14 thoughts on “Pope Leo XIV, Fetal Rights, and the Death Penalty”
Thanks for this post, Bill. I saw the Pope’s comments this morning and was puzzled.
You’re right to emphasize logical consistency and principle-application consistency, and you’re right that there is no inconsistency on either count.
You’re also right to emphasize that abortion and capital punishment are dissimilar, and the dissimilarity makes a moral difference. This point relates to my puzzlement. How can the Pope not see the dissimilarity? When I read Leo’s comments, I thought “What is he doing here? He should be prepared to understand the significant differences between the issues. Is he not familiar with the like-cases principle?”
It surprises me that seemingly intelligent people such as the current pope, and so many others, can give such an obviously bad argument. Is he opposed to capital punishment for independent reasons? If yes, why bring in abortion and its similarity/dissimilarity with cap pun?
Maybe I am being overly generous when I call him intelligent. In the political and ecclesiastical and academic worlds there are cases of ‘failing upwards.’ Biden and many contemporary Dems are cases of the former. Francis and Leo are examples in the ecclesiastical world. Claudine Gay in the academic world.
In the wide world of sports, there are no examples for the simple reason that the criteria of excellence are plain and everyone with functioning sense organs can see who the best individuals and teams are.
But if the source of the immorality of abortion is “intentional killing”, then how is capital punishment relevantly dissimilar?
The putative goal of both actions is the death of the targeted victim.
I’ve never seen how complicating the moral structure of human actions with considerations of “guilt” or “innocence” can be a sufficient condition for moral (non-)rectitude.
“This is so obvious that I am astonished that people routinely repeat the charge that it is inconsistent to support both the right to life from the unborn and the death penalty.”
Your philosophical critique of people like Prevost, the minion of his brutal successor Bergoglio, who claim that it is “inconsistent to be pro-life and oppose abortion while supporting capital punishment” is devastating; however, to understand why they advance this specious argument we must focus on their nefarious, well-masked doctrinal and political motives. In a devastating response to the pope this week,* Archbishop Viganò exposes these motives:
“The modernist strategy—based on ‘situational morality’—does not directly deny doctrine, but ‘domesticates’ it in the name of evolving dogmas and renders it inapplicable in practice, hollowing it out from within. It’s no surprise that this relativist approach, complicit in the moral dissolution of society, was formulated by Cardinal Joseph Bernardin. His pseudo-doctrine of the ‘seamless garment” places abortion within a single “ethic of life” that arbitrarily includes poverty, war, and the death penalty. This has provided liberal ‘Catholic’ politicians and self-styled ‘adult Catholics,’ beloved of the woke Left, with the pretext to call themselves ‘pro-life’ while voting in favor of abortion (up to the moment of birth), sodomitical unions, gender transition, and LGBTQ+ ideology” [My translation].
In the matter of the death penalty, the damage done to doctrine is actually worse than the ongoing “hollowing” out of which the archbishop speaks, since Bergoglio altered paragraph 2267 of the Catechism, which affirmed the moral permissibility of capital punishment in principle, to read, “…the Church teaches, in the light of the Gospel, “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.”** Thus, in an unprecedented, scandalously heretical gesture, he denied OT and NT scripture (Genesis 9:6, Numbers 35:33, Deuteronomy 19:11-13, Exodus 21:12, Leviticus 24:17, 21, Numbers 35:30-31. Romans 13:4, Acts 25:11, 1 Peter 2:13-14) and the teachings of numerous Church Fathers, including Origen, St. Augustine, and St. Ambrose; noted theologians, including the medieval thinkers Aquinas, Bonaventure, and Scotus; and many past pontiffs, from Innocent I to Pius XII.
Of course, this little imbroglio around capital punishment is just one of the many heterodox and shocking events that have marked this pontificate since May, including public photographs with the militant LGBT activists and heretics Matina and Caram, the desecration of St. Peter’s Basilica by the welcome of militant homosexual groups, the condemnation of President Trump’s efforts to stop illegal immigration, and the praise of US Senator Durbin, advocate for the murder of the unborn, for his long years of service.
Your comment should have appeared at the top of the pile, but for some reason it didn’t: WordPress set it aside for my approval, when your other comments here at WordPress made it in without my approval. Don’t ask me why. Navigating this intricate software is proving to be a challenge!
Thanks for your comments which provide needed historical and political context for Prevost’s remarks.
The relevant dissimilarity is that, leaving theological considerations anent Original Sin out of it, every human fetus is innocent, whereas this is not the case with justly convicted miscreants.
As for your third paragraph, if human actions are morally evaluable at all, how could guilt and innocence not enter into the evaluation? Suppose a woman murders her husband to collect on an insurance policy. Her action is both morally and legally impermissible. If she is found guilty in a properly conducted trial, then for all practical purposes her being found guilty is sufficient for her legal non-rectitude.
Complicating considerations: Morality and legality are different concepts. And to be found guilty is not to be guilty.
I make no theological assumptions (about morality).
as a lawyer, i certainly do not elide legality with morality.
it comes down to what you believe makes (in the instant case) murder immoral? or, more poignantly, what even counts (morally) as “murder”.
you have not said.
to me, “murder” is simply “intentionally killing (a person)”.
in your proposed case, what if the husband killed by the rent-seeking wife happens also to have raped a woman (unknowingly to his murderer), years before he married his internecine spouse? does that drain the wife’s intentional killing of her husband from any moral failing? he’s not (objectively) innocent, after all, despite being subjectively so.
if the morality of human action is not based on the intent of the moral agent, then upon what is it based?
“Intentional Killing” – (1) at war against an unjust power, I intentionally bring about the death of a soldier representing said power. (2) taking a shortcut through an alley in downtown San Francisco I’m accosted by an assailant with a weapon, and defend myself accordingly by INTENTIONALLY KILLING said attacker in order to save my own life…
My intent in both cases was to kill the person. And yet I reckon myself (crazily? insanely?) without exculpatory blame in either situation? Of course I do.
How in the world I’m “complicating the moral structure” of human action I can’t quite fathom. I’m simply describing it.
Firstly, what – by your lights – makes immoral actions, immoral?
You don’t say.
But to reply to your comments:
(1) what does it mean for a “power” to be “unjust”?
and how does the putative “injustice” of the “power” absolve the guilt of the good-thinking footmen (presumably of the “just power”), of their killing of the soldiers acting at the behest of Big Brother (the “unjust power”)?
“being a good soldier is difficult” (said to me by my Phd supervisor in moral philosophy).
(2) killing an assailant in a dark san-franiscan alley does not necessarily involve an “intent to kill”: per the Principle of Double-Effect, anything not essentially required to achieve your end (in this case, escaping the alley), is not, morally, a part of your action.
so, in your example, you stab the guy attacking you, and he happens to die. but you did not not NEED him to die in order to achieve your end (escaping the alley more or less unhurt), so no murder was involved.
that said, if you act in such a way that the purpose (i.e. the sine qua non) of your action is to cause the death of a (human) person (e.g. you wish to rid the world of the blight of homeless people), then your are acting with murderous intent.
“Using common sense is not difficult” (said to me by my father)
I’m not sure what to make of the nonsense with the quotation marks around just and unjust and power. Pretend you understand what those words mean, perhaps, and then think accordingly…? I for one think it’s fairly obvious that a soldier qua soldier can take the life of an enemy combatant intentionally without being morally at fault, particularly in circumstances wherein said soldier is on the side of righteousness. [Again, you might have to use your imagination here…try to put that wise ol’ PhD supervisor in moral philosophy out of your mind for a moment.]
I’m attacked by a guy with a knife. I respond by getting ahold of his knife and stab him. I do very much intend to kill him inasmuch as prudence dictates to me at the moment that it’s either that or be killed. Again, my intention is to kill. And yet, I do not murder. How’s that? Perhaps that the attacker is not innocent, i.e., the attacker deserves whatever’s coming to him in virtue of his having attacked me, i.e., I’ve a good reason to kill him. Presumably his attempting to kill me in order to take my stuff describes a situation in which he’s got no such good, defensible reason.
This really isn’t that difficult.
Furthermore, whether “to you” murder is “simply (intentionally) killing a person” is neither here nor there. For the rest of right-thinking humanity, murder is unjustified killing, i.e., killing without good (or, moral) reason. That is, for the bulk of humanity, there is a distinction of some merit between killing simpliciter and murder, i.e., a MORAL distinction of some import.
(1) No, there are certainly times when it is MOST justified to the cause end of a person’s life. That is, there are times when a person has good reason to do so to another. In these cases, one is killing another. But one is not murdering another.
(2) That’s autobiography. So what?
(3) (Sigh) Check any good ol’ introduction to moral philosophy text. Or…heck, Google might work too.
Thanks for this post, Bill. I saw the Pope’s comments this morning and was puzzled.
You’re right to emphasize logical consistency and principle-application consistency, and you’re right that there is no inconsistency on either count.
You’re also right to emphasize that abortion and capital punishment are dissimilar, and the dissimilarity makes a moral difference. This point relates to my puzzlement. How can the Pope not see the dissimilarity? When I read Leo’s comments, I thought “What is he doing here? He should be prepared to understand the significant differences between the issues. Is he not familiar with the like-cases principle?”
Thanks, Elliot.
It surprises me that seemingly intelligent people such as the current pope, and so many others, can give such an obviously bad argument. Is he opposed to capital punishment for independent reasons? If yes, why bring in abortion and its similarity/dissimilarity with cap pun?
Maybe I am being overly generous when I call him intelligent. In the political and ecclesiastical and academic worlds there are cases of ‘failing upwards.’ Biden and many contemporary Dems are cases of the former. Francis and Leo are examples in the ecclesiastical world. Claudine Gay in the academic world.
In the wide world of sports, there are no examples for the simple reason that the criteria of excellence are plain and everyone with functioning sense organs can see who the best individuals and teams are.
But if the source of the immorality of abortion is “intentional killing”, then how is capital punishment relevantly dissimilar?
The putative goal of both actions is the death of the targeted victim.
I’ve never seen how complicating the moral structure of human actions with considerations of “guilt” or “innocence” can be a sufficient condition for moral (non-)rectitude.
Bill,
“This is so obvious that I am astonished that people routinely repeat the charge that it is inconsistent to support both the right to life from the unborn and the death penalty.”
Your philosophical critique of people like Prevost, the minion of his brutal successor Bergoglio, who claim that it is “inconsistent to be pro-life and oppose abortion while supporting capital punishment” is devastating; however, to understand why they advance this specious argument we must focus on their nefarious, well-masked doctrinal and political motives. In a devastating response to the pope this week,* Archbishop Viganò exposes these motives:
“The modernist strategy—based on ‘situational morality’—does not directly deny doctrine, but ‘domesticates’ it in the name of evolving dogmas and renders it inapplicable in practice, hollowing it out from within. It’s no surprise that this relativist approach, complicit in the moral dissolution of society, was formulated by Cardinal Joseph Bernardin. His pseudo-doctrine of the ‘seamless garment” places abortion within a single “ethic of life” that arbitrarily includes poverty, war, and the death penalty. This has provided liberal ‘Catholic’ politicians and self-styled ‘adult Catholics,’ beloved of the woke Left, with the pretext to call themselves ‘pro-life’ while voting in favor of abortion (up to the moment of birth), sodomitical unions, gender transition, and LGBTQ+ ideology” [My translation].
In the matter of the death penalty, the damage done to doctrine is actually worse than the ongoing “hollowing” out of which the archbishop speaks, since Bergoglio altered paragraph 2267 of the Catechism, which affirmed the moral permissibility of capital punishment in principle, to read, “…the Church teaches, in the light of the Gospel, “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.”** Thus, in an unprecedented, scandalously heretical gesture, he denied OT and NT scripture (Genesis 9:6, Numbers 35:33, Deuteronomy 19:11-13, Exodus 21:12, Leviticus 24:17, 21, Numbers 35:30-31. Romans 13:4, Acts 25:11, 1 Peter 2:13-14) and the teachings of numerous Church Fathers, including Origen, St. Augustine, and St. Ambrose; noted theologians, including the medieval thinkers Aquinas, Bonaventure, and Scotus; and many past pontiffs, from Innocent I to Pius XII.
Of course, this little imbroglio around capital punishment is just one of the many heterodox and shocking events that have marked this pontificate since May, including public photographs with the militant LGBT activists and heretics Matina and Caram, the desecration of St. Peter’s Basilica by the welcome of militant homosexual groups, the condemnation of President Trump’s efforts to stop illegal immigration, and the praise of US Senator Durbin, advocate for the murder of the unborn, for his long years of service.
Vito
*“Con la risposta sull’aborto, l’agostiniano Prevost cade nel peggior gesuitismo modernista” (https://www.aldomariavalli.it/2025/10/01/monsignor-vigano-con-la-risposta-sullaborto-lagostiniano-prevost-che-cade-nel-peggior-gesuitismo-modernista/)
** https://www.catholiccrossreference.online/catechism/#!/search/2267
Vito,
Your comment should have appeared at the top of the pile, but for some reason it didn’t: WordPress set it aside for my approval, when your other comments here at WordPress made it in without my approval. Don’t ask me why. Navigating this intricate software is proving to be a challenge!
Thanks for your comments which provide needed historical and political context for Prevost’s remarks.
John,
The relevant dissimilarity is that, leaving theological considerations anent Original Sin out of it, every human fetus is innocent, whereas this is not the case with justly convicted miscreants.
As for your third paragraph, if human actions are morally evaluable at all, how could guilt and innocence not enter into the evaluation? Suppose a woman murders her husband to collect on an insurance policy. Her action is both morally and legally impermissible. If she is found guilty in a properly conducted trial, then for all practical purposes her being found guilty is sufficient for her legal non-rectitude.
Complicating considerations: Morality and legality are different concepts. And to be found guilty is not to be guilty.
I make no theological assumptions (about morality).
as a lawyer, i certainly do not elide legality with morality.
it comes down to what you believe makes (in the instant case) murder immoral? or, more poignantly, what even counts (morally) as “murder”.
you have not said.
to me, “murder” is simply “intentionally killing (a person)”.
in your proposed case, what if the husband killed by the rent-seeking wife happens also to have raped a woman (unknowingly to his murderer), years before he married his internecine spouse? does that drain the wife’s intentional killing of her husband from any moral failing? he’s not (objectively) innocent, after all, despite being subjectively so.
if the morality of human action is not based on the intent of the moral agent, then upon what is it based?
This is absurd.
“Intentional Killing” – (1) at war against an unjust power, I intentionally bring about the death of a soldier representing said power. (2) taking a shortcut through an alley in downtown San Francisco I’m accosted by an assailant with a weapon, and defend myself accordingly by INTENTIONALLY KILLING said attacker in order to save my own life…
My intent in both cases was to kill the person. And yet I reckon myself (crazily? insanely?) without exculpatory blame in either situation? Of course I do.
How in the world I’m “complicating the moral structure” of human action I can’t quite fathom. I’m simply describing it.
Firstly, what – by your lights – makes immoral actions, immoral?
You don’t say.
But to reply to your comments:
(1) what does it mean for a “power” to be “unjust”?
and how does the putative “injustice” of the “power” absolve the guilt of the good-thinking footmen (presumably of the “just power”), of their killing of the soldiers acting at the behest of Big Brother (the “unjust power”)?
“being a good soldier is difficult” (said to me by my Phd supervisor in moral philosophy).
(2) killing an assailant in a dark san-franiscan alley does not necessarily involve an “intent to kill”: per the Principle of Double-Effect, anything not essentially required to achieve your end (in this case, escaping the alley), is not, morally, a part of your action.
so, in your example, you stab the guy attacking you, and he happens to die. but you did not not NEED him to die in order to achieve your end (escaping the alley more or less unhurt), so no murder was involved.
that said, if you act in such a way that the purpose (i.e. the sine qua non) of your action is to cause the death of a (human) person (e.g. you wish to rid the world of the blight of homeless people), then your are acting with murderous intent.
how not so?
“Using common sense is not difficult” (said to me by my father)
I’m not sure what to make of the nonsense with the quotation marks around just and unjust and power. Pretend you understand what those words mean, perhaps, and then think accordingly…? I for one think it’s fairly obvious that a soldier qua soldier can take the life of an enemy combatant intentionally without being morally at fault, particularly in circumstances wherein said soldier is on the side of righteousness. [Again, you might have to use your imagination here…try to put that wise ol’ PhD supervisor in moral philosophy out of your mind for a moment.]
I’m attacked by a guy with a knife. I respond by getting ahold of his knife and stab him. I do very much intend to kill him inasmuch as prudence dictates to me at the moment that it’s either that or be killed. Again, my intention is to kill. And yet, I do not murder. How’s that? Perhaps that the attacker is not innocent, i.e., the attacker deserves whatever’s coming to him in virtue of his having attacked me, i.e., I’ve a good reason to kill him. Presumably his attempting to kill me in order to take my stuff describes a situation in which he’s got no such good, defensible reason.
This really isn’t that difficult.
Furthermore, whether “to you” murder is “simply (intentionally) killing a person” is neither here nor there. For the rest of right-thinking humanity, murder is unjustified killing, i.e., killing without good (or, moral) reason. That is, for the bulk of humanity, there is a distinction of some merit between killing simpliciter and murder, i.e., a MORAL distinction of some import.
I agree with all of this:
(1) it is (in your language) “unjustified” intentionally to cause the end of a person’s life.
(2) i would willingly accept the death of a home invader in the course of defending myself and my home. that said, i would prefer him to live.
(3) define the moral contours of an act of “killing simpliciter”, versus “murder”.
(1) No, there are certainly times when it is MOST justified to the cause end of a person’s life. That is, there are times when a person has good reason to do so to another. In these cases, one is killing another. But one is not murdering another.
(2) That’s autobiography. So what?
(3) (Sigh) Check any good ol’ introduction to moral philosophy text. Or…heck, Google might work too.
@Allan
“I’m not sure what to make of the nonsense with the quotation marks around just and unjust and power.”
And that says it all…