Pope Declares Death Penalty Unacceptable in All Cases

ROME — Pope Francis has declared the death penalty wrong in all cases, a definitive change in church teaching that is likely to challenge Catholic politicians, judges and officials who have argued that their church was not entirely opposed to capital punishment.

Before this, church doctrine accepted the death penalty if it was “the only practicable way” to defend lives, an opening that some Catholics took as license to support capital punishment in many cases.

But Francis said executions were unacceptable in all cases because they are “an attack” on human dignity, the Vatican announced Thursday, adding that the church would work “with determination” to abolish capital punishment worldwide.

Francis added the change to the Catechism of the Roman Catholic Church, the book of doctrine that is taught to Catholic children worldwide and studied by adults in a church with 1.2 billion members. Abolishing the death penalty has long been one of his top priorities, along with saving the environment and caring for immigrants and refugees.

A majority of the world’s countries — including nearly every nation in Europe and Latin America, regions that are home to large Catholic populations — have already banned the death penalty, according to Amnesty International.

The pope’s decree is likely to hit hardest in the United States, where a majority of Catholics support the death penalty and the powerful “pro-life movement” has focused almost exclusively on ending abortion — not the death penalty. The pope’s move could put Catholic politicians in a new and difficult position, especially Catholic governors like Greg Abbott of Texas and Pete Ricketts of Nebraska, who have presided over executions.

“If you’re a Catholic governor who thinks the state has the right to end human life, you need to be comfortable saying you’re disregarding orthodox church teaching,” said John Gehring, Catholic program director at Faith and Public Life, a liberal-leaning advocacy group in Washington. “There isn’t any loophole for you to wiggle through now.”

The new ruling could also complicate the lives of U.S. judges who are practicing Catholics.

President Donald Trump’s nominee to the Supreme Court, Judge Brett Kavanaugh, is Catholic, as are Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Sonia Sotomayor. One of the other finalists for the vacancy created by the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy was Judge Amy Coney Barrett, who is also Catholic.

She wrote a 1998 law review article suggesting that Catholic judges should consider recusing themselves in some death penalty cases that might conflict with their religious beliefs.

In a 2002 article, Justice Antonin Scalia, who died in 2016, said, “I do not find the death penalty immoral,” and added that he was confident that Catholic doctrine allowed for its use in some cases.

He wrote that it would be a bad idea if Catholic judges had to recuse themselves in death penalty cases or if Catholic governors had to promise commutations of death sentences, and commented, “Most of them would never reach the governor’s mansion.”

Chester L. Gillis, professor of theology at Georgetown University, described Francis’ new teaching on the death penalty as “part of the regular teaching of the church” and “binding.” But that does not mean that Catholics who believe differently will face penalties or be denied the sacraments.

“There are lots of other teachings in the Catholic church that not everybody abides by,” he said. “Is practicing birth control a mortal sin? If true there would be a lot of couples in mortal sin.”

A majority of American Catholics favor capital punishment, 53 percent, while 42 percent oppose it, according to a poll that the Pew Research Center conducted this spring. Among Americans as a whole, 54 percent are in favor and 39 percent opposed.

Cara H. Drinan, a professor of law at Catholic University of America in Washington and an expert on criminal justice reform, said Catholics should be able to accept this development because it is “perfectly consistent with Catholic teaching on a consistent ethic of life.”

And yet, she said, there may be resistance.

“The land of the free has become the world’s biggest jailer,” Drinan said, “and even practicing Catholics have a hard time setting aside this knee-jerk reaction of ‘you do the crime, you do the time.’ It’s part of who we are.”

The new teaching builds on the teachings of Francis’ two immediate predecessors. For example, in 1992, in the catechism promoted by John Paul II, who has since been canonized, the death penalty was allowed if it was “the only practicable way to defend the lives of human beings effectively against the aggressor.”

“This didn’t come out of nowhere,” said John Thavis, a Vatican expert and author. “John Paul II and Benedict laid the groundwork; he’s taking the next logical step.”

“I think this will be a big deal for the future of the death penalty in the world,” he added. “People who work with prisoners on death row will be thrilled, and I think this will become a banner social justice issue for the church.”

Sergio D’Elia, secretary of Hands Off Cain, an association that works to abolish capital punishment worldwide, said, “Now even the most far-flung parish priest will teach this to young children.” Mario Marazziti, coordinator of the global anti-death penalty campaign of the Community of Sant’Egidio, a Catholic organization in Rome, said Francis had shifted the church’s teachings from “the practical opposition” of the old catechism, which acknowledged the church’s historical acceptance of the death penalty, to “absolute rejection,” which “becomes a normal part of teaching and commitment on the part of the faithful.”

“It becomes binding for bishops, defense of life from the initial state through all its phases to the very end, even for those who are guilty,” he said.

“If you don’t accept this, you are disobedient, as you would be if you didn’t accept other teachings,” he said. “There is no margin for disagreement.”

It could set off a backlash among American Catholic traditionalists who have already cast Francis as dangerously inclined to change or compromise church teaching on other issues, like permitting communion for Catholics who have divorced and remarried without getting a church annulment.

The majority of the world’s executions take place in five countries: China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Pakistan. The United States was No. 8 on the list in 2017, according to Amnesty International.

Recently, there have been calls in some countries to restore the death penalty. In the Philippines, for example, President Rodrigo Duterte has been pushing to reimpose it.

In Africa, capital punishment exists in many countries, but a 2009 synod of African bishops called for a “total and universal abolition of the death penalty.”

In 2015, four Catholic media outlets in the United States published a joint editorial calling for the death penalty to be abolished. They included the liberal-leaning National Catholic Reporter and the conservative-leaning National Catholic Register.

But many conservative Catholics took exception. The Rev. C. John McCloskey III, an influential teacher and confidant of countless American politicians and civic leaders, has written that the church’s doctrine “does not and never has advocated unqualified abolition of the death penalty.” Francis spoke about his opposition to the death penalty when he visited the United States in 2015, saying in his address to the U.S. Congress that “every life is sacred, every human person is endowed with an inalienable dignity, and society can only benefit from the rehabilitation of those convicted of crimes.”

On that trip, he visited a Pennsylvania prison and met with a few inmates and their families. He also wrote a detailed letter that year to the International Commission against the Death Penalty, arguing that capital punishment “does not render justice to the victims, but rather fosters vengeance.”

In it, he made two arguments that specifically spoke to the U.S. context: The death penalty is illegitimate because many convictions have later been found to be in error and have been overturned, and because executions of prisoners in some states have been badly botched.

Sister Helen Prejean, whose advocacy for prisoners on death row was portrayed in the film “Dead Man Walking,” said that Francis had once written a letter that helped spare a man on death row in Oklahoma, and that she was certain he was well aware of the death penalty debate in the United States.

She said the only time she met Francis — attending Mass with him in the small chapel in his guesthouse in January 2016 — he asked what had happened to a prisoner in Texas whom she had enlisted his help in trying to save from execution. She told him the man had been put to death the night before.

On Thursday, she said: “It’s a happy day, I’m clicking my heels. What I’m particularly delighted about is there’s no loopholes, it’s unconditional.”

But she added: “This is just a change in the doctrine and it’s on paper. We’ve still got to move it into the pews and make it active.”