Pope Leo XIV, His Predecessors & the Death Penalty

Recalling the late Pope Francis’s reign, when the Catholic world convulsed with criticism of him, I have wondered, now that that period has passed, when Pope Leo XIV would be dragged onto the carpet. The tumult surrounding Francis was at times warranted, though on occasion gratuitous. Nevertheless, the late Pontiff did encourage making messes, and he made a few of his own. Leo, not simply by comparison but in his own right, has been a calm sea following a tempest. Still, we might expect him to say or do something to stir up turbulence — and at last he has. The occasion? Last September he told reporters, “Someone who says, ‘I’m against abortion,’ but says, ‘I’m in favor of the death penalty,’ is not really pro-life.”

One commentator, Peter Kwasniewski, expressed disappointment. In his weekly email blast “Dr. K’s Roundup” (Oct. 3, 2025), he opined that “Leo XIV has shown that he continues to hold the error he held as a cardinal, namely, that the death penalty is intrinsically immoral and to be put on the same level as abortion.” By intrinsically immoral, Kwasniewski presumably means immoral in itself, regardless of any circumstance. Abortion, as a form of direct and intentional killing of the innocent, is always and everywhere intrinsically immoral, and in no circumstance or set of circumstances can it be condoned. The death penalty is not like abortion. According to the common historical Catholic understanding, the justice or injustice of this punishment depends on circumstances. The direct and intentional judicial killing of an innocent man, for instance, is intrinsically evil; it can never be justified. Yet it is an abuse that does not in itself obviate the inherent justice of the death penalty in the right circumstances.

Such reasoning, as far as it goes, is sound. In previous papal teaching, as well as the general tradition of the Church, we find justifications for the use of the death penalty for perpetrators of certain crimes. Most famously, the Catechism of the Council of Trent, promulgated under Pope St. Pius V, notes that “another kind of lawful slaying belongs to the civil authorities, to whom is entrusted power of life and death, by the legal and judicious exercise of which they punish the guilty and protect the innocent.” Pope St. John Paul II’s 1997 revision of section 2267 of the original 1992 Catechism of the Catholic Church does not call the death penalty intrinsically evil but merely says that “if bloodless means are sufficient to defend against the aggressor and to protect the safety of persons, public authority should limit itself to such means, because they better correspond to the concrete conditions of the common good and are more in conformity to the dignity of the human person.”

Here we find an if that qualifies a should in the use of the death penalty, thus acknowledging the possibility of its just application in certain circumstances — namely, those in which “bloodless means” are insufficient “to defend against the aggressor and to protect the safety of persons.” Thus, John Paul’s revision is consonant with the general thrust of the magisterium and tradition, which, in justifying the death penalty, do not call for it in all circumstances, even those in which its application may be strictly just.

Thus it seems, as Kwasniewski claims, that Leo’s expressed opinion on the death penalty may be out of sync with traditional Church teaching — if, indeed, Leo holds that the death penalty is always and everywhere an unjust killing of the innocent. (His words do not actually state this, though they seem to imply it.)

If this is the reigning Pope’s opinion, the culprit for his error is likely, at least in part, his predecessor, the great mess-maker himself, Francis. In 2018 the late Pope further revised section 2267 of the Catechism. It now reads:

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,” and she works with determination for its abolition worldwide.

The citation in the last paragraph is drawn from a 2017 address in which Francis claimed he is “not in any way contradicting past teaching.” Yet in calling the death penalty “an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person,” the reformulation seems to assert that it is inherently inadmissible. If the inherently inadmissible is intrinsically evil, and the death penalty is inherently inadmissible, then the death penalty is intrinsically evil. If so, we would have to reject prior Church teaching that the death penalty represents a “lawful slaying [that] belongs to the civil authorities.” Kwasniewski, along with many others, has argued that Francis’s teaching on the death penalty is materially heretical. Leo, by the same reasoning, since he seemingly holds to the same conclusion as Francis, is at the very least in error, if not himself a material heretic.

Is this so? To answer the question, we must examine the passage to which Leo alludes: Francis’s revision of the Catechism. If the language of the revision is in line with John Paul’s earlier revision, and if that revision (by not precluding the justice of the death penalty) can be folded into the tradition represented by the Catechism of the Council of Trent, then we must answer in the negative. And I would argue that Francis’s revision is in fundamental agreement with the previous language formulated under John Paul. At the very least, the new language is open to an interpretation that accords with the previous language.

This, then, is how I read the revised section 2267.

It is composed of three paragraphs. The first is essentially a note about how the Church has historically understood the death penalty, recourse to which “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.”

The second paragraph contrasts this historical understanding with today’s changed conditions and our “increasing awareness” that “the dignity of the person is not lost even after the commission of very serious crime.” Whether we indeed have such an awareness, the claim about human dignity should be uncontroversial. Certainly, murderers and traitors do not have the dignity of the just and holy man, but they still possess the dignity of being human.

Our “new understanding” regarding the “significance of penal sanctions imposed by the state” is an emerging thing. This is perhaps the vaguest part of Francis’s revision, for it does not tell us to what significance it refers. Is it that today we expect punishments to be restorative of the criminal’s character? Is it that we think the state should have a more limited role in the adjudication of penalties? Or is it something else? The text does not say.

However, the changed conditions are the same as outlined in John Paul’s earlier revision, that “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.” It is not my intent here to assess the accuracy of this judgment — which, on account of its contingency, does not properly fall under magisterial authority. Yet the consensus of the papal teaching of John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and Francis has been that, when such conditions prevail — when, namely, society may be protected by less than lethal means — the death penalty is not justified. This is not some Francis-can innovation.

The troublesome language in Francis’s revision — “the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person” — is found in the third paragraph. Taken in isolation from the rest of the section, it could be tantamount to saying that the death penalty is always and everywhere wrong. It seems impossible to square this with the witness of tradition and previous magisterial articulations.

Yet the third paragraph begins with an important caveat-inspiring adverb, quapropter in the Latin, meaning “consequently,” “wherefore,” or “on which account.” This adverb connects the third paragraph with what has gone before and thus signifies that qualifications condition its assertion. In other words, it is in the context of what has been said in the previous paragraph that we are to understand the assertion of the inadmissibility of the death penalty.

It is one thing to say a moral act is simply inadmissible, and quite another to say it is inadmissible in certain circumstances. For instance, we can assert that war is not inadmissible in all cases, that there is such a thing as a just war. Yet in some circumstances war is clearly inadmissible — that is, in those situations in which the conditions for a just war do not prevail. Further, if we could establish that modern conditions of warfare preclude a just war, it would follow that, in our day at least, an offensive war is inadmissible. Such a statement would say nothing about war as such but only about wars possible in our day.

Francis’s quapropter qualifies his use of the term “inadmissible.” The conditions that render the death penalty inadmissible, in view of both justice and the Gospel, have been laid out in the second paragraph. These conditions are largely the same as those laid down in the previous language of section 2267, though they are now expressed more emphatically. The previous language speaks in terms of conditions that may prevail (if bloodless means are sufficient, then…); the new language asserts that the conditions do now prevail, and so the Church declares the inadmissibility of the death penalty.

Of course, nothing I have said speaks to whether Francis’s revision was prudent or expressed well or ill. It does, however, show a way we can reconcile it with the traditional teaching on the death penalty and the dignity of man.

Everything I have said about Francis’s revision of the Catechism is seemingly belied by Dignitas Infinita, a 2024 declaration by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF). In paragraph 34, following a long list of “the many grave violations of human dignity,” it states (with emphasis added):

Here, one should also mention the death penalty, for this also violates the inalienable dignity of every person, regardless of the circumstances. In this regard, we must recognize that “the firm rejection of the death penalty shows to what extent it is possible to recognize the inalienable dignity of every human being and to accept that he or she has a place in this universe. If I do not deny that dignity to the worst of criminals, I will not deny it to anyone. I will give everyone the possibility of sharing this planet with me, despite all our differences.” (citation from Francis’s 2020 encyclical Fratelli Tutti)

On its face, this passage seems to declare the absolute inadmissibility of the death penalty, which it says “violates the inalienable dignity of every person, regardless of the circumstances.” In other words, no circumstance justifies the execution of a criminal — not even, it seems, the defense of human life. Though Francis did not write Dignitas Infinita, he approved it; it forms a part of his magisterium.

Now, if you were of the number of those “popesplainers” (an ugly neologism) whose supposed naïveté traditionalists and others frequently excoriate, you might breezily argue that “regardless of the circumstances” here does not mean regardless of all circumstances, as, for instance, those circumstances in which “bloodless means” are not “sufficient to defend against the aggressor and to protect the safety of persons.” More simply, you could claim that Dignitas Infinita does not address the ages but our time, when bloodless means are presumably sufficient. Hence this passage has only a narrow scope — our own time — and so does not contradict tradition.

This defense of Francis, though plausible, is not convincing. If Francis’s words indicate this meaning, they give no clue of it. The language of Dignitas Infinita suggests an absolute, unequivocal condemnation of the death penalty, regardless of time, place, or persons. Is that not the plainest meaning of the phrase “regardless of the circumstances”? Without a further explication, we must conclude that, for Francis, the death penalty is in itself a violation of human dignity and thus intrinsically evil.

A 2018 letter from the DDF to bishops might shed some light on this problem, as it expressly addresses “the new revision” of section 2267 of the Catechism. Moreover, the letter is cited as a footnote to the passage in Dignitas Infinita on the death penalty. That Dignitas Infinita cites the letter indicates that the DDF saw it as explanatory of the troublesome passage — and, since he approved it with the entirety of the declaration, so did Francis.

The DDF’s letter first expressly states that Francis’s revision “situates itself in continuity with the preceding Magisterium while bringing forth a coherent development of Catholic doctrine.” The letter continues: “The new text, following the footsteps of the teaching of John Paul II in Evangelium Vitae, affirms that ending the life of a criminal as punishment for a crime is inadmissible because it attacks the dignity of the person, a dignity that is not lost even after having committed the most serious crimes.” Thus far, the DDF’s letter merely regurgitates Francis’s contention that the death penalty is inadmissible “regardless of the circumstances,” the reason being that its application violates human dignity.

The DDF’s letter goes on to give grounds for the assertion. They are two: “the new understanding of penal sanctions applied by the modern State, which should be oriented above all to the rehabilitation and social reintegration of the criminal,” and “modern society possesses more efficient detention systems, [therefore] the death penalty becomes unnecessary as protection for the life of innocent people.”

If all this sounds familiar, it is because the language is a fleshing out of Francis’s revision of section 2267 of the Catechism. As the DDF’s letter provides grounds for its assertion that the death penalty is inadmissible, these qualify the assertion and forbid the conclusion that Francis’s revision of the Catechism teaches that the death penalty is intrinsically evil — whatever the Pontiff’s personal views may have been. Moreover, the DDF thus harmonizes the “new teaching” with the previous teaching of John Paul II, which, in turn, harmonizes with the traditional teaching that the death penalty is not intrinsically evil.

The DDF’s letter seeks to nestle the “new” understanding of the death penalty in the purpose of penal sanctions when it declares, “It remains the duty of public authorities to defend the life of citizens, as has always been taught by the Magisterium and is confirmed by the Catechism.” Indeed, defense of life and the public is the threshold justification for the death penalty — for, when “bloodless means are sufficient to defend against the aggressor and to protect the safety of persons, public authority should limit itself to such means.” Yet even this formulation, which seeks to preclude use of the death penalty, hearkens back to an earlier formulation (quoted in part above) that looked to justify it. The Catechism of the Council of Trent, in reference to the Fifth Commandment, “Thou shalt not kill,” states:

Another kind of lawful slaying belongs to the civil authorities, to whom is entrusted power of life and death, by the legal and judicious exercise of which they punish the guilty and protect the innocent. The just use of this power, far from involving the crime of murder, is an act of paramount obedience to this Commandment which prohibits murder. The end of the Commandment is the preservation and security of human life. Now the punishments inflicted by the civil authority, which is the legitimate avenger of crime, naturally tend to this end, since they give security to life by repressing outrage and violence. Hence these words of David: “In the morning I put to death all the wicked of the land, that I might cut off all the workers of iniquity from the city of the Lord.” (emphasis added)

Here the Church’s first universal catechism situates the right of civil authority to wield the death penalty within the parameters of the end (or purpose) of the Fifth Commandment: “the preservation and security of human life.” Further, it notes that civil authority’s “punishments” give as their natural tendency “security to life by repressing outrage and violence” — that is, by rendering the violent powerless to inflict harm. In so doing, civil authority functions as “the legitimate avenger of crime” — that is, by meting out just punishments, of which the death penalty is one. But vengeance, or just retribution, is not presented as the end or purpose of civil penalties. To be just, retribution must be proportional to the crime, but when civil authority imposes it, it does so for the “preservation and security of human life” by removing or cutting off “all the workers of iniquity from the city of the Lord.”

What if, however, this end could be assured by bloodless means? Further, what if we could identify other compelling penal purposes besides the defense of human life? Could we not then conclude that, where bloodless means are sufficient to protect human life, recourse to the death penalty loses its justification and may thus be rendered inadmissible? Further yet, what if societal defense could be realized while accommodating other purposes and conditions — if, for example, we proposed “the rehabilitation and social reintegration of the criminal” as one such purpose, which would be precluded by killing him? What if we recognized that human dignity is not entirely lost even by the commission of a heinous crime, and that bloodless means better accord with the recognition of that dignity? After these what ifs, might we conclude, in circumstances in which we can neutralize the harm to society, that bloodless means of punishing criminals not only better accord with human dignity but are the only admissible means to secure it?

This is, of course, the burden of John Paul II’s more tentative revision of the Catechism and Francis’s more emphatic one. Not only is the latter in continuity with the former, but both harmonize with an earlier formulation that aimed to justify the death penalty.

And what of the reigning Pontiff? Does Leo embrace error when he asserts that someone who “says, ‘I’m in favor of the death penalty,’ is not really pro-life”? Pace his critics, if Leo’s thought here reflects that of his predecessors, this question can be answered with an emphatic no. Our reigning Pontiff is no heretic.

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