Issued by the Catholic Center for Studies and Media - Jordan. Editor-in-chief Fr. Rif'at Bader - موقع أبونا abouna.org

Published on Thursday, 12 October 2017
Pope Francis repeats call for end to death penalty

indcatholicnews.com :

The death penalty is contrary to the Gospel, however grave the crime, Pope Francis said last night, in his address participants attending a meeting celebrating the 25th Anniversary of the Promulgation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which was sponsored by the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization.

During his discourse, the Holy Father said the death penalty is a "subject that ought to find in the Catechism of the Catholic Church a more adequate and coherent treatment"…
Pope Francis went on to say that, "it must be clearly stated that the death penalty is an inhumane measure that, regardless of how it is carried out, abases human dignity."
The Holy Father has called for an end to capital punishments on several occasions before. On October 23 2014 in an address to the International Association on Penal Law , he said: "It is impossible to imagine that states today cannot make use of another means than capital punishment to defend peoples' lives from an unjust aggressor."

He cited the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which says that the death penalty can be used only if it is the "only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor," and that modern alternatives for protecting society mean that "cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity are very rare, if not practically nonexistent."

Pope Francis said: "All Christians and people of good will are thus called today to struggle not only for abolition of the death penalty, whether it be legal or illegal and in all its forms, but also to improve prison conditions, out of respect for the human dignity of persons deprived of their liberty."