The Problems With Pope Francis’ Change in Catechism on Capital Punishment
The pope makes two main claims. The first is that capital punishment is no longer necessary in order to protect innocent lives. That’s because in his view there are ways to incarcerate violent criminals so that they can no longer pose a danger. The second is that capital punishment is, in any case, “an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person.”
The problem with the first claim is that, with all due respect to the pope, there aren’t really any good reasons to believe it. And there are several good reasons to doubt it. Let’s say developed countries have adequate means to incapacitate violent offenders short of execution. But there are large parts of the undeveloped world which do not. To insist that capital punishment is flatly “inadmissible” even in those countries is simply to put innocent lives at risk. It is ironic that the pope would recommend a sweeping policy change for the whole world that reflects what might be called a rather Eurocentric point of view.
Also, what about murderers who are already in prison for life and the danger they pose to prison guards and to other prisoners? Organized crime figures sometimes order assassinations, from prison, of people on the outside. So even in developed countries, it just isn’t the case that all murderers can be incapacitated in a way that makes them harmless.
...the teaching of Genesis 9:6 is precisely that capital punishment follows from a
respect for human dignity. It says that a murderer deserves death precisely because his victim is made in God’s image. And the Catholic tradition has always taught the basic legitimacy of capital punishment. It was reaffirmed by many popes, from Innocent I to Innocent III to Pius V to Pius X to Pius XII and down to very recently. Even Pope John Paul II, who favored abolishing capital punishment, did not go as far as to declare it flatly inconsistent with human dignity. He acknowledged, in continuity with his predecessors, that in some cases capital punishment can be legitimate.
So,
if Pope Francis is really saying that capital punishment is
always and intrinsically evil. … Then he is, as far as the tradition is concerned, entirely on his own on this. He has no sources in Catholic tradition to appeal to. In the words he has added to the Catechism, the only authority he quotes is a
speech of his own. From just last year. That’s not much to pit against two millennia of previous consistent papal teaching and the teaching of scripture.
