In a remarkable departure from the lecture’s usual scholarly tone, Father Ryan included in his presentation a personal narrative that was poignant and relevant to the evening’s topic. He spoke of his father, Paddy Ryan Lacken (1898-1944), who had been arrested and sentenced to death during the civil war that broke out after the failure of the 1921 Anglo-Irish Peace Treaty. Mistakenly sent to a very large prison camp in the Curragh of Kildare, he managed to escape execution by disguising himself and going on the run within the prison camp.

“Oral tradition in the family says that my father, less than 25 years of age at the time, shaved off his hair and grew a mustache, even using actor’s makeup to disguise himself,” said Father Ryan. “I am glad he did escape capital punishment in 1923. I would not be here tonight had he not.”

Father Ryan also culled from his experience as a scholar in North and West Africa for the semi-annual ‘trialogue,’ which presents viewpoints from the world’s three great monotheistic faith traditions on a contemporary topic

Personalizing capital punishment is often an innate part of the debate on the topic, said Pierre M. Gentin, the evening’s respondent from the Jewish perspective and a partner at the law firm of Cahill Gordon & Reindel LLP.

He noted that Jews across the spectrum, from Reform to Conservative to Orthodox, generally find capital punishment anathema because of their shared history of violence, from the crusades to the pogroms to the Holocaust.

“We have an acute awareness of how easily the powerful can put people to death,” he said.

However, Gentin said that it’s easy to ponder the dignity of life and forgiveness in the abstract; it’s another matter when a family member is killed.

“It’s another thing when it’s your child, your parent, or your brother and sister that’s getting stabbed or shot or blown up in a bus,” he said. “The question of capital punishment is not so easily dismissed.”

Gentin said that giving and taking life are “God-like actions” that require serious contemplation.

“It’s absolutely final,” he said of execution. “Human beings have a place in this world that’s a unique place: We are a form of animal that can actually refrain from punishing each other in this final way … I think it has to give one pause as a religious person, but I don’t think it’s a simple question.”

Delivering the response from the Muslim perspective, Ebru Turan, Ph.D., assistant professor of history at Fordham, blamed the reintroduction of capital punishment in Muslim majority nations on the “growing pressure of political Islam.”

“This trend is the fundamental issue that underlies the acts of jihadi violence perpetrated against those who have allegedly insulted or blasphemed Islam in recent years,” she said.

Turan said that Shari‘a-based criminal law replaced European-inspired statutes in the later decades of the 20th century. But Shari‘a laws had rarely been used for capital punishment in the pre-colonial past.

Starting in the 1970s, she said, the pressure of political Islamization brought back harsh disciplines known as “hudud” punishments. She agreed with a statement made by Father Ryan that contemporary advocates of Shari‘a law often disregard the stringent restrictions on capital punishment that were traditionally observed.

“Several verses of the Quran underline the importance of showing clemency and forgiveness for the believers,” she said.

Likewise, Father Ryan said that the “eye for an eye” passage so frequently quoted from the Book of Exodus and used in defense of capital punishment was never meant to have a by-the-book application.

“This law of retaliation was not interpreted literally in ancient Israel, but was understood metaphorically, designating monetary compensation to be paid to a victim by a perpetrator,” he said.

Turan said that the Quran also “strongly urges” that family members of murder victims accept “blood money and not demand the execution of the killer.” And while the Torah also indicates that a Jewish court can impose the death penalty, the Talmud elaborates that the court, known as a Sanhedrin, must be composed of 23 judges.

“In a seemingly counterintuitive ruling—and yet one emblematic of Judaism’s concerns about the death penalty—if all of the Sanhedrin’s judges were unanimous in imposing a death sentence, the accused was set free on the theory that if not a single judge could side with the accused, there was something wrong with that court,” he said.

Father Ryan argued that for Christians, there is no room for strict retaliation in light of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, in which he said, “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also.”

If any doubt existed that Catholics could still support capital punishment, Father Ryan said that Pope Francis’ recent revision of the Catechism of the Catholic Church declares it inadmissible in all circumstances.

“It is better by far to judge not lest you be judged, as Jesus warns us, and especially when judgment leads to capital punishment,” said Father Ryan. “Reversing capital punishment at a later time is never possible. To use some West African pidgin English—the most expressive language I know—it is better to ‘Lef’ am for God.’ Leave it up to God.”

In the aftermath, however, it is crucial that the global community avoids acting on xenophobic fear and instead prioritizes the protection of human rights—the most ethical and effective response to ensure global peace and stability.

The panel consisted of a Rwandan genocide survivor, the UN assistant secretary-general for human rights, a Columbia law professor, and a Fordham ethicist, all of whom weighed in on subjects including terrorism, torture, and capital punishment at a discussion, “In Good Conscience: Human Rights in an Age of Terrorism, Violence, and Limited Resources.”

“Human rights abuses like genocide don’t happen overnight,” said Consolee Nishimwe, a human rights activist whose family was murdered during the Rwandan genocide. “It [first involves]a systematic discrimination of a particular minority group or groups within a society with the encouragement or participation of the government or authorities.”

The global spike in human rights abuses is alarming, said Ivan Šimonović, PhD, the UN assistant secretary-general for human rights. Between 2014 and 2015, the number of refugees and displaced persons increased by 20 percent, reaching a record high of 60 million. Between 2013 and 2014, the number of people killed in conflicts around the world increased 33 percent.

“A lot of [these]conflicts can be attributed to the clash between aspirations and opportunities,” Šimonović said. “Access to information has never been better, which means people are aware that life can be better than how they’re living. This leads to frustration, dissatisfaction, and demand for change.

“If regimes do not want to change . . . what does that lead to? Rebellion, extremism, and terrorism.”

With the number of violent incidences climbing, interventions such as Chapter 7 of the United Nations Charter—which allows the UN Security Council to take military and nonmilitary action to restore international peace and security—need to happen once red flags appear, and not after mass atrocities and widespread abuses have already occurred, Šimonović said.

One of the earliest signs of impending mass violence is dehumanizing language, he said. In the case of the Rwandan genocide exactly 22 years ago, the country’s radio station Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines broadcasted racist propaganda to incite hatred against the Tutsi ethnic group, calling them “cockroaches” and “snakes,” and accusing them of being witches.

“Genocide doesn’t come out of the blue. Not even sexual violence comes out of the blue—sexual violence in conflicts is a reflection of the treatment of women during peacetime,” Šimonović said.

“There are patterns and symptoms of human rights violations that can predict that we’re heading toward potential mass atrocities… One of these is dehumanization—saying that this group isn’t human. It was the case for Jews, the same for the Tutsis, and it is happening now with the Yazidis [an Iraqi ethnic and religious minority].”

Other presenters included Matthew Waxman, the Liviu Librescu Professor of Law at Columbia University, and Celia Fisher, PhD, the Marie Ward Doty University Chair in Ethics and director of Center for Ethics Education.

Waxman, an expert on national security law who worked at the White House during George W. Bush’s administration, spoke about the use of torture in counterterrorism efforts and how we might structure laws to clarify interrogation policies in the event of national crises.

Fisher discussed the ethical dilemma that psychologists face when called upon to do diagnostic assessments in death penalty cases. According to the American Psychological Association’s ethics code, psychologists must uphold ethical standards and protect human rights even when these standards conflict with the law.

Death sentences are disproportionately given to poor and disenfranchised people, because these populations often lack equal access to due process, Fisher said. Because the law is inequitable and thus immoral, psychologists should refuse to participate in the process, she argued.

The panel was moderated by Andrea Bartoli, PhD, dean of the School of Diplomacy and International Relations at Seton Hall University.