Capital punishment never justified, Pope argues

March 20, 2015

“Nowadays the death penalty is inadmissible, no matter how serious the crime committed,” Pope Francis said at a March 20 meeting with members of the International Committee against the Death Penalty.

“For the rule of law, the death penalty represents a failure, as it obliges the state to kill in the name of justice,” the Pope argued. Basing his argument on the Church’s consistent defense of human life, the Pope acknowledged the moral right to defense against an unjust aggressor. But he reasoned:

However, the presuppositions of personal legitimate defense do not apply at the social level, without risk of misinterpretation. When the death penalty is applied, it is not for a current act of aggression, but rather for an act committed in the past. It is also applied to persons whose current ability to cause harm is not current, as it has been neutralized – they are already deprived of their liberty.

The Pope seemed to go beyond condemnation of the death penalty to decry lifetime prison sentences as well. He said that “life imprisonment entails for the prisoner the impossibility of planning a future of freedom, and may therefore be considered as a sort of covert death penalty.”

The state may be justified in depriving a convicted criminal of his freedom, the Pope argued, but it can never rightfully deprive him of hope. He said that criminal sentences should be designed to encourage repentance and rehabilitation.

In his extended argument against capital punishment, the Pope observed that the death penalty has been used by totalitarian regimes to silence opposition.

 

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Further information:

• Pope Francis: the death penalty is inadmissible (VIS)
• Pope Francis: no crime ever deserves the death penalty (Vatican Radio)
• Death penalty 'failure of rule of law, says pope (ANSA)