How Should Catholics Think About the Death Penalty? A Brief Guide

The aim of this article is not to endorse a position but simply to map out the possible options.

Recently, Catholics have been debating the death penalty again. In this post, I’d like to offer some thoughts on how to think through this issue—not necessarily whether one should be for or against the death penalty, but how to approach the apparent tension between what the Church now says about it versus what the Church has taught throughout most of her history. This is a real problem, at least on the surface, and anyone who fails to acknowledge it is either very ignorant or willfully obtuse.

The reason this is problematic is twofold: 1) the Church claims to be infallible when teaching with her full authority on matters of faith and morals, and 2) the death penalty is clearly a moral issue.¹ So, if the Church once taught that the death penalty was not intrinsically evil, but now teaches that it is intrinsically evil, this would seem to present a contradiction that calls into question the Church's claim to infallibility. Either the Church was wrong then, or the Church is wrong now—logic demands one or the other. And if the Church was wrong while teaching with full authority, that would seem to falsify the whole claim of infallibility, and by extension, Catholicism itself.

Broadly, here are two ways one can approach this matter:

1. Compatibility
   The first approach is to argue that, despite initial appearances, the teachings are not incompatible. To reconcile the Church’s current position with its past teachings, one could interpret the word "inadmissible" in the current teaching (referring to the Catechism) to mean something other than "intrinsically evil." Some proponents of this view suggest that the current stance is a prudential judgment based on our current societal conditions. In this interpretation, the Church is saying that while the death penalty is itself permissible, it is no longer justifiable in modern times, given the alternatives available for protecting society, or whatever else. In other words, the death penalty isn’t intrinsically evil, but it is something that, today, we should work to abolish.

2. Incompatibility
   Alternatively, if one interprets the Church’s current position as teaching that the death penalty is intrinsically evil, this would be incompatible with past teachings, which allowed for the death penalty in certain circumstances. From here, two options remain:

   • One could argue that what the Church is saying now is not taught with full authority, and therefore the current teaching is in error. (While rare, it is acknowledged, by the Church, that the magisterium, including the Pope, can err when not teaching with full authority.)

   • Conversely, one could argue that the Church’s past teaching was not made with full authority and that it was mistaken at that time.

Those are the options as I see it—aside, of course, from claiming that the teachings are incompatible, that both meet the conditions of infallibility, and thus Catholicism is false.

Nor can one appeal to the development of doctrine with respect to the incompatibility option, for the obvious—painfully obvious—reason that development is not the same as contradiction. Development must remain consistent with the original teaching. It would be absurd—and frankly, something only the most gullible would believe—if the Church were to suddenly say that Christ actually has only one will after all, while claiming this doesn’t conflict with the previous teaching of two wills, due to a more "developed" understanding of the hypostatic union (or whatever). That wouldn’t be a development of the past teaching; it would be a direct repudiation of it.

Thus, even if one were to insist that the Church has developed its understanding of human dignity, that doesn’t do anything to fix the issue. Why? Because if human dignity is enough now to make the death penalty intrinsically evil, then it would have always been enough to make the death penalty intrinsically evil (obviously, human dignity doesn’t hinge on the Church’s understanding—it just is what it is!). This means the Church would have previously taught falsely on a matter of morals with full authority, which is something she claims she cannot do (thanks to the doctrine of infallibility).

This means that if one takes the current teaching to declare the death penalty inherently evil due to human dignity, one must either conclude that the Church's previous teaching was not issued with full authority or accept a falsification event of the core claim of magisterial infallibility.

(Notice: If one instead insists that changing societal circumstances are the basis for the death penalty now being inadmissible—and that this is part of the development of doctrine—this isn’t claiming the death penalty is intrinsically evil. Obviously, if the death penalty were intrinsically evil, circumstances wouldn’t matter; it would have always been wrong, period! Instead, this appeal to modern circumstances—say, that society now has better ways of protecting itself, etc.—seeks to explain how the Church could have once deemed the death penalty permissible but now finds it inadmissible, not due to its intrinsic nature, but because conditions have changed. This would fall under the first broad option of interpreting the Church’s stance).

Recall: The aim of this article is not to endorse a position (though I will say I find Edward Feser particularly clearheaded on this issue—certainly more than most). Rather, it is to map out the possible options, especially for those who wish to avoid the conclusion that the Church has reversed an irreversible teaching. We all know what that would mean... or do we? (Frankly, I don’t think some people fully grasp the significance of this debate. It’s not just about morality—it cuts to the heart of the Catholic faith itself: the promise of indefectibility.)

1. Notice what I’m not doing: I’m not delving into the conditions for infallible teaching, nor am I tracing the entire history of the Church’s stance on the death penalty. These are areas left for the interested reader to explore. My focus is simply on helping people think clearly through the problem—once they’ve gathered all the relevant facts.