A reminder of what is really at stake in the debate over Catholicism and the death penalty, from an essay by the late, great Cardinal Avery Dulles. As he saw, a reversal on capital punishment would cast doubt on the credibility of traditional teaching in general (as, I would add,… pic.twitter.com/VTPFMJkWjo
— Edward Feser (@FeserEdward) October 2, 2025
Transcript (my emphases):
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.
It might be contended that the tradition on capital punishment, unlike some of the other subjects just mentioned, is not infallible and is therefore reversible. Granting but not conceding this point, one might ask what would be needed to reverse it. I believe that competent authority would have to declare that the previous teaching was in error and to show by arguments from reason or revelation why the new doctrine is superior. But Pope John Paul II and the bishops have not said a word against the tradition. In fact, they have appealed to the tradition in proposing their doctrine on capital punishment. From this I conclude that their teaching ought to be understood, if possible, in continuity with the tradition, rather than as a reversal.
If, in fact, the previous teaching had been discarded, doubt would be cast on the current teaching as well. It too would have to be seen as reversible, and in that case, as having no firm hold on people’s assent. The new doctrine, based on a recent insight, would be in competition with a magisterial teaching that has endured for two millennia — or even more, if one wishes to count the biblical testimonies. Would not some Catholics be justified in adhering to the earlier teaching on the ground that it has more solid warrants than the new? The faithful would be confronted with the dilemma of having to dissent either from past or from present magisterial teaching.
A reminder of what is really at stake in the debate over Catholicism and the death penalty, from an essay by the late, great Cardinal Avery Dulles. As he saw, a reversal on capital punishment would cast doubt on the credibility of traditional teaching in general (as, I would add, progressives are well aware – that’s the true reason for their strange obsession with reversing teaching on capital punishment). As Dulles also suggests, in the case of a conflict with the teaching of scripture and tradition, Catholics would be justified in adhering to that older teaching and rejecting the novelty. (The essay is “Catholic Teaching in the Death Penalty: Has it Changed?” in Owens, Carlson, and Elshtain, eds., Religion and the Death Penalty, 2004)
I would add that this line of thought could impact on adherence to the Traditional Latin Mass: suppress it and you effectively signal that the Novus Ordo doesn’t require any level of assent.
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I think there has already been a diminution of the authority of tradition by the recent tinkering with the teaching on the death penalty. I was shocked a couple of years ago by hearing the head of the Social Justice Department (or some such) of an eastern United States diocese mention in casual conversation her diocese’s unequivocal campaign against the death penalty. It made me wonder, “What other infallible teachings are you throwing out?”
I don’t see how the church can call the death penalty, which was both used and endured by God, as inadmissible in all cases.
God doesn’t answer to the Church. It is the other way around. I do agree that the death penalty needs to be very rarely used. My personal belief is that it should be reserved for when a secure jail is not available.
Why? Simply because death is final and removes the option to repent from the sinner. To me, this limits the death penalty to remote locations with no jail and potentially the battlefield.
God has routinely limited the use of the death penalty by himself to only those situations where there was a total rejection of him and the people were immoral. Jonah is a good example of his mercy when there is repentance. God also uses the death penalty when there is none (Noah, Lot’s wife and S&G).
There are so many examples in the Bible, both old and new, that I don’t know how the Vatican thinks it can “reform” any of this doctrine. They would essentially be calling God’s actions inadmissible and immoral?
I guess if they have abandoned God or no longer believe in him then things like this are possible. They can not be that ignorant. This is intentional, as Fr. Z. has pointed out. It would destroy credibility in the magisterium. Maybe that is the point!
Anyone who tries to argue that the Death Penalty is immoral has to argue with Christ, Himself.
Christ stood in front of Pilate in what He knew was going to be the greatest abuse of the power of Capital Punishment possible in the known Universe – God Himself was about to be wrongfully executed. Pilate asks Christ, “Don’t you know that I have this power to put you to death?” And Christ does not rebuke him. Christ does not correct him. Christ does not say, “but only in very specific social circumstances and for the protection of society and as a last resort.” Christ does not say, “but this is a wrongful execution and therefore you do not legitimately wield this power.”
No, Christ not only confirms that Pilate is correct but goes on to explain that Pilate was, in fact, given that power by God, the Father.
Anyone who can possibly claim that the Death Penalty is immoral or that one cannot be “pro-Life” but also support the Death Penalty is not just rejecting the perennial teaching of the Church and making a mockery of the teaching authority of the Magisterium – he is contradicting Christ’s own words.
There is another aspect here that this hints at but doesn’t state openly, and that is that we might reverse a doctrine, a binding statement of faith and morals, indicating that either (1) morals change over time (what had been sanctioned is now a sin, in this case, just formalized murder), or (2) that the Church taught an error regarding faith and morals. Either of these is horrible to ponder for they both lead rather quickly to the Church not being the competent teacher, to Christ having lied when He promised to preserve her from error, to no firm truths to be discerned, let alone followed.
Even the 1997 translation of the 1992 catechism does this because it hints that capital punishment is fitting only in certain cases, aimed at recidivism and at the limited means of some states to incarcerate for life. That’s just as abhorrent –> that would mean that the morality of taking a life depends not on the crime, not on the fitness of the punishment, but on the means available to the punisher. That MUST be stricken from the catechism, just as all the blather from Rome over the last two decades must be clearly, unequivocally, and frequently countered and corrected.
re: WVC. Similarly, when the repentant brigand on the cross next to our Lord said that he, i.e. the repentant brigand, and the other brigand had been condemned justly and were receiving what was worthy of their deeds, our Lord did not utter any rebuke or correction (Luke 23.40-43). I therefore must conclude that when the repentant brigand said those words, he spoke the truth, namely that his crimes deserved the death penalty, and a long, painful, public, humiliating death at that. But how to mix justice and mercy? Mercy is to assign a quicker, less painful death than what is worthy of a criminal’s deeds.
In reply to Moon 1234 “Simply because death is final and removes the option to repent from the sinner.”
Being condemned to death does not remove the option to repent. It merely accelerates the timeline. This finality is often to the sinner’s benefit. Had not the good thief been on the cross next to Jesus, would he have repented?
I don’t write this to add to the scandal, but for the sake of any bishops who might read this comment. This death penalty change deeply shakes my faith. I almost left the Church in it’s wake, and I still struggle with it regularly. I fell in love with the Catholic faith for its immutable truth claims. All that seems to have been overturned by the last pontificate with barely a whimper from the bishops who share in the authority of the magisterium. Please raise your voices and be the St. Athanasius of our times. We desperately need our shepherds to stand up. It’s your vocation to shepherd us, it shouldn’t be falling to Mr. Ed Fesser.
The comment by Prof. Feser and the article by Avery Card. Dulles point to a more general concern that has been poorly articulated in recent decades: obedience to the Magisterium is not merely obedience to the pope. The following indicates my own understanding, and if I am wrong I welcome correction.
The Magisterium is the Church’s teaching office, given to her by Christ and protected by the Holy Spirit. The bishops, cardinals, and popes of the Church participate in that magisterial office but no single one of them is “the magisterial officer” as such. For example, each bishop is a recipient of the office of “teacher” by being a successor to the apostles, to whom Christ said “teach all nations” and “he who hears you hears me”. Each bishop participates in the teaching office of the Church. And the entire body of bishops together can teach bindingly when they together teach the same doctrine as to be held by all; in doing so the protection of the Holy Spirit rests on the college of bishops not such that each one by himself is infallible, but the whole body of bishops expresses infallibly the doctrine of the Church. And the pope by himself can exercise that teaching office in an infallible way when he pronounces definitively a doctrine to be held by all; but when he does so, he is exercising the Magisterial office of the Church, not a separate magisterium that belongs to himself alone.
The result is that the faithful are obliged to hold to ALL that the Church has taught definitively, throughout the ages. And this means that the obligation to adhere and embrace what the current bishops and popes say is part and parcel with the obligation to adhere to what the bishops and popes of old said on the same subject: it is the SAME OBLIGATION, from the same source. When a pope or cardinal teaches something that in appearance is newfangled – say, with new terminology – the obligation to adhere to the Magisterium implies taking that new teaching in concert with all the old teaching and work out the implications: it is the same Magisterium, given to the same Church, protected by the same Holy Spirit. When the current teacher expressly declares that he is not overturning old teaching (as Francis had Card. Ladaria say of his change the the Catechism on the DP), then the faithful are right to take the new teaching in a sense that does not interfere with accepting the older teaching.
In this case, the best way I know of for doing this is to understand by “inadmissible” that in Pope Francis’s estimation, the prudential judgment by John Paul II that the DP should be used “rarely, or not at all” had now moved firmly into the “not at all” range. But it remained only a prudential judgment about particular circumstances, and in this matter the Church herself has said that she does not have expert judgment on the particulars of penal systems.
JMody above urges:
Even the 1997 translation of the 1992 catechism does this because it hints that capital punishment is fitting only in certain cases, aimed at recidivism and at the limited means of some states to incarcerate for life. That’s just as abhorrent
I was so troubled by this transition in phrasing over the course of 5 years (with Evangelium Vitae in 1995), I was so hard-pressed to see how to conform my mind to the teaching, that I wrote to my bishop and asked him to exercise his office to teach by explaining how to settle this teaching with prior teaching. His answer (through his diocesan theologian) was a bit muddled, but I think that effectively it was to expand the range of what parts of the Catechism fall under the limitation of “prudential judgment” and therefore not expressed as to be held by all the faithful: i.e. where it goes from duty of the state to employ punishments for the sake of restoring justice, (i.e. penal justice w/r/t past actions), to then explain a limitation on punishments only from the standpoint of self-defense (i.e. state action w/r/t future dangers), without any effort to EXPLAIN the relationship between that different objective with that of justice. In my words: here the pope is expressing a view about limiting punishment on account of the limits of self defense, and is not expressing how the limits of self defense interact with the needs of justice, hence his prudential judgment about what is sufficient for societal safety does not speak to other goods the state may lawfully hold in punishment.
I would ask prelates who believe that Church doctrine on DP needs development try to EXPLICITLY address themselves to that interaction different goods for state purview: between a future (possible) action of criminals and a good to redress a past action that imposes an injustice. So far I have not seen a single attempt to do so.