In the context of news that the United States would proceed with the execution by firing squad of Nidal Hasan, the Army Medical Corps psychologist who killed 13 soldiers and injured 32 others in 2009, Pope Leo reiterated the modern Catholic Church’s position that the death penalty is an attack on the dignity of the human person and that it is “inadmissible” because modern detention systems can safeguard citizens without completely depriving those who are guilty of the possibility of redemption.
If you ask AI-powered search engines about this news, they will explain that the pope is reaffirming a “revised Catholic Church teaching introduced by Pope Francis in 2018.” And in both Pope Leo’s post on X and in the new catechism, this revised teaching immediately occasions many questions. For instance: What do you mean by “inadmissible”? That doesn’t seem like a familiar criterion in Catholic theology. Are you saying this because obviously the church previously taught that the death penalty was just and even conducive to the restoration of the common good and that it arouses a sense of guilt in the condemned?
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