‘Eloquent ambiguity’ in the Catechism
At Crisis, Fr George Rutler remarked on the US bishops’ recent plenary meeting. The bishops discussed the Pope’s recent change to the Catechism – and proposed including it in the US version of the Catechism.
Under Pope John Paul II, the Catechism discouraged capital punishment, but it added that “the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty”. The new Catechism instead describes the death penalty as “inadmissible”.
If this means that the death penalty is “absolutely immoral”, Fr Rutler remarked, then it appears to contradict Church teaching. But is that what “inadmissible” means?
