Happy Birthday, Dear Poooo-ooooope, Happy Birthday to You.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld Kentucky’s method of execution by lethal injection, rejecting the claim that officials there administered a common sequence of three drugs in a manner that posed an unconstitutional risk that a condemned inmate would suffer acute yet undetectable pain.

While the 7-to-2 ruling did not shut the door on challenges to the lethal injection protocols in other states, it set a standard that will not be easy to meet.

Yesterday, of course, was Pope Benedict’s birthday (he’s 197 years young), and while thousands of American Catholics were gathering on the White House lawn to sing “Happy Birthday” to Pope Benedict XVI (nee Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger), the majority-Catholic US Supreme Court was handing down a pro-death-penalty ruling. Only two justices—Ginsberg and Souter—dissented. Voting to green light executions featuring potentially “acute yet undetectable pain,” thanks to a three-drug regimen that vets no longer use on dogs, were all five Catholics on the Supreme Court: Chief Justice John Roberts, Anthony M. Kennedy, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito. (Ginsberg is Jewish; Souter is a Episcopalian.)

Not to put too fine a point on it but, again, this pro-death ruling was handed down the same day that George W. Bush welcomed Pope Benedict to the White House with these words: “[Americans] need your message that all life is sacred.”.

The Catholic Church opposes the death penalty in almost every instance, lumping it in with abortion, stem-cell research, and euthanasia as moral outrages. Because, you know, all life is sacred. Here’s John Paul II—another pope received worshipfully, if unthinkingly, by the American media—on the death penalty in 1995:

Assuming that the guilty party’s identity and responsibility have been fully determined, the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.

If, however, non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people’s safety from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and more in conformity with the dignity of the human person. Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an offence incapable of doing harm—without definitively taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself—the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity are rare, if not practically non-existent.

As we’ve seen with the scores of DNA-evidence-based exonerations of men sitting on death row (all since ‘95), it’s a pretty big assumption—a massive assumption—that the state can ever “fully” determine a guilty party’s “identity and responsibility.” If JPII were issuing that statement about the death penalty today, it’s safe to say that he would insist that the death penalty can never be justified.

Oh, and the US Conference of Bishops had this to say about the death penalty way, way back in 1980:

“We believe that in the conditions of contemporary American society, the legitimate purposes of punishment do not justify the imposition of the death penalty…. Abolition of capital punishment is also a manifestation of our belief in the unique worth and dignity of each person from the moment of conception, a creature made in the image and likeness of God.”

Anyhoo, I only bring this up because over the last couple of election cycles we’ve been treated to debates about whether or not pro-choice Catholic politicians—Democratic politicians—should be denied Communion. And guess who weighed in on the issue back in July of 2004:

On the question of Communion for Catholic politicians, Cardinal Ratzinger outlined a process of pastoral guidance and correction for politicians who consistently promote legal abortion and euthanasia. That process could extend to a warning against taking Communion, and in the case of “obstinate persistence” by the politician, the minister “must refuse to distribute” Communion, he said.

Okay, Mr. Pope, what about those five Supreme Court justices? I realize that the death penalty wasn’t on your list in 2004, but Catholic bishops in the United States explicitly linked the death penalty and abortion 28 years ago. And you’re a big fan of that “seamless garment of life” metaphor, right? So this American Catholic is wondering, Mr. Pope, when and how you plan to deliver your all-life-is-sacred message Roberts, Thomas, Alito, Scalia, and Kennedy? Are the five practicing Catholics on the Supreme Court who voted to uphold the death penalty—a ruling they issued on your freakin’ birthday, during your visit to Washington D.C.—going get any of that “pastoral guidance and correction” stuff you recommended back in 2004? And if their support for the death penalty proves obstinately persistent, will you instruct priests to refuse to distribute Communion to these wayward members of your flock?

Or is that kind of correction reserved exclusively for liberal Catholics?

UPDATE: After the execution of Saddam Hussein—which the Catholic Church condemned—the Vatican had this to say about the death penalty:

Church officials offered several motives for opposing the execution.

First, there’s the principled argument that the right to life must always be upheld. This point was made in a Dec. 30 interview in Ansa, the Italian news agency, with Cardinal Renato Martino, President of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace.

“Man cannot simply dispose of life, and therefore it should be defended from the moment of conception to natural death,” Martino said. “This position thus excludes abortion, experimentation on embryos, euthanasia and the death penalty, which are a negation of the transcendent dignity of the human person created in the image of God.”

Note that Martino listed capital punishment on a par with key life issues long understood to admit of no exceptions.

So it’s not just US bishops that linked abortion and the death penalty. The Vatican, under Benedict XVI, did so, and did so in no uncertain terms. So that means no more Communion for Scalia, right? Or Roberts? Or Kennedy, Alito, and Thomas, right? Right? Mr. Pope? Hello?