On August 2, 2018, the Vatican announced that it had formally changed the official Catechism of the Catholic Church 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 Catechism—the Catholic Church’s official compilation of teachings on a wide range of issues—was revised to unambiguously oppose capital punishment. The new version of Catechism No. 2267 also committed the Church to work “with determination” to abolish the death penalty worldwide. Prior to the revision, the Catechism had used softer language on the death penalty, permitting 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.’”
The text of the new Catechism is set forth below.
RESCRIPTUM “EX AUDIENTIA SS.MI”
(approved translation)
The death penalty
2267. Recourse to the death penalty on the part of legitimate authority, following a fair trial, was long considered an appropriate response to the gravity of certain crimes and an acceptable, albeit extreme, means of safeguarding the common good.
Today, however, there is an increasing awareness that the dignity of the person is not lost even after the commission of very serious crimes. In addition, a new understanding has emerged of the significance of penal sanctions imposed by the state. Lastly, more effective systems of detention have been developed, which ensure the due protection of citizens but, at the same time, do not definitively deprive the guilty of the possibility of redemption.
Consequently, the Church teaches, in the light of the Gospel, that “the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person”,i and she works with determination for its abolition worldwide.
i FRANCIS, Address to participants in the meeting organised by the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelisation, 11 October 2017: L’Osservatore Romano, 13 October 2017, 5.
