Catholic activists applaud encyclical's stance against death penalty

WASHINGTON  — Pope Francis tackled several issues in his new encyclical, but the section devoted to ending capital punishment was particularly cheered by U.S. Catholics who oppose the death penalty.

The pope reiterated how St. John Paul II had described the death penalty as “inadequate from a moral standpoint and no longer necessary from that of penal justice,” but then went further by adding: “There can be no stepping back from this position.”

“Today we state clearly that ‘the death penalty is inadmissible,’” he wrote, quoting from the revised Catechism of the Catholic Church, and adding: “The Church is firmly committed to calling for its abolition worldwide.”

Sister Helen Prejean, a Sister of St. Joseph of Medaille and longtime anti-death penalty activist, said in a tweet Oct. 4, the day the encyclical was issued at the Vatican, that she was pleased with the pope’s “ringing proclamation of the inviolable dignity of all human life, even the life of murderers.”

She also said she was “heartened by the Church’s unequivocal opposition to governments’ use of the death penalty in all instances.”

Over the years, Sister Prejean met with St. John Paul II and Pope Francis urging them to establish the Catholic Church’s position as unequivocally opposed to capital punishment. In 2018, Pope Francis announced new language of the catechism that says the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person, with no exceptions.

In the seven paragraphs examining capital punishment in the encyclical, “Fratelli Tutti, on Fraternity and Social Friendship,” the pope examined this form of punishment through the lens of human dignity and said: “The firm rejection of the death penalty shows to what extent it is possible to recognize the inalienable dignity of every human being and to accept that he or she has a place in this universe.”

The encyclical’s section on the death penalty is placed between the injustice of war and the need for dialogue between members of different religions.