Brief Note on the Revision of passages in
The Catechism of
the Catholic Church
having to do with the Death Penalty

by Christoph Cardinal Schönborn
Archbishop of Vienna

Few texts of the Catechism have occasioned more interest and debate that Numbers 2266 and 2267 which treat of the death penalty, and this from the very beginning of the Catechism project. The Latin version of the Catechism, published September 8, 1997, which is to be taken as the editio typica—the normative and definitive text—substantially corrected the text of the original French version of 1992 which had served as the basis for all translations up to that time. This is, moreover, the only substantial correction, all the others touched on minor points, corrections of references, of citations, and the like. In this short note I would like to give some indication of the changes to be found in the editio typica bearing on Numbers 2266 and 2267.

We must begin with the text called “Revised Project” of 1989 which was sent to all the bishops of the Catholic Church for consultation. The text treating of the death penalty then bore the number 3541. This is what it said:

It would be fitting to set aside the death penalty exacted by society on those found guilty of crimes of extreme gravity. Although the punishment is legitimate, the Church hopes for a habitual recourse to clemency, which is moreover in the spirit of Scripture and particularly of the Gospel. If it is necessary to protect society and prevent crime, there is also the duty to be merciful as the Heavenly Father is merciful (Cf. Lk 6:36).

This brief passage retains the classical position of Catholic moral theology: in itself capital punishment can be legitimate, but the Christian attitude consists in not applying it, out of motives of clemency and mercy.

After consultation with the Catholic episcopate, the Commission on the Catechism decided to entirely revise the third part on Christian morals, given the number of criticisms the whole part had provoked. Few elements of the old text survived as such in the new. That which concerned the death penalty was completely rewritten. The text is well-known (CCC 2266-2267). It locates the question of capital punishment in the context of legitimate defense, which is a right and even a duty (CCC n. 2265). On the level of the preservation of the common good of society, the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude “the death penalty in cases of extreme gravity,” as “a penalty proportioned to the gravity of the crime” (2266).

The following number, however, introduces an important restriction the significance of which has not been sufficiently noticed. “If bloodless means are sufficient to defend human lives against an aggressor and to protect public order and the safety of persons, public authority should limit itself to such means, because these better correspond to the concrete conditions of the common good and are more in conformity to the dignity of the human person” (CCC, 2267).

If the text of the Catechism did not retain the demand for “habitual recourse to clemency” of the “Revised Project,” it made a further step in formulating as a strict requirement, and as a moral obligation, binding public authority to make use of bloodless means in every situation where they are sufficient. On various occasions some bishops and episcopal conferences have referred to this text to demand the abolition of the death penalty, to oppose its reintroduction by legislation, or oppose its application in particular instances.

After the publication of the Catechism in 1992, the Holy Father established an Interdicasteral Commission for the Catechism of the Catholic Church at the Vatican, charged with supervising and approving translations of the Catechism and preparing the Latin editio typica of the text. A great number of requests for corrections, improvements and clarifications were addressed to the Holy See with an eye to the editio typica. They were the object of very attentive study. Finally a list of corrigenda et addenda was submitted to the Holy Father for insertion into the editio typica. The question of the death penalty played a considerable role.

Meanwhile, Pope John Paul II had published his great encyclical Evangelium Vitae in 1995. In two places the question of the death penalty comes up and a clearly authentic interpretation of the Catechism is given. If one considers numbers 27 and 56 of Evangelium Vitae along with all of John Paul II’s and the Holy See’s actions on this question, it becomes more and more evident then that the intention of the Sovereign Pontiff goes in the direction of an ever more clear exclusion of the death penalty. Here is some corroboration of that claim.

The intentions of the Holy Father with respect to the death penalty are clearly shown in his 1995 encyclical Evangelium Vitae. In number 27 the Pope lists “among the signs of hope” for “a culture of life” those who are opposed to the powers of the “culture of death,” “the growing public opposition to the death penalty, even when such a penalty is seen as a kind of ‘legitimate defense’ on the part of society. Modern society in fact has the means of effectively suppressing crime by rendering criminals harmless without definitively denying them the chance to reform” (EV 27).

It seems clear to me that if the Pope sees “a sign of hope” there, he himself shares that “opposition to the death penalty, even when such a penalty is a kind of “legitimate defense.” Two arguments are advanced to justify this opposition and are taken up again more explicitly in number 56 of the encyclical: “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” (EV 56).

The second argument goes beyond considerations of the factual situation to the very heart of the matter: We should not have recourse to the death penalty lest we definitively deny the guilty one “the possibility of redeeming himself” (EV 27). In n. 56 the argument more nearly approaches a moral exclusion of the death penalty. To achieve the ends of punishment inflicted on the guilty (as these are expressed in CCC 2266), “it is clear that the measure and the quality of the penalty ought to be carefully evaluated and determined and ought not lead to the extreme measure of the destruction of the guilty.” This formula does not go all the way toward declaring that the death penalty would be in itself and as such morally inadmissible because it leaves the door to the death penalty theoretically open (“if it is not a case of absolute necessity, when the defense of society is otherwise impossible”), while closing it practically (such cases are “practically non existent”).

It was clear that the definitive version of the Catechism must take account of this “re-reading” proposed by the Pope himself. In fact, the changes made in the Catechism hold strictly to what the encyclical says and integrate the two arguments of n. 27 (without however referring to this passage) and cite literally the argument of fact of EV 56 which practically excludes recourse to the death penalty. Moreover, the matter of both paragraphs 2266 and 2267 is better organized: in 2266 there is the question of proportioned punishment and the reason for inflicting punishment. Number 2267 treats exclusively of the death penalty. It makes precise that the traditional teaching does not exclude recourse to the death penalty when that was the only practical way of defending lives from an unjust aggressor, on condition that the identity and responsibility of the aggressor are certain. If the definitive text of the Catechism gives the substance of the teaching of Evangelium Vitae, it is in my judgment regrettable that the Catechism did not take up the “sign of hope” that the Pope sees in the rising opposition to the death penalty on the part of public opinion (EV 27).

But the far more fundamental question remains for the moment unanswered: Just what is the moral legitimacy of the very principle of the death penalty? The Holy See has given a number of signs that seem to indicate a development in the direction of a veritable moral exclusion of the death penalty. I cite three minor examples:

    •    In number 5 of John Paul II’s message for the World Day of Peace in January 1997, we read, “No punishment can alter the inalienable dignity of the one who has committed evil. The door that opens on repentance and rehabilitations ought always to remain open.” This phrase, read together with Evangelium Vitae 27 and 56, seems indeed to reinforce the moral exclusion of the death penalty.

    •    A comment in l’Osservatore Romano of January 10, 1997, reinforces this interpretation. Speaking of three people who were condemned to death in the United States and executed despite the request of the Pope for clemency, the commentator cited the passage mentioned from the message to the World Day of Peace, and added, “To retain the death penalty and to execute it signifies idolatrizing revenge and relativizing at all costs the right to life.”

    •    Quite recently, l’Osservatore Romano (July 12, 1998) gave on its first page the contents of an intervention of the Holy See during the Conference for the Institution of an International Penal Tribunal. One finds there the following: “The Holy See has appealed to all nations not to have recourse to the death penalty and is happy to see emerging a great consensus in this regard.”
It seems clear that the teaching and practice of the Catholic Church tends more and more in the direction of abolition of the death penalty. The conditions for its use are so restrictive as to in fact exclude it: Every judicial error must be certainly excluded; bloodless means must be proved certainly to be insufficient. The Pope himself draws the consequences of this extreme limitation of the use of the death penalty: in fact conditions for invoking the death penalty practically no longer exist in our day.

There remains the large question: Why not just say that the death penalty is itself morally unacceptable? If it is very difficult to achieve certitude on this question on the level of natural law and right, the answer is quite clear on the level of the New Law and the Gospel. In fact, St. Paul tells us that Christ, by his death on the cross, abolished “in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations.” (Ephesians 2:15) Christ perfectly fulfilled the Old Law by surpassing it. He is the only true Innocent One who died for us all, sinners without exception, and who has saved us by his death. The dynamism of the Christian faith sees in the other, even if he be a great criminal, one for whom Jesus gave his life. Who better than our Holy Father gives us an example of the Christian way? Can anyone imagine that he would have agreed to a capital sentence for Ali Agca who, on May 13, 1981, made an almost mortal attack in St. Peter’s Square? On the contrary, he pardoned him, as Jesus did his tormentors (Lk 23:34). Ever since, he does not cease to ask, everywhere in the world, that grace and clemency be accorded those who, according to the Old Law and old laws, would have merited death.

[The reader is referred to Documentation for the full texts to which the author refers.]

Christoph Schönborn, O.P. directed the commission that produced the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Subsequently he was named Archbishop of Vienna and a Cardinal. He wrote this text in French. Ralph McInerny translated it.