Pope Leo XIV Calls Support for the Death Penalty ​‘Not Really Pro-Life’

In com­ments to reporters on September 30, 2025, Pope Leo XIV said that sup­port­ing cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment was incon­sis­tent with being pro-life. The Pope was respond­ing to ques­tions about Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich’s plan to hon­or Senator Dick Durbin for his work on immi­grant human rights issues. The announce­ment drew crit­i­cism from sev­er­al American bish­ops who object­ed based on Sen. Durbin’s sup­port for legalized abortion.

“Someone who says, ​‘I’m against abor­tion’ but says, ​‘I’m in favor of the death penal­ty,’ is not real­ly pro-life,” Pope Leo stat­ed. He also ques­tioned whether oppo­si­tion to abor­tion alone con­sti­tutes a pro-life posi­tion when com­bined with sup­port for what he qual­i­fied as ​“inhu­man treat­ment of immi­grants who are in the United States.”

Pope Leo has pre­vi­ous­ly con­demned cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment and expressed oppo­si­tion to the prac­tice. Following his elec­tion in May, he also reaf­firmed Catholic teach­ing on abor­tion. In his remarks, the Pope called these eth­i­cal issues ​“com­plex” while main­tain­ing that the church’s teach­ings on each are ​“very clear.” He called for greater respect in these dis­cus­sions and for Americans to work togeth­er — as both cit­i­zens and Catholics — to exam­ine eth­i­cal issues com­pre­hen­sive­ly and find a path for­ward as a church.

In August 2018, the Vatican announced that Pope Leo XIV’s pre­de­ces­sor, 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.