VaticanNews portal reports on the case of approximately 200 Ethiopian migrants sentenced to death in Saudi Arabia for drug trafficking, highlighting the appeal of Bishop Tesfaselassie Medhin of the Catholic Eparchy of Adigrat and the statements of antipope Leo XIV condemning capital punishment. The article presents the conciliar sect’s position as a courageous defense of human dignity, omitting entirely the supernatural order, the Church’s traditional teaching on the legitimate authority of states to inflict just punishment, and the doctrinal revolution that has transformed the Church from a society demanding justice into a humanitarian NGO indistinguishable from the world. This is not the voice of the Catholic Church — it is the voice of the abomination of desolation speaking in the temple of God.
The “Mercy” That Dethrones Justice
The article presents the position of the post-conciliar sect as though it were a self-evident continuation of perennial Catholic teaching. Bishop Medhin declares that “justice is more effective when tempered by mercy,” and calls for “alternatives to the death penalty that allow for rehabilitation, repentance, and the possibility of redemption.” Leo XIV, for his part, cites the 2018 revision of paragraph 2267 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church — the edition approved by the heretic Bergoglio — to proclaim that “the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person.”
Let us be precise about what has occurred here. The 2018 revision of the Catechism did not merely develop existing teaching — it reversed it. For two millennia, the Catholic Church taught, consistent with Holy Scripture and the unanimous tradition of the Fathers, that the lawful authority possesses the right and, in certain cases, the duty to inflict the death penalty. St. Paul himself writes: “For he is God’s minister to thee for good. But if thou do that which be afraid of, for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is God’s minister: an avenger to execute wrath upon him that doth evil” (Romans 13:4). The Council of Trent, in its decree on justification, anathematizes those who deny that the justified can merit eternal life through good works performed under grace — works that presuppose a temporal order in which justice, including punitive justice, is real and operative. Pope Pius XII, in an address to the First International Congress of Histopathology of the Nervous System (September 13, 1952), explicitly affirmed that “the public power can deprive the condemned person of the enjoyment of life in expiation of his fault when, by his fault, he has already disposed himself of his right to life.”
The revision of 2267 under Bergoglio — now parroted by Leo XIV — does not represent a legitimate development of doctrine. It is a corruption of doctrine, condemned in advance by St. Pius X in Lamentabili sane exitu (proposition 64): “The progress of sciences requires a reform of the concept of Christian doctrine concerning God, creation, Revelation, the Person of the Incarnate Word, and Redemption.” The conciliar sect has extended this modernist principle to the moral order, subordinating the immutable teaching of Scripture and Tradition to the prevailing humanitarian sentiment of the age. This is not the Church speaking. This is the neo-church of the Antichrist, which has replaced the Gospel of Jesus Christ with the gospel of man.
What the Article Conceals: The Theological Foundations of Punitive Justice
The article is silent — as the conciar sect is always silent — on the theological reasons why the death penalty is not merely permissible but, in certain cases, an act of justice. The natural law, inscribed by the Creator in the heart of every man, demands that the guilty be punished in proportion to their crime. This is not cruelty; it is the very order of justice without which no society can exist. As Pius XI taught in Quas Primas, Christ the King possesses judicial authority over all men, “and this under the threat of announced punishments, which the obstinate cannot escape.” The state, as the custodian of the common good, acts as the minister of God when it punishes the wicked.
Bishop Medhin’s appeal frames the question exclusively in terms of “the profound value of every human soul, created in the image and likeness of the Almighty” and “a civilization of love and mercy.” But what of the victims of drug trafficking? What of the communities ravaged by the khat trade? What of the justice owed to those who suffer under the violence that accompanies the drug trade? The article is silent because the conciliar sect has no answer. It has replaced the supernatural order — in which justice and mercy are perfectly united in God — with a naturalistic sentimentalism that sacrifices the common good on the altar of individual “dignity.”
This is the same error condemned by Pius IX in the Syllabus of Errors (proposition 58): “No other forces are to be recognized except those which reside in matter, and all the rectitude and excellence of morality ought to be placed in the accumulation and increase of riches by every possible means, and the gratification of pleasure.” The conciliar sect’s obsession with “human dignity” detached from the moral order is precisely the materialism and naturalism that the Church has always condemned.
The Eparch’s Appeal: A Bishop Without a Mission
Bishop Tesfaselassie Medhin is presented as a shepherd who “lifts his voice not only as a religious leader, but as a witness to the profound value of every human soul.” But what kind of bishop is this? He appeals to “international organizations and humanitarian agencies defending human dignity” — the same organizations that promote abortion, contraception, gender ideology, and the destruction of the natural family. He does not appeal to the kings and rulers of the earth in the name of Christ the King. He does not preach repentance. He does not remind the condemned that they must render an account of their lives before the tribunal of God. He does not speak of the sacraments, of confession, of the necessity of contrition and satisfaction for sin. He speaks the language of the United Nations, not the language of the Gospel.
This is the conciliar bishop: a humanitarian functionary who has abandoned the supernatural mission of the Church in order to make common cause with the world. As Pius XI warned in Quas Primas, “the secularism of our times, so-called laicism, its errors and wicked endeavors” have infected the very structures of the Church. The bishop of Adigrat does not call for the conversion of Saudi Arabia to the Catholic faith. He does not call for the recognition of Christ’s royal authority over the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. He calls for “dialogue” — the conciar magic word that means the abandonment of truth in exchange for worldly respectability.
Leo XIV and the Catechism of Bergoglio
The article quotes Leo XIV citing “paragraph 2267 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, in the ‘new edition’ approved by Pope Francis in 2018.” Let us note carefully: the 2018 edition. This is not the Catechism of the Catholic Church. This is the Catechism of the conciliar sect, revised by a manifest heretic to conform to his heretical opinions. As the Defense of Sedevacantism document establishes, “a manifest heretic cannot be Pope” — this is the teaching of St. Robert Bellarmine, of John of St. Thomas, of Pope Celestine I in his condemnation of Nestorius. Bergoglio was a manifest heretic. His revision of the Catechism is therefore null and void, as are all his acts.
Leo XIV’s citation of this document is not an act of continuity with Catholic tradition. It is an act of allegiance to the conciliar revolution. When he states that “the dignity of the person is not lost even after the commission of very serious crimes” and that “offenders always have the possibility of redemption,” he speaks truth — but only a partial truth, weaponized to destroy the whole truth. It is true that the sinner retains the dignity of a rational creature capable of redemption. It is false — heretical, in fact — to conclude from this that the lawful authority may not inflict the death penalty when justice demands it. The Church has always taught both truths simultaneously. The conciliar sect teaches only the first, thereby destroying the second.
The Silence That Condemns
The most damning aspect of this article is what it does not say. There is no mention of the supernatural destiny of the condemned. There is no mention of the necessity of confession, of absolution, of the last rites. There is no mention of the Church’s mission to save souls — not merely to preserve biological life. There is no mention of the reality of sin, of the obligation of the sinner to make satisfaction for his crimes, of the justice of God that will be exercised at the particular judgment.
The article treats the death penalty as though it were merely a political question — a matter of “human rights” and “international law.” But for the Catholic Church, the death penalty is a theological question. It concerns the nature of justice, the authority of the state as minister of God, the destiny of the human soul, and the kingship of Christ over all nations. By reducing the question to humanitarian sentiment, the conciliar sect reveals that it has abandoned the faith of the Apostles.
Pius IX, in the Syllabus of Errors (proposition 77), condemned the proposition that “in the present day it is no longer expedient that the Catholic religion should be held as the only religion of the State, to the exclusion of all other forms of worship.” The conciliar sect has gone further: it no longer even holds that the Catholic religion is the only true religion of the individual. It has become, in the words of St. Pius X, “a broad and liberal Protestantism” (Lamentabili, proposition 65). Its “mercy” is not the mercy of Christ, which demands repentance and satisfaction. It is the mercy of the world, which demands nothing and forgives everything — because it believes in nothing.
Conclusion: The Church Does Not Beg — She Commands
The Catholic Church, in her true form, does not “appeal” to international organizations. She does not “initiate dialogue” with the enemies of Christ. She teaches, governs, and commands. She tells rulers that they are ministers of God and that they will render an account of their stewardship at the judgment seat of Christ. She tells sinners that they must repent, confess, and make satisfaction for their sins — or face eternal damnation. She tells the faithful that justice and mercy are not opposed, but are two attributes of the one God, perfectly united in the sacrifice of Calvary.
The conciliar sect does none of this. It has become, as the False Fatima Apparitions document observes, a “tool to divert attention from modernism” — a humanitarian NGO that speaks the language of the world and has forgotten the language of God. Leo XIV’s condemnation of the death penalty is not an act of courage. It is an act of apostasy — the final surrender of the Church’s supernatural mission to the spirit of the age.
Let the faithful remember: the true Church does not change her doctrine to conform to the spirit of the times. She proclaims the truth of Christ the King — in season and out of season — and she works for the salvation of souls, not for the approval of the world. “If the world hate you, know ye that it hath hated me before you. If you had been of the world, the world would love its own: but because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you” (John 15:18-19).
Source:
Some 200 Ethiopians sentenced to death in Saudi Arabia (vaticannews.va)
Date: 12.05.2026