The Catholic Church’s mission is all about a culture of life. It supports life from conception to natural death, no matter the person, their circumstances, their problems or their way of living.

No one deserves to die. That’s always been a central tenet of most moralities and especially of the Judeo-Christian worldview — “You shall not kill” is the fifth commandment for a reason.

Although the Catholic Church had not previously condemned the death penalty on the whole, its prior stance was in no way in support of it. 

In his article “Why the Death Penalty Is Immoral and Un-American,” Riley Moore, Fordham College at Lincoln Center ’23, argues for just that: The death penalty historically goes against America’s core values and beliefs, and he cites many early thinkers who argue for why capital punishment is wrong. As a Catholic, I agree with much of what he says. But at the end, he wrote, “Christians walk around with a symbolized machine of death around their neck, foolishly believing it a sign of love and forgiveness.” Catholics believe in the saving redemption of the Crucifixion, but no Christian idealizes the thought of dying, killing or being killed. This “machine of death” is a symbol of love and forgiveness because Jesus offered himself in order that humanity not die forever.

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On the death penalty, the Catechism of the Catholic Church paragraph 2267 before 2018 read, “The traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude, presupposing full ascertainment of the identity and responsibility of the offender, recourse to the death penalty, when this is the only practicable way to defend the lives of human beings effectively against the aggressor.”

The death penalty was only acceptable if there was no other option, like if the person being killed is sure to be the criminal and if the person is a risk of harming others. It’s never been the church’s first, or even 10th, solution.

Catholics believe in the saving redemption of the Crucifixion, but no Christian idealizes the thought of dying, killing or being killed.

In 2018, Pope Francis edited this paragraph to read, in part, that “there is an increasing awareness that the dignity of the person is not lost even after the commission of very serious crimes.”

In this modern age, “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.” The Church teaches that “‘the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person,’ and she works with determination for its abolition worldwide,” as stated in the current paragraph 2267.

This directly supports the Dignity of the Human Person, one of seven Catholic social teachings that’s extremely popular today, in its want for life for everyone. In his most recent encyclical “Fratelli Tutti,” Pope Francis yet again provides proof that even some in the early Church were “clearly opposed to capital punishment.”

The Church has also historically been looking out for people’s souls. It’s the first goal in the Baltimore Catechism: “God made me to know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him in this world, and to be happy with Him forever in the next.” The effective systems of detention, such as life in prison, both ensure the protection of citizens — the Church’s old fear — and also give the criminal the opportunity to repent — the Church’s main goal of the salvation of souls. It kills two birds with one stone, if you pardon the death metaphor.

This isn’t a change to Catholic doctrine. This is an elaboration that fits with the times. We have means of allowing people to live and keeping them safely away from society (medieval jail cells are much easier to get out of than today’s prison cells, I would assume), so the Church’s teaching now reflects that fact. 

It’s not anti-Catholic to be anti-death penalty. If the Church supports life from conception to natural death, and if the Church’s goal is the salvation of souls and repentance, then there’s no reason that the death penalty should be a moral issue for Catholics.

The effective systems of detention, such as life in prison, both ensure the protection of citizens — the Church’s old fear — and also give the criminal the opportunity to repent — the Church’s main goal of the salvation of souls.

This is where a lot of conservative Catholics differ from general conservative thought; we believe that life is an inalienable right — to use Thomas Jefferson’s words — no matter what crimes a person has committed. They are always deserving of forgiveness and mercy, no matter what the crime, even if our human minds cannot fathom forgiving them.

Even if we wanted to follow the rules as they were, Catholics don’t follow many rules from the Middle Ages. Just because some arbitrary rule has been around for a long time doesn’t mean it can’t be changed or modernized in some way. For instance: We can eat meat on Fridays during the year. Mass is said in the common language. The church I go to has an LGBTQ+ ministry group. These are just a few things that prove that yes, indeed, the Church can change.

With the advent of modern technology and ways of tracking people, keeping someone in prison for life is just as safe for society as sentencing them to death, and it’s actually cheaper to keep people in prison than to kill them.

I agree with Moore that we shouldn’t bring in Christian dogma to support capital punishment. I, too, don’t support capital punishment because I, as a Catholic, have always supported a culture of life through all stages and for all people. The Catholic Church has never fought to keep the death penalty, nor will it support capital punishment at all today.