large—as a protester and political activist! This is a curious turn of affairs. Of all possible aspects under which the death of Timothy McVeigh might be of interest and concern to American citizens, only the political aspect is recognized by the American government. One sympathizes with the dilemma faced by the Bureau of Prisons, of course, but it is worthwhile to reflect critically on the government’s rather limited attitude toward this execution. Does the death of McVeigh have only a political significance? The people who made these decisions must think so, because it is a fact that provision has been made in Terre Haute only for news agencies and political activists, not for historians, philosophers, sociologists, behavioral scientists, cultural anthropologists, or essayists of opinion. If one is not a policeman, a newsman, or a political activist tonight, there is really no place for him in Terre Haute. Perhaps we are simply witnessing our country’s First Amendment at work. Freedom of the press and freedom of assembly are explicitly affirmed, but that about covers it.
Limited Options
Besides curious, of course, I also find the circumstance rather inconvenient, because it forces me to an inevitable decision. Since I may enter the federal prison grounds this evening only if I pose as a political activist, I have but two options. I may go either to protest McVeigh’s execution or to endorse it. Which do I choose?
For sure, I will not choose the latter, even though that choice would put me among citizens who probably represent the general mood of the country right now. Popular opposition to the death penalty has been somewhat muted with respect to McVeigh, I have noticed, and statistics show that Americans in general, most of whom already favor capital punishment in principle, are particularly keen that the principle be applied to McVeigh. For all that, it would be unseemly for me to join this group, for the simple reason that I do not endorse the execution of this murderer. Indeed, I prefer that my government not use the death penalty at all. I oppose all recourse to the death penalty, if not in law, at least in practice.
Moreover, in recent years I have seen some pretty rowdy “pro-death penalty” demonstrations on television, assemblies at prison gates to cheer and applaud the execution of criminals. Such displays are atrocious. To celebrate with mirth the violent death of any human being, even a man as evil as McVeigh appears to be, fills me with the deepest repugnance. I could not endure the shame of being associated with such a thing.
So here I am, obliged tonight to go in with the other group, those assembling at Terre Haute to voice a general protest against capital punishment. Let me confess that this choice is made without enthusiasm, for I have no interest in lodging a protest. Besides, even in opposing the death penalty I feel precious little in common with most of the folks who share this view. In fact, most of contemporary disapproval of capital punishment strikes me as both confused and unprincipled. For example, a good deal of the current resistance to the death penalty, particularly among Christians, is based on what they call a “consistent pro-life ethic,” which opposes the killing of criminals for the same reason that it condemns abortion. It seems to me, however, that the alleged consistency of this position represents nothing more than a failure to recognize a fundamental distinction. One hardly knows how to answer people unable to perceive the lucent moral difference between an innocent child and a guilty adult. It is intellectually irresponsible and morally unprincipled, I submit, to ignore this large and obvious distinction, boiling down such disparate components into a bland, homogenized brew called “respect for human life.” I have come to regard this as a kind of pop-Hinduism, and it is the reason why I have for years resisted being called “pro-life.”
So tonight I will likely not be much in sympathy with many of the people around me. I am resolved not to join myself to any group that is making a scene about capital punishment. I will try to keep to myself, and, may heaven help me, I will endeavor, with the Psalmist, to set a watch before my lips and a door about my mouth.
Patrick Henry Reardon is pastor emeritus of All Saints Antiochian Orthodox Church in Chicago, Illinois, and the author of numerous books, including, most recently, Out of Step with God: Orthodox Christian Reflections on the Book of Numbers (Ancient Faith Publishing, 2019).
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