Edward Feser @FeserEdward This whole debate is so stupid and tiresome. There are two unmovable facts that are not going to go away no matter how many times people repeat Pope Francis’s extreme statements on the subject: (1) the death penalty is not intrinsically immoral, and to teach otherwise would clearly conflict with scripture and 2,000 years of previous Church teaching, including every pope who spoke on the matter up to Benedict XVI; and (2) whether the death penalty is in practice needed in order to protect society is an empirical matter of social science, which remains controversial among experts and which popes have no more expertise about than they have about plumbing or automotive repair. Anything any pope says about the subject of the death penalty has to be understood in light of these two data points. Just parroting what Pope Francis said over and over and scolding people who don’t understand how to reconcile it with (1) and (2) doesn’t accomplish anything, and the controv...