Pope Francis Formally Changes Catholic Church Stance on Death Penalty, Calling It ​“Inadmissible”

Pope Francis (pic­tured) has for­mal­ly changed the offi­cial Catholic Church teach­ing on the death penal­ty, call­ing cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment ​“an attack on the invi­o­la­bil­i­ty and dig­ni­ty of the per­son” and deem­ing it ​“inad­mis­si­ble” in all cases. 

The Vatican’s August 2, 2018 announce­ment that it had revised its Catechism — the Church’s offi­cial com­pi­la­tion of teach­ings on a wide range of issues — to unam­bigu­ous­ly oppose cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment also com­mit­ted the Church to work ​“with deter­mi­na­tion” to abol­ish the death penal­ty world­wide. Prior to the revi­sion, the Catechism used soft­er lan­guage on the death penal­ty, allow­ing it ​“if this is the only pos­si­ble way of effec­tive­ly defend­ing human lives against the unjust aggres­sor,” while not­ing that ​“the cas­es in which the exe­cu­tion of the offend­er is an absolute neces­si­ty ​‘are very rare, if not practically nonexistent.’” 

In a let­ter to Bishops accom­pa­ny­ing the change, Pope Francis wrote, ​“This con­clu­sion is reached tak­ing into account the new under­stand­ing of penal sanc­tions applied by the mod­ern State, which should be ori­ent­ed above all to the reha­bil­i­ta­tion and social rein­te­gra­tion of the crim­i­nal. Finally, giv­en that mod­ern soci­ety pos­sess­es more effi­cient deten­tion sys­tems, the death penal­ty becomes unnec­es­sary as pro­tec­tion for the life of innocent people.” 

His let­ter places the new stance in the con­text of the Church’s broad­er teach­ings on the dig­ni­ty of human life, and pre­vi­ous state­ments by Pope John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI, and Pope Francis on the need to end capital punishment. 

Vatican observers said there is no mis­tak­ing the polit­i­cal intent of the new revi­sion. The let­ter to the bish­ops said the new doc­trine sought to ​“give ener­gy” to efforts work­ing ​“for the elim­i­na­tion of the death penal­ty where it is still in effect.” 

Vatican expert and author John Thavis called Pope Francis’s action ​“the next log­i­cal step” in the evo­lu­tion of for­mal Catholic oppo­si­tion to the death penal­ty. ​“I think this will be a big deal for the future of the death penal­ty in the world,” Thavis said. ​“People who work with pris­on­ers on death row will be thrilled, and I think this will become a ban­ner social jus­tice issue for the church.” 

The new cat­e­chism also pos­es a direct chal­lenge to Catholic politi­cians like Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte, who has sought to bring cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment back in his nation, and U.S. gov­er­nors such as Greg Abbott and Pete Ricketts of Texas and Nebraska, who have made sup­port for the death penal­ty a cor­ner­stone of their policies. 

“There is no doubt the pope wants politi­cians to pay atten­tion to this,” said John Gehring, the Catholic pro­gram direc­tor at the advo­ca­cy group Faith in Public Life. ​“He is not just speak­ing inter­nal­ly. The pope wants to ele­vate this as a defin­i­tive pro-life issue.”