The Church, the Death Penalty, and a Further Muddying of the Waters

"Pope Changes Catholic Teaching to Make Death Penalty 'Inadmissible'." So runs the headline of Time Magazine's article about the revision Pope Francis has ordered to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 227. The Holy Father's new formulation reads as follows, in full:

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”,^[1] and she works with determination for its abolition worldwide.

_______________________

^[1] Francis, Address to Participants in the Meeting organized by the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization, 11 October 2017: L’Osservatore Romano, 13 October 2017, 5.

So, what are my thoughts? Far be it from me to strive for dissent, or for the "cafeteria Catholicism" of picking and choosing teachings that I like. Far be it from me to deny the "inviolability and dignity of the person." Far be it from me, even, to deny that the death penalty is abhorrent and to be eliminated whenever possible.

Yet, how can the Holy Father state unilaterally that the death penalty is "inadmissible"? It may be that there are fewer and fewer cases where it is the only way to safeguard the common good. Let's even entertain the hypothetical that there are presently no cases where it is the only way to safeguard the common good. Even then, the blanket statement that the death penalty is inadmissible would hamstring people in possible future instances where it may again be the sole means to safeguard the common good.

On the one hand, I'm totally on board with the new formulation's application in wealthy, first-world countries like the United States. I can't imagine a single instance in our country where the death penalty is presently a morally legitimate option. But the Catechism is not written solely for the faithful in wealthy countries, but for the faithful worldwide, and for both our present generation and future ones. Ironically, the explanatory note of Cardinal Ladaria, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, that the Catechism's new formulation will "encourage the creation of conditions that do allow for the elimination of the death penalty" hints that there actually exist where the formulation does not yet apply! How is it exactly that the universal teaching of the Church does not apply universally? The problem here runs deeper than ham-handed headlines in secular publications.

What the new formulation and its grand unveiling has accomplished is further to cement in the minds of the faithful the falsehood that Church teaching can change. What was true for previous generations is apparently no longer true for ours. Which is hogwash and baloney. While it's true that circumstances change, and while I'd agree that the teachings in particular of Pope St. John Paul II have given us a deeper understanding of the dignity of all human persons, at least hypothetically there may be present and future instances where the death penalty is the sole means of safeguarding the common good.

Does all of this make me a dissenter? Pray God that it only makes me a dissenter from a poorly written formulation of the Church's perennial teaching. Catechism formulations come and go; some are clearer articulations, others not so much. But the Church's teaching is perennial; it does not, it cannot, change.