What is the Catholic Church’s teaching on the death penalty?

Q: I know officially the Catholic Church is against the death penalty, but what about Genesis 9:6?

A: It looks like there are two dimensions to your question: the Church’s teaching on the death penalty, and how we are to read the Old Testament as Catholics.

Starting with this latter aspect, it’s good to keep in mind that the Old Testament (and the Bible in general) is not so much a single book as it is a whole library of books.

Different books of the Old Testament have different genres. For example, a book recounting historical events is going to have a different nature and purpose than a book of sacred poetry, and these are going to be different from a book meant to expound directly on the law or other moral principles. Furthermore, the Old Testament is filled with complicated, flawed characters who often sin grievously despite having been chosen by God for a special mission.

Even in cases where a passage of the Old Testament was meant as a straightforward moral directive, there is often some significant cultural context to take into consideration when discerning what message we should be taking away today. In particular, the teachings of Jesus in the New Testament often add a new depth of meaning or a more layered obligation. For example, although divorce was permitted in the Old Testament law of Moses, Jesus forbids divorce for his followers on the basis that this was not the plan for marriage that God originally intended (Mt 19:1-12).

The quotation you mention specifically is part of the story of Noah and the ark. This passage is found towards the end of that narrative. After the flood is over, and Noah and his family have disembarked, God is exhorting Noah on how to go forward in rebuilding life in the post-flood world.

Echoing the story of the creation of Adam and Eve, Chapter 9 begins with God telling Noah and his children to “be fertile and multiply,” and God reminds them that they have dominion over all the animals. But while human beings are given the right to kill and eat animals for food, God forbids them from killing each other.

Genesis 9:6 reads: “Anyone who sheds the blood of a human being, by a human being shall that one’s blood be shed; For in the image of God have human beings been made.”

In context, clearly the “point” of this passage is that all human beings are made in the image and likeness of God, and thus all human life has a special dignity.

God is using the language of the time — that is, a language that often phrases transcendent values in terms of concrete consequences — to express this truth. This is not the same thing as God commanding Noah to execute offenders, and it certainly isn’t the same thing as God ordering all human societies to enact capital punishment for all time across all societies in history.

This biblical emphasis on the dignity of human life actually supports our current Church teaching on the death penalty.

Historically, the Church’s moral theology did tolerate the possibility of societies making use of capital punishment in certain circumstances, where this was the best or only option for the protection of innocent citizens.

As the Catechism of the Catholic Church notes: “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.”

But as this same paragraph of the Catechism goes on to elaborate: “Today, however, … more effective systems of detention have been developed, which ensure the due protection of citizens … 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.'”

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