The Limit of Mercy

Scotland freed the terminally ill Lockerbie bomber last week so he could die at home in Libya. "Our beliefs dictate that justice be served, but mercy be shown," a Scottish official said. Did Scotland do the right thing? Should we have any mercy for mass murderers who are terminally ill?

Mercy is the preeminent Christian value. But for Christians, and anyone else who believes in the power of mercy, the case of convicted Lockerbie bomber, Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, shows that mercy does have a limit.

In previous columns for On Faith, I have argued against notions of a societal right to vengeance. I made this argument in relation to my belief that mercy is a legitimate consideration in the case of a convicted mass murderer, the now terminally ill Susan Atkins. My argument against vengeance and for mercy rested upon the finite nature of any human moral calculus. In the specific matter of Susan Atkins, a former member of the Manson family, I argue in a forthcoming article that "mercy is an acknowledgment of human limitation: a recognition that there is nothing more that can be understood and nothing more that can be done." In this sense, mercy represents the most authentic and humble response to the limit set by human mortality.

The case of Abdel Baset al-Megrahi forces us to look at the limit of mercy in a deeper way. Mercy is part of the redemptive dream work of Christianity. Showing mercy to a repentant criminal at the end of life resonates with deeply held Christian understandings of human transformation offered to all of us by Jesus Christ. Such beliefs can easily be folded into arguments for the social utility of mercy as a means to reconciliation. While no amount of penance can atone for the taking of a single, unique, human life, mercy represents a framework for letting go and moving beyond the destructive alternation of pain and vengeance.

Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, however, is anything but a repentant criminal since he has steadfastly maintained his innocence. Indeed, he was feted by a hero's welcome upon his return to Libya. If there is a benefit to his release, it is propagandistic in nature and accrues only to the Libyan government and British trade interests.

Of course, there are those who maintain that al-Megrahi actually is innocent. But if his compassionate release was motivated by such a belief, or represented an implicit admission of irregularities at trial, then the issue is not mercy for a criminal but redressing a legal wrong. So, the question remains whether mercy has any value when shown to an unrepentant criminal.

The easy answer to such a question is "no:" there is little reason to show mercy to someone who is not willing to accept responsibility for the crime in question. But the problem with that position, at least from a Christian perspective, is that it risks defining mercy and morality as merely pragmatic considerations: we are kind or good because we have received or expect the response we desire.

The case of Abdel Beset al-Magrahi shows us that mercy can have quite perverse wordly consequences. Because of this, Christian advocates of mercy, such as myself, cannot turn to some sort of cost-benefit analysis as a defense for compassionate release of mass murderers. Mercy becomes mercy precisely when it represents something more than a person deserves and thus constitutes something more than a person, or a government, can ordinarily give. The limit of mercy is the limit of faith: an unsure boundary created by the paradoxical belief in things unseen.

By Mathew N. Schmalz  |  August 25, 2009; 12:53 PM ET Save & Share:                 
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