Pope Francis, Responsible for Catholic Church’s Anti-Death Penalty Teachings, Dies at 88

On April 21, 2025, the Vatican announced that Pope Francis, 88, died fol­low­ing a series of health fail­ures. Pope Francis, the first Roman Catholic pon­tiff from Latin America, was an out­spo­ken advo­cate for abo­li­tion of the death penalty.

In August 2018, the Vatican announced that Pope Francis for­mal­ly changed the offi­cial Catholic Church teach­ing on the death penal­ty, call­ing the prac­tice ​“an attack on the invi­o­la­bil­i­ty and dig­ni­ty of the per­son,” adding that it is ​“inad­mis­si­ble” in all cas­es. The Catechism change unam­bigu­ous­ly opposed cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment and com­mit­ted the Church to work ​“with deter­mi­na­tion” to abol­ish the death penal­ty across the globe. In a let­ter to Bishops accom­pa­ny­ing this 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.”

In an October 23, 2014, address to the International Association on Penal Law, Pope Francis called for an end to cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. ​“It is impos­si­ble to imag­ine that states today can­not make use of anoth­er means than cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment to defend peo­ples’ lives from an unjust aggres­sor,” the Catholic leader said. He cit­ed the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which at the time, said the death penal­ty can only be used if it is the ​“only pos­si­ble way of effec­tive­ly defend­ing human lives against the unjust aggres­sor,” and that mod­ern alter­na­tives for pro­tect­ing soci­ety mean that ​“cas­es in which the exe­cu­tion of the offend­er is an absolute neces­si­ty are very rare, if not practically nonexistent.”

In 2020, Pope Francis reaf­firmed the Church’s oppo­si­tion to the death penal­ty in an encycli­cal that cit­ed cen­turies of death penal­ty oppo­si­tion by lead­ing Catholic schol­ars and cler­gy. He called upon ​“all Christians and peo­ple of good will” to work for ​“the abo­li­tion of the death penal­ty, legal or ille­gal, in all its forms.” In the let­ter, Pope Francis said, ​“Saint John Paull II stat­ed clear­ly and firm­ly that the death penal­ty is inad­e­quate from a moral stand­point and no longer nec­es­sary from that of penal jus­tice.” He added, ​“There can be no step­ping back from this posi­tion. Today we state clear­ly that ​‘the death penal­ty is inad­mis­si­ble’ and the Church is firm­ly com­mit­ted to call­ing for its abolition worldwide.”

In December 2025, as for­mer President Joe Biden pre­pared to leave office, hun­dreds of faith lead­ers includ­ing Pope Francis urged him to com­mute the fed­er­al death sen­tences of 40 men ahead of President Trump’s sec­ond admin­is­tra­tion. Catholics Mobilizing Network (CMN), a nation­al orga­ni­za­tion engaged with more than 30,000 Catholics across the US to end the death penal­ty, asked President Biden to bring ​“an end to every form of death penal­ty… in the spir­it of rec­on­cil­i­a­tion.” Amplifying these sen­ti­ments, Pope Francis pub­licly prayed for the death sen­tences to be com­mut­ed, ask­ing the faith­ful to ​“pray for the inmates on death row in the United States…that their sen­tences may be com­mut­ed or changed.”