Although Pope Francis amended
Catholic social ethics to exclude the death penalty rather than continue to accept
the punishment in cases in which no other punishment is practical or available,
Pope Leo decided in October, 2026 to make a public statement of his Church’s
opposition to the death penalty in reaction to the decision of the Trump administration
to televise an upcoming execution live on television. That a woman had recently
survived execution attempts by two lethal injections may have primed the
pope’s pump, as it were. The danger is that the foray into applied ethics by leaders
of a religious organization could conflate ethics and theology. That the latter
transcends, and may even violate ethical principles, can easily be forgotten
when a religious leader speaks out a lot on ethical issues. In the case of Pope
Leo’s statement on capital punishment, a distinctly theological rationale can
be found, and, I submit, should have received more emphasis, lest the religious
leader be reduced to an ethical critic, or conscience. To be sure, in 2026,
the world was very much in need of a public conscience, especially because Russia’s
invasion of Ukraine was still underway, as was Israel’s genocide in Gaza and
wanton violence in the West Bank—all of this aggression was being done with
obvious impunity.
The full essay is at "Changing Lanes."
