VATICAN CITY CNS – In his efforts to promote a holistic defense of human life, Pope Francis frequently denounced a “throwaway culture” where anyone not considered “useful” was seen as disposable – including the unborn and the aged.
But in connecting the sacredness of the life of the unborn and the lives of the poor, as well as in calling for the global abolition of the death penalty, Pope Francis often was accused of losing or at least watering down the Church’s opposition to abortion.
In his 2018 apostolic exhortation on holiness, “Gaudete Et Exsultate,” (“Rejoice and Be Glad”), Pope Francis wrote that living a Christian life involves the defense of both the unborn and the poor.
“Our defense of the innocent unborn, for example, needs to be clear, firm and passionate, for at stake is the dignity of a human life, which is always sacred,” Pope Francis wrote. “Equally sacred, however, are the lives of the poor, those already born, the destitute, the abandoned and the underprivileged, the vulnerable infirm and elderly exposed to covert euthanasia, the victims of human trafficking, new forms of slavery, and every form of rejection.”
Pope Francis blesses a pregnant woman and child in St. Peter’s Square after his general audience at the Vatican Oct. 16, 2024. (CNS photo/Vatican Media)
In questioning whether he was as committed to ending abortion as his predecessors had been, critics particularly pointed to Pope Francis’ decision in 2016 to rewrite the statutes of the Pontifical Academy for Life, retaining its primary focus as “the defense and promotion of the value of human life and the dignity of the person,” but expanding its areas of concern beyond the very beginning and the very end of life.
In addition, during the 2015-2016 Holy Year of Mercy, Pope Francis gave all priests “the discretion to absolve of the sin of abortion those who have procured it and who, with contrite heart, seek forgiveness for it.” He made that permission permanent at the end of the Holy Year, ending the practice of requiring most priests to get permission first from their local bishop or from the Apostolic Penitentiary at the Vatican.
Vicki Thorn, the late founder of Project Rachel, a ministry promoting healing and forgiveness for those who regret an abortion, told Catholic News Service at the time that the Pope’s decision did not downplay the gravity of abortion, but was a real sign of God’s love and mercy.
“For millions of women, in their hearts abortion is the unforgivable sin,” Thorn had told CNS. The papal act of mercy showed them there was a path to healing and forgiveness.
In his first major interview as Pope, speaking with Jesuit Father Antonio Spadaro in 2013, he said: “We cannot insist only on issues related to abortion, gay marriage and the use of contraceptive methods. This is not possible. I have not spoken much about these things, and I was reprimanded for that. But when we speak about these issues, we have to talk about them in a context. The teaching of the Church, for that matter, is clear and I am a son of the Church, but it is not necessary to talk about these issues all the time.”
Sometimes, though, when he did denounce abortion, he was criticized for being insensitive, particularly when he described abortion, as he often did, as “hiring a hitman to solve a problem.”
On his flight back to Rome from Belgium in 2024, he was blunt: “Abortion is murder.”
“A human being is killed. And doctors who engage in this are – permit me to say – hitmen,” he continued. “They are hitmen. This cannot be disputed. A human life is killed.”
But Pope Francis’ most controversial pro-life act was his revision in 2018 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church to assert “the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person” and to commit the Church to working toward its abolition worldwide.
The catechism’s paragraph on capital punishment, 2267, already had been updated by St. John Paul II in 1997 to strengthen its skepticism about the need to use the death penalty in the modern world and, particularly, to affirm the importance of protecting all human life.
Announcing Pope Francis’ revision in 2018, Cardinal Luis Ladaria, then-prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, said, “The new text, following in the footsteps of the teaching of John Paul II in ‘Evangelium Vitae,’ affirms that ending the life of a criminal as punishment for a crime is inadmissible because it attacks the dignity of the person, a dignity that is not lost even after having committed the most serious crimes.”
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