Death Penalty Executions and Catholic Social Teaching

This episode is about the death penalty and executions carried out in the United States in 2025, and what Catholic Social Teaching has to say about this news story.  Here are references and additional resources.

1. The Death Penalty in 2025 article from the Death Penalty Information Center
2. State By State Death Penalty Map from the Death Penalty Information Center
3. Florida Catholic bishops urge Gov. DeSantis to stay two executions Our Sunday Visitor News article
4. Death Penalty: Catholic Q & A from the US Conference of Catholic Bishops
5. 2018 Revision of the Catechism of the Catholic Church section 2267 bulletin from the Holy See Press Office
6. EVANGELIUM VITAE  Pope St. John Paul II 1995 Encyclical on the Value and Inviolability of Human Life – scroll down to section 56
7. Pope St. John Paul II – Additional Statements on the Death Penalty
8. Pope Benedict XVI: End the Death Penalty  November 30, 2011 general audience
9. Pope Leo XIV Calls Support for the Death Penalty ​‘Not Really Pro-Life’
10. EWTN News Poll: Majority of US Catholics Support Death Penalty Despite Catechism
11. Catholic Mobilizing Network is a national organization that works with Catholics and all people of goodwill to end the death penalty

Transcript

Welcome to “Headline News and Catholic Social Teaching,” where we take a brief look at stories in the news, not from a left or right political perspective, but through the lens of Catholic Social Teaching.  I’m your host, Tom Mulhern, and my hope is that this podcast will help us grow in our love of God and love of our neighbors.  

This episode is about the death penalty and criminal executions in the United States during 2025, and what Catholic Social Teaching has to say about this story.  Which is an interesting question because, as we’ll see, Catholic Social Teaching related to the death penalty has gone through a period of significant development during the past 60 years.

But first, here’s the year-end news story.  47 people were executed in the United States in 2025.  Now this was a substantial increase compared to the recent past, as there had been fewer than 30 executions per year during each of the last 10 years.  However, it's important to note that the increase in 2025 was almost entirely driven by the state of Florida, which executed 19 of the 47 people put to death.  The rest of the executions last year took place in 10 other states.

And this highlights the fact that, from a national perspective, which state you are in has a huge impact on whether or not a death penalty is sentenced or carried out.  23 states and the District of Columbia have abolished the death penalty.  The remaining states are moving in very different directions on the death penalty, with some working to make it easier to sentence and carry out the death penalty while others are trying to scale back or end executions entirely.  There are links to more information in the notes, if you’d like to get into the details.

The 19 executions in Florida in 2025 were the result of Governor Ron DeSantis making it a priority to schedule and carry out the executions.  The Catholic Bishops in Florida appealed to Governor DeSantis to commute each of the executions carried out in 2025.  Desantis, who is himself a Catholic, chose to ignore the Bishops’ appeals. 

In making these appeals to the Governor, the Florida Bishops were squarely in line with current Catholic teaching on the death penalty.  This teaching is summarized in section 2267 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which ends with the statement, and I’m quoting now from the Catechism:  “Consequently, the Church teaches, in the light of the Gospel, that “the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person”, and she works with determination for its abolition worldwide.” end quote

This particular wording in the Catechism is the result of a change made in 2018, when it was approved by Pope Francis.  There’s a link to section 2267 of the Catechism in the notes, and it’s worth taking a look at it for several reasons.  It acknowledges that the death penalty was long considered an acceptable response to certain crimes, even by the Church.  But then it notes that there is increasing awareness that the dignity of a person is not lost even after that person has committed very serious crimes.  It also recognizes that more effective systems of detention have been developed, which ensure the protection of citizens but don’t deprive the guilty of the possibility of redemption.

When he approved this modification to the Catechism in 2018, Pope Francis’ action was the latest in a series of moves made by the Church over the past several decades to clarify Catholic teaching on the death penalty, and I’ll review some of those steps now.  

Back in 1969, Pope St. Paul VI removed the death penalty from the Vatican code of laws, and he also spoke out against executions in totalitarian countries in particular.  

Pope St. John Paul II during his long papacy made a number of statements on the death penalty.  In his 1995 encyclical Evangelium Vitae on the Value and Inviolability of Human Life, in section 56 John Paul II describes the purpose of criminal punishment, and then states that the cases where execution would be a necessity are very rare, if not practically non-existent.

A few years later, in January 1999, in a homily he gave in the United States in St. Louis Missouri, John Paul II said “I renew the appeal I made most recent­ly at Christmas for a con­sen­sus to end the death penal­ty, which is both cru­el and unnec­es­sary.”  The following year, in July 2000, speaking at a prison in Rome, Pope John Paul II  stated “May the death penal­ty, an unwor­thy pun­ish­ment still used in some coun­tries, be abol­ished through­out the world.”   John Paul II also started the process to revise the treatment of the death penalty in the Catechism that eventually resulted in the 2018 revision approved by Pope Francis.  

Pope Benedict the 16th in turn spoke and wrote against the death penalty on several occasions, calling for its abolition.

Pope Leo, for his part, has been very clear that Catholic teaching is opposed to the death penalty.  He made headlines in comments to reporters on September 30, 2025, when he stated that “Someone who says, ​‘I’m against abor­tion’ but says, ​‘I’m in favor of the death penal­ty,’ is not real­ly pro-life.”

Which brings me to an intriguing aspect of this discussion, and that is Catholic opinion.  According to a poll of one thousand Catholic voters in the United States conducted in November 2025, 55 percent said they support the death penalty “for a person convicted of murder,” while 20% said they oppose the death penalty in such situations, and the other 25% are unsure.

If this poll is accurate, just over half of US Catholics support the death penalty for a person convicted of murder.  Catholic teaching, as we’ve seen, doesn’t make any qualifications for the severity of the crime committed, it states that the death penalty is inadmissible and should be abolished.

So what are we to make of this discrepancy between Catholic teaching and the opinion of many Catholics?  Well, first of all, if we look at opinion surveys over the past several decades, Catholic opinion is in fact moving closer to Church teaching.  30 years ago, 3 out of 4 Catholics supported the death penalty, and now it’s more like 2 out of 4.  That’s a significant shift, and the same trend toward increasing opposition to the death penalty can be seen in the general US population, not just among Catholics.

Still, half of US Catholics are expressing support for the death penalty, and that’s a lot.  Now, it’s quite possible that many Catholics simply aren’t familiar with current Catholic teaching on the death penalty.  Those of us who were born in the 1950s or 60s have lived through a period when Catholic teaching went from acceptance of the death penalty under certain limited conditions to calling for the abolition of the death penalty in all situations.  Some of us may just need to catch up.

I also think there is something that happens to many of us when our political opinions or social attitudes are challenged by Catholic teaching.  It’s easy to treat Catholic teaching as just somebody else’s opinion, as in “the Pope or the Bishops have their opinion about the death penalty and I have my opinion” and everyone is entitled to their opinion, right, and therefore there’s no reason for me to change my opinion.  I’ve caught myself doing this, not so much on this issue but on other Church teachings.

However, I think this response misses the point of Catholic teaching.  Catholic social teaching is intended to help us live our lives according to God’s plan, it’s meant to draw us closer to God and help us do our part to build up the Kingdom of God, not by ourselves but in unity with all the other people around the world and throughout history who are part of the Church.

So when we’re tempted, and it can be a pretty strong temptation, to prefer our own opinion to Church teaching on any issue, I think it’s important to ask ourselves “Do I really think that my own opinion is more in tune with God’s will than what the Church is teaching?”  And if we honestly think and pray about this question, we may recognize that changing our thinking to align with Church teaching gives us the opportunity to practice the Christian virtue of humility, which is not a particularly popular virtue but one highly recommended by many of the saints.

OK, before I wrap up, I want to point out that there are additional resources in the notes, with references and more background information on the death penalty and Church teaching.  One of the resources, provided by the Death Penalty Information Center, is a map of the United States, where you can see the current status of the death penalty in your state.  And if you’d like to get more engaged in the effort to end the death penalty, there’s a link to an organization named the Catholic Mobilizing Network that offers several ways you can get involved.

Well, that’s all for this episode of “Headline News and Catholic Social Teaching.”  If you found it worthwhile, I invite you to share it with others.  If this is your first episode and you’d like to learn more about me or the podcast, I encourage you to listen to Episode 1 Introduction.

And I hope that, in some small way, this episode might help us live our lives guided by the Holy Spirit through the teachings of the Church.  

Thank you for listening.