Pope Francis is changing the Catechism of the Catholic Church in order to declare that the death penalty is “inadmissible” – in other words, always wrong. It may never be used. The Catechism was already opposed to capital punishment: in 1997 St John Paul II amended its most recent version to declare that the cases in which it was permissible were “very rare, if not practically non-existent”. Now Pope Francis has said that these cases are, in fact, non-existent. He accepts that this is a change to Church teaching, citing it as an example of the “development of doctrine”.
The Holy Father’s initiative has won the support of the vast majority of commentators in the media – and, we suspect, most Catholics. It underlines and expands that central concept of John Paul II, “the inviolability of the person”. And it does so in harmony with evolving concepts of human rights: never before has revulsion at the death penalty been so widespread – even in the United States, where a younger generation of Americans are appalled by the clinical (yet sometimes botched) process of lethal injections.
The support for the Pope’s initiative by orthodox American bishops is significant. Perhaps the most eloquent response has come from Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles, whose reflections take into account the teaching of previous popes – including Pius XII – that the death penalty is consistent with natural law and the Gospel.
“The Scriptures, along with saints and teachers in the Church’s tradition, justify the death penalty as a fitting punishment for those who commit evil or take another person’s life,” writes Archbishop Gomez. But recently the Church “has come to understand that governments now have the ability to protect society and punish criminals without executing violent offenders”. In an era when “governments now have the ability to protect society and punish criminals without executing violent offenders”, this means that the death penalty is inadmissible.
The archbishop adds that the Catechism is not equating capital punishment with the greater evils of abortion and euthanasia. He also acknowledges that “good people” will disagree with Pope Francis.
It is important to note that these same people already disagreed with John Paul II’s previous amendment of the Catechism, which also represented a development of doctrine. As the then Cardinal Ratzinger noted in 2004, this disagreement did not place them seriously at odds with Christian teaching.
Let us therefore make sure that Pope Francis’s ruling does not become a major source of dissension within the Church. At the same time, we must implore the Holy Father to safeguard the development of doctrine so that it does not appear to justify immoral acts. In the moral chaos of the 21st century, it is more important to uphold doctrine than to develop it.
On Monday, the fortieth anniversary of his death, Pope Francis made a private visit to the tomb of the Blessed Pope Paul VI. He made a similar visit last year. Later this year, in October, during the Youth Synod, he will declare Paul VI a saint.
Both the impending canonisation and the anniversary demand that we should turn our renewed attention to the figure of Pope Paul. His encyclical, Humanae Vitae, “On the Transmission of Human Life”, contains teaching about marriage and human sexuality that is more needed today than ever before; in it, the Blessed Paul teaches the intrinsic connection between the unitive and procreative aspects of the sexual act.
Sadly, the prophecy he made about the consequences of separating the two aspects has been fulfilled, largely because the world, and the Church, failed to heed the teaching of the encyclical.
We now live in an age where the sexual act has become widely debased. So, the more discussion there is of Humanae Vitae, the better. Such discussion can only enlighten us and lead us to a deeper understanding of ourselves and God’s gracious plan for our happiness.
Humanae Vitae remains an accessible document, and along with other writings of the Blessed Paul – such as the Credo of the People of God, which Fr John Zuhlsdorf discusses on page 33 – it is a model of theological expression.
Pope Paul was educated in Thomistic theology through the medium of Latin. While this manualistic approach may seem rigid by today’s standards, it certainly produced clear thinking, precisely and beautifully expressed. Pope Paul composed his works on an Olivetti typewriter, and in Latin; he was the last Pope to do so. (Saint John Paul II wrote in Polish, and Benedict XVI in German.)
But Pope Paul’s direct composition in Latin, as well as the fact that he wrote before the computer age, perhaps saved him from both verbosity and incoherence. He is more than just a saint: he is a great writer and stylist, and a reminder that the Church’s pronouncements need to be not only clear and precise but beautiful too.
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