IN THE CHURCH
tvc.dsj.org | August 21, 2018
15
Pope Revises Catechism to Say Death Penalty is ‘Inadmissible’
By Cindy Wooden
Catholic News Service
VATICAN CITY – Building on the
development of Catholic Church teach-
ing against capital punishment, Pope
Francis has ordered a revision of the
Catechism of the Catholic Church to as-
sert “the death penalty is inadmissible
because it is an attack on the inviolabil-
ity and dignity of the person” and to
commit the church to working toward
its abolition worldwide.
The catechism’s paragraph on capi-
tal punishment, 2267, already had been
updated by St. John Paul II in 1997 to
strengthen its skepticism about the
need to use the death penalty in the
modern world and, particularly, to af-
fi rm the importance of protecting all
human life.
Announcing the change Augu st 2,
Cardinal Luis Ladaria, prefect of the
Congregation for the Doctrine of the
Faith, said, “The new text, following
in the footsteps of the teaching of John
Paul II in ‘Evangelium Vitae,’ affi rms
that ending the life of a criminal as
punishment for a crime is inadmis-
sible because it attacks the dignity of
the person, a dignity that is not lost
even after having committed the most
serious crimes.”
“Evangelium Vitae” (“The Gospel of
Life”) was St. John Paul’s 1995 encycli-
cal on the dignity and sacredness of
all human life. The encyclical led to
an updating of the Catechism of the
Catholic Church, which he originally
promulgated in 1992 and which recog-
nized “the right and duty of legitimate
public authority to punish malefactors
by means of penalties commensurate
with the gravity of the crime, not ex-
cluding, in cases of extreme gravity,
the death penalty.”
At the same time, the original ver-
sion of the catechism still urged the use
of “bloodless means” when possible to
punish criminals and protect citizens.
The catechism now will read: “Re-
course 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 in-
creasing 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 signifi cance 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 defi nitively deprive
the guilty of the possibility of redemp-
tion,” the new section continues.
Pope Francis’ change to the text
concludes: “Consequently, the church
teaches, in the light of the Gospel,
that ‘the death penalty is inadmissible
because it is an attack on the inviola-
bility and dignity of the person,’ and
she works with determination for its
abolition worldwide.”
In his statement, Cardinal Ladaria
noted how St. John Paul, retired Pope
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Benedict XVI and Pope Francis had all
spoken out against capital punishment
and appealed for clemency for death-
row inmates on numerous occasions.
The development of church doctrine
away from seeing the death penalty as
a possibly legitimate punishment for
the most serious crimes, the cardinal
said, “centers principally on the clearer
awareness of the church for the respect
due to every human life. Along this
line, John Paul II affi rmed: ‘Not even a
murderer loses his personal dignity, and
God himself pledges to guarantee this.’”
Pope Francis specifi cally requested
the change to the catechism in October
during a speech at the Vatican com-
memorating the 25th anniversary of
the text’s promulgation.
The death penalty, no matter how it
is carried out, he had said, “is, in itself,
contrary to the Gospel, because a deci-
sion is voluntarily made to suppress a
human life, which is always sacred in
the eyes of the Creator and of whom, in
the last analysis, only God can be the
true judge and guarantor.”
Cardinal Ladaria also noted that
the popes were not the only Catholics
to become increasingly aware of how
the modern use of the death penalty
confl icted with church teaching on the
dignity of human life; the same posi-
tion, he said, has been “expressed ever
more widely in the teaching of pastors
and in the sensibility of the people of
God.”
In particular, he said, Catholic op-
position to the death penalty is based
on an “understanding that the dignity
of a person is not lost even after com-
mitting the most serious crimes,” a
deeper understanding that criminal
penalties should aim at the rehabilita-
tion of the criminal and a recognition
that governments have the ability to
detain criminals eff ectively, thereby
protecting their citizens.
The cardinal’s note also cited a let-
ter Pope Francis wrote in 2015 to the
International Commission Against
the Death Penalty. In the letter, the
pope called capital punishment “cruel,
inhumane and degrading” and said it
“does not bring justice to the victims,
but only foments revenge.”
Furthermore, in a modern “state
of law, the death penalty represents a
failure” because it obliges the state to
kill in the name of justice, the pope had
written. On the other hand, he said, it is
a method frequently used by “totalitar-
ian regimes and fanatical groups” to do
away with “political dissidents, minori-
ties” and any other person deemed a
threat to their power and to their goals.
In addition, Pope Francis noted that
“human justice is imperfect” and said
the death penalty loses all legitimacy
in penal systems where judicial error
is possible.
“The new formulation of number
2267 of the Catechism of the Catholic
Church,” Cardinal Ladaria said, “de-
sires to give energy to a movement
toward a decisive commitment to favor
a mentality that recognizes the dignity
of every human life and, in respectful
dialogue with civil authorities, to en-
courage the creation of conditions that
allow for the elimination of the death
pe