Q. I have always been against the death
penalty since the prisoner is behind bars and removed from doing further harm
to the public. But a recent piece in The Wall Street Journal included
statements by criminals who said that they were not as aggressive with victims
when they knew there was a death penalty so it does seem to have served as a
deterrent and to have saved some lives.
I still, though, don't believe that
society should take a life of someone who might need more time to turn to God
and I'm wondering whether the pope's recent pronouncement removes the death
penalty completely from the Catholic conversation. (Chesapeake, Va.)
A. According to a revision of the Catechism of the Catholic
Church ordered by Pope Francis in early August 2018, the use of the death
penalty is now a settled question in Catholic moral teaching: The church stands
unalterably opposed to it.
The text of the catechism will now say that the death penalty
"is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity
of the human person." That language replaces a text in place since 1997
(No. 2267) that had permitted capital punishment in exceptional cases "if
this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the
unjust aggressor."
The new text will note that, in present-day society, "more
effective systems of detention have been developed, which ensure the due
protection of citizens but, at the same time, do not definitively deprive the
guilty of the possibility of redemption."
Far from marking a radical change in the church's position, the
new revision simply elucidates what has been a developing church teaching over
a number of years. Pope John Paul II in his 1995 encyclical,"Evangelium Vitae" ("The Gospel of
Life"), had written in opposition to the death penalty, and he, Pope
Benedict XVI and Pope Francis had pleaded regularly for clemency and stays of
execution for inmates on death row.
In 2015, Pope Francis had called capital punishment "cruel,
inhumane and degrading" and said that it "does not bring justice to
the victims, but only foments revenge."
The Catholic Church, with this latest clarification, makes clear
that no matter how horrendous the crime perpetrated, civil society has no right
to "play God" and decide that a prisoner's life on earth is over. The
death penalty, said Pope Francis in announcing the revised text, "is, in
itself, contrary to the Gospel, because a decision is voluntarily made to
suppress a human life, which is always sacred in the eyes of the Creator and …
in the last analysis, only God can be the true judge and guarantor."
The Vatican announcement reflects a worldwide trend. Today, more
than 140 countries have eliminated the death penalty or simply stopped
executions by de facto moratoriums.
Q. Our parish uses the Nicene Creed at
Mass, which includes the phrase "for us men and for our salvation he came
down from heaven." Why isn't the phrase gender-neutral? It makes me feel
marginalized as a woman.
Christ gave us an example of how to pray
in the Lord's prayer: "Give us this day … forgive us our trespasses."
Why doesn't the church follow his example on deciding the wording of the creed?
(Bloomington, Ind.)
A. The English wording of the Nicene Creed — "for us
men" — is actually a mistranslation. The Latin wording is "propter
nos homines," and in Latin the word "homo" is generic; it means
"person" or "human being." (By contrast, the Latin word
"vir" is used when one wishes to denote a male individual.)
At the Masses I celebrate, I resolve the issue in a pastoral way
by simply skipping over the word "men" and saying "for us … and
for our salvation he came down from heaven." (The other option, of course —
permitted by the liturgical guidelines — is to use the Apostles' Creed instead
of the Nicene Creed.)
Questions may be sent to Father Kenneth Doyle at
askfatherdoyle@gmail.com and 30 Columbia Circle Dr., Albany, New York 12203.