Francis: “the position of the Church against the death penalty”

Source: vaticancatholic.com

Francis’ June 3, 2016 address to Judges’ summit:

“I would reaffirm the position of the Church against the death penalty. It is true that, as I have been told, medieval and post-medieval theology considered the death penalty to entail hope: ‘we are handing them over to God’. But times and situations have changed…”[1]

Francis wants to reaffirm “the position of the Church against the death penalty”.  The position of the Catholic Church is not “against the death penalty”, but for the death penalty.  Francis’ statement is completely heretical.  The Catholic Church has always supported the legitimacy of the death penalty for extremely grave crimes.

In his book Conversations with Jorge Bergoglio, Francis also said: “… there is now an increasing awareness of the immorality of the death penalty.” (Conversations with Jorge Bergoglio, p. 101)

St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Pt. II-II, Q. 11, A. 3: Heretics “deserve not only to be separated from the Church by excommunication, but also to be severed from the world by death. For it is a much graver matter to corrupt the faith which quickens the soul, than to forge money, which supports temporal life. Wherefore if forgers of money and other evil-doers are forthwith condemned to death by the secular authority, much more reason is there for heretics, as soon as they are convicted of heresy, to be not only excommunicated but even put to death.”

Throughout history the death penalty or sentence would be carried out by the legitimate civil authority in accordance with a country’s laws after an individual was convicted of the crime.  It is not to be carried out by individuals on their own.  The Church has taught that putting heretics to death has been a just way to carry out the death penalty, because heretics lead others into heresy, schism, and everlasting hellfire.