Florida carries out double executions as bishops issue new pastoral letter
Florida executed two inmates on July 28, 2026, the first double execution in the state since 1964. The executed men were James Duckett, convicted of raping and drowning an 11‑year‑old girl in 1987, and Dominick Occhicone Jr., convicted of a 1986 double murder. The Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops issued a pastoral letter urging Catholics to oppose capital punishment and urging Governor Ron DeSantis to stay the executions. The letter described capital punishment as part of a “culture of death” and called for a renewed consideration beyond partisan lines, citing the Church’s teaching against the death penalty when alternatives exist.
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Florida carried out its first double execution since 1964, executing James Duckett and Dominick Occhicone Jr. at the Florida State Prison on July 28, 2026. The state’s Catholic bishops released a pastoral letter the day before, condemning capital punishment as part of a “culture of death” and urging the faithful to reflect on the Church’s moral opposition to the death penalty. Governor Ron DeSantis, a Catholic, defended the executions as appropriate punishment for the worst offenders. Florida now leads the nation in executions for 2026, with a total of twelve this year, and the Catholic Church, under Pope Leo XIV, continues to call for worldwide abolition of the death penalty.1
James Duckett, 68, was convicted of raping and drowning 11‑year‑old Teresa McAbee in 1987. Dominick Occhicone Jr., 80, was convicted of a 1986 double murder of Martha Artzner and her husband. Both men were executed on July 28, 2026, marking the first double execution in Florida since May 12, 1964.1
On July 27, the Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops issued a pastoral letter describing the death penalty as part of a “culture of death.” The letter reminded Catholics of Church teaching that capital punishment is inadmissible when “bloodless means are sufficient” to protect public safety. It called for a renewed, non‑partisan consideration of the issue based on Catholic moral authority.1
Governor Ron DeSantis, who is Catholic, reiterated his support for the death penalty, stating it is an appropriate punishment for the worst offenders. His administration has expanded capital punishment, including reducing the juror threshold for death‑sentence recommendations from twelve to eight.1
As of July 28, 2026, Florida has carried out twelve executions this year, the highest number of any state. Seven additional executions were performed by Texas, Oklahoma, and Arizona. The Death Penalty Information Center attributes the rise in U.S. executions largely to Florida’s activity.1
The Church’s magisterium opposes capital punishment as a violation of human dignity. Pope Francis revised the Catechism in 2018, labeling the death penalty “inadmissible” in modern society. His 2020 encyclical Fratelli Tutti echoed St. John Paul II’s stance that the penalty is morally inadequate and unnecessary. Pope Leo XIV reiterated this teaching in an April 2026 video message, emphasizing the sanctity of life from conception to natural death.1
According to the Death Penalty Information Center, Florida’s next scheduled execution is set for August 18, 2026.1
Examine the Catholic Church’s doctrinal opposition to capital punishment
The Catholic Church’s opposition to capital punishment develops in a specific way: the Church never denied that public authority has a duty to protect life, but it came to insist—based on deeper respect for human dignity and on modern penal capabilities—that killing a person as punishment is morally inadmissible and should be abolished.
A key doctrinal premise is that no human person loses personal dignity even after committing very serious crimes. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) explains that this renewed emphasis on dignity (already affirmed in the tradition of Pope John Paul II) is central to the Church’s more recent formulation on the death penalty.
In that same doctrinal light, the CDF describes how the Church’s renewed awareness grows from (among other things):
Thus, the Church’s opposition is not merely strategic (e.g., “it doesn’t work”); it is also moral and theological: ending a life as punishment attacks the dignity that remains inviolable.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church, in its 1992 text, expressed the Church’s traditional teaching in a conditional manner: recourse to the death penalty could be licit only in the “traditional teaching,” assuming “full ascertainment” of identity and responsibility, and only when it is the only practicable way to defend lives against an aggressor.
However, the Catechism immediately qualifies this: “today… cases of absolute necessity… are very rare, if not practically non-existent,” because states can now effectively repress crime without definitively depriving the offender of the possibility of redeeming himself.
The later doctrinal tightening is exactly the development of that reasoning. The CDF letter explains that the changing political/social context and new penal capabilities produced a “new awareness” that recognizes the inadmissibility of the death penalty and calls for abolition.
In Fratelli Tutti, Pope Francis articulates the current teaching with unusual clarity and urgency:
This is not presented as a prudential recommendation but as a moral judgment tied to what the Church holds about the dignity of persons.
Pope Leo XIV, in 2026, reiterates this same teaching: the dignity of the person is not lost even after “very serious crimes,” effective detention systems exist, and therefore “the common good can be safeguarded… without recourse to capital punishment.” He quotes the Church’s current doctrinal line: “the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person.”
Beyond the core claim of dignity/inviolability, Catholic opposition is also grounded in concrete moral concerns the Church highlights as reasons the death penalty must be rejected.
Pope Francis’ teaching (as summarized and referenced by the CDF) stresses:
These concerns matter because a system that can wrongly execute—even rarely—cannot be regarded as morally reliable in the way the Church expects when human life is at stake.
The CDF letter also states that Pope Francis affirmed the death penalty, “regardless of the means of execution,” entails cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment, and therefore must be rejected.
In Fratelli Tutti, Pope Francis explicitly criticizes the practice of “life imprisonment” being used in a way that effectively functions like death without the public moral clarity of the sentence: “A life sentence is a secret death penalty.”
This does not cancel the Church’s opposition to execution; it is part of a broader pro-life approach to penal policy: oppose death penalties while also insisting that incarceration respect human dignity rather than merely hide lethal outcomes.
A common objection is that the Church’s opposition seems to weaken the duty of public authority to defend the common good. Catholic teaching directly addresses this.
So the Church’s opposition is not anti-public-safety; it is anti-murder-by-the-state. It calls for forms of restraint that protect society without crossing the moral line of intentionally executing the offender.
The CDF letter explicitly frames the revision of Catechism paragraph 2267 as an “authentic development of doctrine” that is “not in contradiction with the prior teachings of the Magisterium.”
It argues that earlier teachings can be understood in light of:
At the level of Catholic theology, there is also academic discussion about whether Evangelium Vitae and later formulations represent deeper “development” versus an outright “reversal.” One scholarly treatment (not Magisterial, but reflective of a real debate) describes the issue in exactly these terms: some interpret change as contradiction, others as merely circumstantial application, and others as a development that goes beyond what was previously explicit.
But the decisive point for Catholic doctrinal inquiry is that the Church’s own official explanation treats the shift as coherent development: a moral conclusion strengthened by the Church’s deepening recognition of dignity and by modern penal alternatives.
Catholic opposition to capital punishment is grounded in the Church’s insistence that every person’s dignity remains inviolable, that the State’s penal power should increasingly be oriented toward rehabilitation and protection through effective detention, and that—given modern conditions—the death penalty is morally inadmissible and should be abolished worldwide.
The Church maintains simultaneously that public authorities must defend the common good, but it rejects the specific means of execution as no longer proportionate or compatible with the dignity the Gospel demands.