Pope Francis recently made bold comments on capital punishment. He called it “contrary to the gospel” and flat out “inadmissible.” In these words, we are seeing the culmination of what’s been building over the course of several pontificates—John Paul II, especially, but other popes, as well.

There are, at least, two developments happening in Church teaching that I see:

1. Defense, Not Punishment. I assume that Catholic theology would still support some executions if they meet the conditions for the moral category of “necessary defense.”

What I think Pope Francis is saying is that if the death penalty is administered to defend human lives, then it is not actually the death “penalty” at all. It’s not done as a punishment. Through double-effect reasoning, the intention would be to protect life rather than to punish wrongdoings. If somehow God’s justice if done through this, that’s frankly none of our business.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church comes very close to saying this. However, the language is muddy enough to allow confusion: “The traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor” [See Catechism, #2267, emphasis added by me.]

The clause that begins with “if” seems to be lost on supporters of the death penalty. The state is not charged with doling out God’s punishment. Take away the necessary aspect of defense and the act of executing an aggressor loses any moral justification.

The classic example is a wagon train moving westward in the mid 1800s American frontier. If someone attacks the wagon train and puts the lives of others at risk, the pioneers may have no choice other than to execute the attacker, even if they successfully capture him. There are no prisons to speak of or even any law enforcement at all. They simply don’t have the resources to render the attacker “harmless.” They have every reason to believe that if they were to release him he’s simply going to kill again. As unfortunate as it may be, execution may be the only option to protect the lives of the pioneering party. This is, however, not an act of carrying out God’s justice by doling out punishment; rather, it’s primarily an act of self-defense—doing what is necessary to protect the common good.

I’d still like to believe that Jesus has opened up a way that would not require any violence, even in the most tragic circumstances. However, traditional Catholic teaching has supported the use of some violence in limited circumstances to protect the common good, and I don’t read Francis as contradicting that.

2. The State is Not the Arbiter of God Justice. Francis is distancing the Church from the unfortunate theology that sees the state as the administrator of the justice of God. Proponents of this theology like to cite Roman chapter 13 as a proof text. However, they are forgetting the larger, more consistent biblical message that only God is the Lord over life and death (see 1 Samuel 2:6 and Deuteronomy 32:39).

The notion that the political state is the administrator of God’s justice is seriously problematic at best and absurd at worst.

The church has always respected the role that governments play and acknowledges they has a legitimate realm of decision-making—true. Governments are charged with protecting the common good, and to the extent that they do that, they may indeed be a conduit for the goodness of God—absolutely. That is why Christians can and should prophetically challenge governments in our quest to make way for the Kingdom of God.

But given the evil in the world perpetuated by governments, to say that governments are sanctioned by God to do what they do is to deny the obvious. Governments made legal the practice of human trafficking in the form of slavery. The government of Nazi Germany attempted the extermination of the Jewish people and ended up killing over 6 million people in death camps. The government of communist USSR killed millions and sent untold numbers of thinkers, artists and outcasts to die in Siberian work camps. The list could go on and on of heinous acts carried out under the mantle of “justice” by various state entities.

The human tendency to abuse power is bad enough without the underlying (false) belief that this power is sanctioned by God.

What is “sinful” and what is “illegal” are not always the same thing. For example, most governments no longer punish adultery outright through the courts, yet it still remains one of the most serious sins for a Christian. Yet, few people still believe it is the job of the government to settle the score on behalf of God. Adultery is a wound that needs considerable work to heal and atone for, but few see the government as having the authority to do that.

Christians apply Romans 13 very selectively. It seems to only pertain to the death penalty and a few other affairs but they fail to bring it up on any number of other issues. It makes no sense that we should just blindly submit to the state when it is conducting executions yet challenge the government on everything else it does. Besides, given the mistrust so many have of the government, it is surprising to me how so many trust the same government to make decisions of life and death in a very flawed criminal justice system.

Pope Francis is making it clear that governments cannot claim Catholic Church support for executions any longer. Francis is on solid ground to state that the Church revokes all support for the death penalty. The Church would not deny the state the right to punish criminals. But it is saying that punishing with an execution is not moral: The right to life of the convinced criminals, coupled with the opportunity to repent and reform, should come before whatever punishment the state deems appropriate.

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