In 2025, the state of Florida killed 19 human beings through its death penalty proceedings, accounting for about 40% of all 47 executions in the United States. Its 19 executions were more than double its previous single-year record of eight. As of today, 13 of the 23 U.S. executions in 2026 — about 57% — have taken place in Florida. Combined with Florida’s 19 executions in 2025, that means the state has carried out 32 executions since the beginning of 2025. On July 28, 2026, Florida executed two individuals on the same day, something the state had not done since May 12, 1964. It was, therefore, the first double execution in Florida in 62 years and the first in Florida since the modern death penalty era began in 1976. Are all these killings the right thing to do?
I recently had a very interesting discussion on this urgent topic with a large group of our young adults who gathered for their monthly Theology on Tap talk. Let me share with you a brief summary of some of the ideas I discussed with them.
The Catholic Church’s present teaching is clear: the death penalty is inadmissible because it attacks the inviolability and dignity of the human person. For this reason, the Church is firmly committed to its abolition throughout the world. Pope Francis stated this unequivocally in Fratelli Tutti: “There can be no stepping back from this position.”
Human life is sacred because it comes from God. That dignity is not lost when a person commits a grave — even a horrific — crime. The seriousness of an offense does not erase the humanity of the offender, nor does it eliminate the possibility of repentance, conversion and redemption. As Pope St. John Paul II affirmed, even a murderer does not lose his personal dignity.
The Church’s teaching on capital punishment has developed over time. Catholic tradition has always recognized the legitimate authority of the state to punish grave crimes, protect society and promote the common good. Earlier teaching did not absolutely exclude capital punishment, particularly in circumstances in which it was judged necessary to defend human life against a dangerous aggressor.
At the same time, the Church has consistently rejected vengeance. Punishment must be governed by justice, proportionality, public safety and respect for the dignity of the person. Where possible, it should also leave room for the offender’s moral and spiritual rehabilitation. This earlier position was reflected in the original formulation of paragraph 2267 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. It stated that the traditional teaching did not exclude recourse to the death penalty when it was “the only practicable way to defend the lives of human beings effectively against the aggressor.” Yet, it immediately added that, when non-lethal means are sufficient to protect society, public authority should limit itself to those means because they better correspond to the common good and are more in conformity with human dignity.
The movement toward abolition, therefore, did not arise from a rejection of the Church’s concern for justice or public safety. Rather, it developed through a deeper appreciation of the enduring dignity of every human person and the recognition that contemporary societies possess effective means of protecting the public without executing offenders.
Pope St. John Paul II gave decisive impetus to this development in Evangelium Vitae. He taught that public authority must use bloodless means whenever these are sufficient to protect society, since such means correspond more fully to the common good and to the dignity of the human person. The catechism subsequently observed that, given the state’s ability to render offenders harmless without definitively depriving them of the possibility of redemption, cases of absolute necessity are “very rare, if not practically non-existent.”
The revised paragraph 2267 of the catechism expresses the Church’s present judgment: “The death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person.” This teaching is not merely a practical conclusion based on the existence of modern
prisons. It rests on a deeper moral truth: even a person guilty of the most terrible crime remains created in the image and likeness of God. The crime must be condemned, the offender must be held accountable and society must be protected. But human dignity cannot be erased by wrongdoing.
Pope Francis has carried this development forward with particular clarity. In 2014, he stated that it is impossible to imagine a modern state lacking means other than capital punishment to protect its citizens from an unjust aggressor. He also emphasized the danger of judicial error and the abuse of capital punishment by totalitarian regimes against political opponents and religious or cultural minorities.
In Fratelli Tutti, Pope Francis wrote: “Today we state clearly that ‘the death penalty is inadmissible’ and the Church is firmly committed to calling for its abolition worldwide.” He further called Christians and all people of good will to work for the abolition of the death penalty — whether imposed legally or illegally — and to improve prison conditions in a manner that respects the dignity of persons deprived of liberty.
Opposition to capital punishment does not diminish the suffering of victims or the need for accountability. The Church must accompany victims and their families, insist upon proportionate punishment and support the state’s responsibility to protect society. Yet, justice must never become vengeance. Even a person guilty of the gravest crime retains a God-given dignity that no offense and no human authority can erase. Moreover, capital punishment carries the irreversible danger of judicial error: once a person has been executed, no subsequent discovery of innocence can restore the life taken. A consistent culture of life, therefore, defends both innocent victims and condemned offenders — not because their situations are morally equivalent, but because every human life remains sacred.
This conviction has particular urgency in Florida. As the Florida bishops reaffirmed in our July 27, 2026, pastoral letter, Catholics are called to bear consistent witness to the sacredness of human life, including the lives of those condemned to death. I, therefore, invite all Catholics in the Diocese of Palm Beach to work peacefully but intensively and perseveringly for the abolition of capital punishment while supporting victims, protecting society, promoting humane prison conditions, and encouraging repentance and rehabilitation. The death penalty is inadmissible because it contradicts the inviolability and God-given dignity of every human person. The Gospel calls us to justice without killing, accountability without cruelty and mercy without abandoning truth.
Bishop Manuel welcomes comments and reflections from readers: bishopofpalmbeach@diocesepb.org
