Pope Francis has changed the teachings of the Catholic faith to officially oppose the death penalty in all circumstances, the Vatican has said.
The Catechism of the Church, a codified doctrine which sums up teachings, had previously stated that the death penalty could be used in some cases. It now says it is “inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person”.
The declaration by Pope Francis, who is a spiritual leader to the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics, may have particular resonance in the United States, where capital punishment remains legal in 31 states and as a federal punishment.
Pope Francis has spoken out against executions in the past, among other hot topics, taking a more liberal stance than other Catholic leaders have done in the past, although the Catholic Church’s teaching on the death penalty has slowly been evolving since the time of Pope John Paul II, who served from 1978 to 2005. In his 1998 Christmas message, he said that he wished “the world the consensus concerning the need for urgent and adequate measures … to end the death penalty.” His successor, Benedict XVI, in a document published in November 2011, called on society’s leaders “to make every effort to eliminate the death penalty.”
Last October, Pope Francis had said the Church’s policy on the death penalty was one area where teaching was not static and could change with modern concerns.’
He also wrote in a March 2015 letter to the president of the International Commission Against the Death Penalty that “today capital punishment is unacceptable, however serious the condemned’s crime may have been.”
He added that the death penalty “entails cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment” and said it was to be rejected “due to the defective selectivity of the criminal justice system and in the face of the possibility of judicial error.”
