Although many teachings that the Catechism of the Catholic Church contains are infallible, the Catechism is not infallible as a whole.
Consequently, it has been revised on a number of points. None of these have been more substantial than the way it handles the subject of capital punishment.
In another post I look at the most recent change, but here are the three ways it has addressed the subject.
The 1992 Original
The original edition of the Catechism, release in 1992, had this to say:
2266 Preserving the common good of society requires rendering the aggressor unable to inflict harm. For this reason the traditional teaching of the Church has acknowledged as well-founded the right and duty of legitimate public authority to punish malefactors by means of penalties commensurate with the gravity of the crime, not excluding, in cases of extreme gravity, the death penalty.
2267 If bloodless means are sufficient to defend human lives against an aggressor and to protect public order and the safety of persons, public authority should limit itself to such means because they better correspond to the concrete conditions of the common good and are more in conformity to the dignity of the human person.
The 1997 Revision
Following the release of John Paul II’s 1995 encyclical Evangelium Vitae, the Catechism was amended in 1997 to read:
2266 The efforts of the state to curb the spread of behavior harmful to people’s rights and to the basic rules of civil society correspond to the requirement of safeguarding the common good. Legitimate public authority has the right and the duty to inflict punishment proportionate to the gravity of the offense. Punishment has the primary aim of redressing the disorder introduced by the offense. When it is willingly accepted by the guilty party, it assumes the value of expiation. Punishment then, in addition to defending public order and protecting people’s safety, has a medicinal purpose: as far as possible, it must contribute to the correction of the guilty party.
2267 Assuming that the guilty party’s identity and responsibility have been fully determined, the traditional teaching of the church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.
If, however, nonlethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people’s safety from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and more in conformity with the dignity of the human person.
Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an offense incapable of doing harm—without definitively taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself—the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity “are very rare, if not practically nonexistent” (John Paul II, Evangelium vitae 56).
The 2018 Revision
In 2018, paragraph 2267 was further revised to read:
2267 Recourse to the death penalty on the part of legitimate authority, following a fair trial, was long considered an appropriate response to the gravity of certain crimes and an acceptable, albeit extreme, means of safeguarding the common good.
Today, however, there is an increasing awareness that the dignity of the person is not lost even after the commission of very serious crimes. In addition, a new understanding has emerged of the significance of penal sanctions imposed by the state. Lastly, 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.
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” (Francis, Address, Oct. 11, 2017), and she works with determination for its abolition worldwide.
The reasons for the most recent revision are explained in a letter by Cardinal Luis Ladaria, the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
If “the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person”, does that mean that God attacked “the inviolability and dignity of the person” when He COMMANDED the death penalty for certain crimes in the Old Testament?
It was because of the dignity of the person that God commanded Noah to shed the blood of the one who sheds human blood. Why? Because man is made in God’s image. Far from there being a contradiction or violence to human dignity in the death penalty, the death penalty upholds man uniquely as the icon of God.
Genesis 9:4-7:
4 “But you must not eat meat that has its lifeblood still in it. 5 And for your lifeblood I will surely demand an accounting. I will demand an accounting from every animal. And from each human being, too, I will demand an accounting for the life of another human being.
6 “Whoever sheds human blood,
by humans shall their blood be shed;
for in the image of God
has God made mankind.
7 As for you, be fruitful and increase in number; multiply on the earth and increase upon it.”
Pope Francis and the CDF would have been wiser they had not judged themselves to be wiser than God. Catholics better hope that this change to the CCC is not done under the rubric of infallibility. It would leave one having to choose between divine revelation and patently errant theologizing.
The Pope has created great confusion with changing the Catechism. Why didn’t he just make this new teaching of his ex-cathedra? That would solve all the confusion. As for me, I looked to the Catechism as church doctrine, not as the opinions of the Popes. If I wanted to know what they personally believed, I could read their letters. I looked to the Catechism to understand true Catholic doctrine. If the Catechism cannot teach that, to Hell with it! The Pope has ruined the Catechism for me, because how do I determine what is doctrine and what is opinion?
Which parts of the Catechism are not infallible? Can we get a list? (I don’t mean that sarcastically towards you, Jimmy; I have the greatest respect for you. At the same time genuinely: is there anyone out there who can compile separately the lists of actually infallible teaching versus… whatever we’re supposed to call the other stuff in the Catechism? (“Suggestions”? “Musings”? “One guy’s changeable thoughts that no Catholic is bound to believe”?)
Last Wednesday, the CCC read: “… the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty.” On Thursday, the CCC was changed to read: “… the Church teaches, in the light of the Gospel, that “the death penalty is inadmissible.” Cardinal Ladaria, in his letter to the bishops, called this a “development of Catholic doctrine”, so this seems explicitly to be a change not just of prudential judgement but of doctrine.
As a CruxNow article put it, “The developed teaching, placed within the Catechism of the Catholic Church, is now ordinary magisterial teaching and to the believer it calls for a religious assent of intellect and will. It should not be dismissed as mere prudential judgment. It is binding on all believers.” Is this not so? If it is so, then was it also so that the previous teaching in the CCC was ordinary magisterial teaching, binding the believer to religious assent of intellect and will? And if that is so, then hasn’t the magisterium bound Catholics to believe ‘A’ on Wednesday, and ‘Not A’ on Thursday?
Please help us to understand how the magisterium hasn’t, in contradicting itself, undermined the reliability of the magisterial teaching authority itself. As a new Catholic I feel ashamed to read the ugly words in the new CCC 2267, that this is a doctrinal change based on an “increasing understanding” of “dignity”; this seems clearly to state that the Catholic Church previously had an inferior understanding of human dignity to many other faith systems which have long considered the death penalty “inadmissible”. I personally had to struggle to ACCEPT the Catholic teaching on the admissibility of the death penalty, and now it seems the CCC shames me for having trusted the Church over my own heart, and it begs the question of what else I should trust myself over (rather than trust ‘current’ Church teaching).
The old Testament has been improved by the new Testament in several aspects and even Jesus had to explain this in the mstter if divorce that DUE TO YOUR HARD HEADEDNESS MOSES ALLOWED DIVORCE. Jesus came to soften the hardheadedness of MAN that is why the WHOLE NEW TESTAMENT IS ABOUT LOVE AND PEACE. The church preaches repentance so that even murderers are reformed and turn to good people.
Even if not INFALLIBLE, the teaching (especially of Papal Letters) is AUTHORITATIVE. One cannot ignore teaching as “personal opinion” simply because it may or may not be infallible. That being said, there is context to this statement – many simply quote from “By Man shall his blood be said.” This teaching DOES emerge from the inviolibity of the person. HOW is crucial – it does not claim to teach this is wrong per se, but that it emerges from that. Which is quite unproblematic.