On death penalty, Roma locuta est, causa finita est.

oma locu­ta est, causa fini­ta est. Pope Fran­cis has said that the death penal­ty is “inad­mis­si­ble.” He has updat­ed the Cat­e­chism (§2267) to reflect this—repeat with me, now—devel­op­ment of doc­trine. And he has sent this let­ter to the bish­ops about it all.

Here is the new CCC 2267:

Recourse to the death penal­ty on the part of legit­i­mate author­i­ty, fol­low­ing a fair tri­al, was long con­sid­ered an appro­pri­ate response to the grav­i­ty of cer­tain crimes and an accept­able, albeit extreme, means of safe­guard­ing the com­mon good.

Today, how­ev­er, there is an increas­ing aware­ness that the dig­ni­ty of the per­son is not lost even after the com­mis­sion of very seri­ous crimes. In addi­tion, a new under­stand­ing has emerged of the sig­nif­i­cance of penal sanc­tions imposed by the state. Last­ly, more effec­tive sys­tems of deten­tion have been devel­oped, which ensure the due pro­tec­tion of cit­i­zens but, at the same time, do not defin­i­tive­ly deprive the guilty of the pos­si­bil­i­ty of redemp­tion.

Con­se­quent­ly, the Church teach­es, in the light of the Gospel, that the death penal­ty is inad­mis­si­ble because it is an attack on the invi­o­la­bil­i­ty and dig­ni­ty of the per­son,” and she works with deter­mi­na­tion for its abo­li­tion world­wide.

The usu­al sus­pects are scream­ing: CRISIS!!!!!!!! Phil Lawler, worst known for his recent book call­ing the pope a “lost shep­herd,” bemoans “anoth­er dose of con­fu­sion.” (If some­one encoun­ters a Lawler arti­cle about the pope in which he does­n’t claim to be “con­fused,” let me know. The word is a tic with him.) “Once again,” Mr. Lawler writes, “Pope Fran­cis has giv­en the world rea­son to believe that the teach­ings of the Catholic Church can and will change.” As though he has nev­er heard of New­man and the world ought be sta­t­ic and force new wine into old wine­skins, dammit by gee by gosh by gum.

Then, over at Fake Site News—well, let’s just say they would not shut up over at Fake Site News. Here they call it a “doc­tri­nal error.” (As though they be the CDF; as though they are inspired by the Holy Spir­it to decide this.) Alan Fimis­ter, try­ing to pla­gia­rize Phil Lawler, calls it “dis­tress­ing­ly ambigu­ous.” Dr. Peter Kwasniewski—the infal­li­ble Petrus K.—claims that it “con­tra­dicts nat­ur­al law and the deposit of faith.”

Can we call them Death Site News now? After all, these arti­cles are not defend­ing the right to life; they are defend­ing the right to kill.

And watch how sim­ply over the top Petrus K.’s rhetoric is. This is how he begins:

In the bold­est and most reck­less move to date in a pon­tif­i­cate that was already out of con­trol and sow­ing con­fu­sion on a mas­sive scale, the Vat­i­can has announced Pope Francis’s sub­sti­tu­tion, in the Cat­e­chism of the Catholic Church, of a new doc­trine on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment.

(Word­Press real­ly needs to come up with a laugh track insert for posts.)

But I digress. I’m okay now. Dr. K. goes on to say that the “new doc­trine” (I’ll come back to that) vio­lates both nat­ur­al law and Scrip­ture:

[A]ccording to the nat­ur­al law and Scrip­ture alike, the rulers of a State, act­ing as rep­re­sen­ta­tives of divine jus­tice and as cus­to­di­ans of the com­mon good, may exer­cise an author­i­ty over life and death that they do not pos­sess as pri­vate per­sons. In oth­er words, it is God, always God, who has the right of life and death, and if the State shares in His divine author­i­ty, it has, at least in prin­ci­ple, the author­i­ty to end the life of a crim­i­nal.

Dr. K. has in mind Romans 13:4:

For he [i.e., the civ­il author­i­ty] is the min­is­ter of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the min­is­ter of God, a revenger to exe­cute wrath upon him that doeth evil.

Now, there’s no ques­tion at all about this. But St. Paul says that the civ­il author­i­ty can exe­cute “wrath” upon a crim­i­nal; and the death penal­ty is only one of many forms that wrath might take. If it be death, it depends upon a con­di­tion. And St. John Paul II had already told us about it in Evan­geli­um Vitae 56.

[T]he nature and extent of the pun­ish­ment [of a crim­i­nal] must be care­ful­ly eval­u­at­ed and decid­ed upon, and ought not go to the extreme of exe­cut­ing the offend­er except in cas­es of absolute neces­si­ty: in oth­er words, when it would not be pos­si­ble oth­er­wise to defend soci­ety. Today how­ev­er, as a result of steady improve­ments in the orga­ni­za­tion of the penal sys­tem such cas­es are very rare, if not prac­ti­cal­ly non-exis­tent.

And that is why the Cat­e­chism, as John Paul II points out, insists that “if blood­less means are suf­fi­cient,” the state will not apply the death penal­ty.

The draft of the new CCC 2267 is sim­ply a fur­ther devel­op­ment along the lines St. John Paul II had already expressed. You can find that in the sec­ond para­graph:

Today, how­ev­er, there is an increas­ing aware­ness that the dig­ni­ty of the per­son is not lost even after the com­mis­sion of very seri­ous crimes. In addi­tion, a new under­stand­ing has emerged of the sig­nif­i­cance of penal sanc­tions imposed by the state. Last­ly, more effec­tive sys­tems of deten­tion have been devel­oped, which ensure the due pro­tec­tion of cit­i­zens but, at the same time, do not defin­i­tive­ly deprive the guilty of the pos­si­bil­i­ty of redemp­tion.

It is for these rea­sons that Pope Fran­cis says that the death penal­ty is “inad­mis­si­ble.” And note that every sin­gle one of them is already in Evan­geli­um Vitae.

• The dig­ni­ty of the per­son is not lost even after the com­mis­sion of a crime.

St. John Paul II writes: “The prob­lem must be viewed in the con­text of a sys­tem of penal jus­tice ever more in line with human dig­ni­ty.”

He writes: “[G]reat care must be tak­en to respect every life, even that of crim­i­nals and unjust aggres­sors.”

• There is a new under­stand­ing of the sig­nif­i­cance of penal sanc­tions.

St. John Paul II writes: “As a result of steady improve­ments in the orga­ni­za­tion of the penal sys­tem, such cas­es [i.e., where the death penal­ty is jus­ti­fied] are very rare, if not prac­ti­cal­ly non-exis­tent.”

• Effec­tive prison secu­ri­ty per­mits the pos­si­bil­i­ty of redemp­tion.

St. John Paul II writes: “[A]uthority also ful­fils the pur­pose of defend­ing pub­lic order and ensur­ing peo­ple’s safe­ty, while at the same time offer­ing the offend­er an incen­tive and help to change his or her behav­iour and be reha­bil­i­tat­ed.”

The Infal­li­ble Petrus K. tells us that Pope Fran­cis has cre­at­ed “a new doc­trine.” The pope has done it “ex nihi­lo.” And thus the pope is “open­ly hereti­cal.”

That is just absurd. Evan­geli­um Vitae is not “nihi­lo.” I remem­ber when Death Site News was froth­ing at the mouth in an apoplec­tic fit because Pope Fran­cis had (so they claimed) con­tra­dict­ed Famil­iaris Con­sor­tio. Now Pope Fran­cis does no more than apply the teach­ing of Evan­geli­um Vitae to the world we find our­selves in in 2018, and Death Site News is still in an apoplec­tic fit. That’s just what they do.

But when you take the author­i­ta­tive teach­ing of the Cat­e­chism and a for­mer pope on the death penal­ty, and apply them to the time we live in today, that’s not nov­el­ty. That’s a devel­op­ment of doc­trine.

And inci­den­tal­ly, if you think it’s even pos­si­ble for the Church to change its doc­trines, and invent new ones, then it’s you, not the pope, who is “open­ly hereti­cal.” The Holy Spir­it pro­tects the Church from any such thing, and this is an infal­li­ble teach­ing. Doc­trine devel­ops; it is nev­er over­thrown; and cer­tain­ly the Church does not intro­duce nov­el­ties. (This is not real­ly con­fus­ing, pag­ing Mr. Lawler, if you under­stand Church teach­ing or can read the writ­ing of St. John Paul II.)

God’s Protection of Cain

The first mur­der­er was Cain. And after God had found him out, Cain fret­ted being sent into exile because any­one who found him would kill him. “There­fore,” God said, putting a mark on Cain, “whoso­ev­er slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be tak­en on him sev­en­fold” (Gen. 4:15). Because of the hard­ness of your heart, God hath per­mit­ted it; but from the begin­ning it was not so. God pro­tect­ed Cain from the death penal­ty.

“But Alt! How do you know that this exe­ge­sis is sound?” Glad I am that you asked. Because it’s the very exe­ge­sis St. John Paul II uses in Evan­geli­um Vitae. Tolle, lege; it’s in EV 9.

And yet God, who is always mer­ci­ful even when he pun­ish­es, “put a mark on Cain, lest any who came upon him should kill him” (Gen 4:15). He thus gave him a dis­tinc­tive sign, not to con­demn him to the hatred of oth­ers, but to pro­tect and defend him from those wish­ing to kill him, even out of a desire to avenge Abel’s death. Not even a mur­der­er los­es his per­son­al dig­ni­ty, and God him­self pledges to guar­an­tee this. … God, who pre­ferred the cor­rec­tion rather than the death of a sin­ner, did not desire that a homi­cide be pun­ished by the exac­tion of anoth­er act of homi­cide.”

From the begin­ning it was not so. And it is there to which Pope Fran­cis is call­ing the state, and the Church. He calls us there in light of our under­stand­ing of the invi­o­lable dig­ni­ty of all life, even guilty life, and our capac­i­ty to pro­tect the inno­cent by blood­less means. In that context—as a devel­op­ment, not change—the death penal­ty is inad­mis­si­ble. As Catholics we are to fol­low where the pope leads the Church; cer­tain­ly we must not fol­low the fake mag­is­teri­um of Death Site News.