How do we understand the changed language concerning capital punishment in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC)? Joseph Arias, a professor at the Christendom Graduate School of Theology (where I am studying) answers this question in Doctrine, Discipline and the “Kasper Proposal." CCC paragraph 2267 comes to the following conclusion:
...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.
Arias reconciles this statement with the traditional Church teaching that the death penalty can indeed be justified. Click below to read his article.
See another article by Joseph Arias.