Pope Leo has restated the Catholic Church's opposition to the death penalty, and the backlash from religious conservatives has been immediate.

• The argument: executions attack human dignity, and modern prisons can protect the public without closing off the chance for a guilty person to change.
• Critics, including Carl Benjamin, say this flatly contradicts the Bible, pointing to Genesis and Romans as passages where God sanctions capital punishment and gives governments the sword.
• The defense is that scripture teaches mercy and justice together, and that forgiving someone does not erase the consequences of what they did.
• The sharpest counterpunch centers on victims: critics ask why the dignity of the innocent people who were killed does not carry the same weight.

Outlook: Expect the fight to keep running inside conservative Catholic and Protestant circles, since it pits loyalty to the pope against a literal reading of scripture.