Pope Benedict XVI, following in the direction set down by Pope John Paul II, made a clear call for the abolition of capital punishment in an article from the Wednesday November 30, 2011 Issue of the Vatican Information Service, Encouraging Initiatives to Eliminate the Death Penalty, which noted:
“Speaking English to delegations from a number of countries participating in a meeting being promoted by the Sant’Egidio Community on the theme “No Justice without Life”, he said: “I express my hope that your deliberations will encourage the political and legislative initiatives being promoted in a growing number of countries to eliminate the death penalty and to continue the substantive progress made in conforming penal law both to the human dignity of prisoners and the effective maintenance of public order”.
Romano Amerio (1996) whose writing on capital punishment is the best from a Catholic scholar wrote:
“One cannot cancel out the Old Testament’s decrees regarding the death penalty, by a mere stroke of the pen. Nor can canon law, still less the teaching of the New Testament, be cancelled out at a stroke.”
Amerio, R. (1996). Iota Unum: A study of changes in the Catholic Church in the XXth Century. Kansas City; Sarto House (p. 432)
Avery Cardinal Dulles (2004) made an important point regarding reversing the traditional support of the Church for capital punishment:
“The reversal of a doctrine as well established as the legitimacy of capital punishment would raise serious problems regarding the credibility of the magisterium. Consistency with scripture and long-standing Catholic tradition is important for the grounding of many current teachings of the Catholic Church; for example, those regarding abortion, contraception, the permanence of marriage, and the ineligibility of women for priestly ordination. If the tradition on capital punishment had been reversed, serious questions would be raised regarding other doctrines….”
Dulles, A. Cardinal. (2004). Catholic teaching on the Death penalty. In E.C. Owens, J.D. Carlson & E.P. Elshtain (Eds.). Religion and the death penalty, (pp. 23-30). Cambridge, England: Eerdmans Publishing. (p. 26)
Our organization supports the use of capital punishment in line with the tradtional teaching of the Church, as our recent book, Capital Punishment & Catholic Social Teaching: A Tradtion of Support, notes, excerpts of which can be found on our website.
