Pope Francis has declared the death penalty "inadmissible" in an update of Catholic believers' most important guide to Church teaching, the catechism, the Vatican said Thursday.
"The
Church teaches, in the light of the Gospel, that 'the death penalty is
inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the
person'," the new text states.
Francis
approved the change to the catechism, which covers a wide range of moral and
social issues, during a meeting in May with the head of the Congregation for
the Doctrine of the Faith, the Church's doctrinal watchdog.
The update
also says the Church will "work with determination" for the abolition
of the death penalty worldwide.
"Recourse
to the death penalty on the part of legitimate authority, following a fair
trial, was long considered an appropriate response to the gravity of certain
crimes and an acceptable, albeit extreme, means of safeguarding the common
good," the new text says.
"Today,
however, there is an increasing awareness that the dignity of the person is not
lost even after the commission of very serious crimes."
The
Catholic Church has steadily hardened its opposition to capital punishment in
recent decades, with Francis's calls for its abolition echoing similar pleas
from his predecessors Benedict XVI and John Paul II.
The 1992
text of the catechism says authorities should take appropriate measures in the
interest of the common good without excluding the use of the death penalty in
extremely grave cases.
'Inhuman
remedy'
More recent
updates said factors justifying capital punishment have become rare if not
practically inexistent.
Francis has
long opposed the death penalty, saying that the execution of a human being is
fundamentally against the teachings of Christ because, by definition, it
excludes the possibility of redemption.
Speaking in
October last year, he acknowledged that the Vatican itself had historically had
"recourse to the extreme and inhuman remedy" of judicial execution,
but said past doctrinal errors should be put aside.
"It
doesn't give justice to victims, but it feeds vengeance," he said in June
2016, arguing that the biblical commandment "thou shall not kill"
applies to the innocent as well as the guilty.
Francis has
also called for an "international consensus" on the abolition of
capital punishment.
"Modern
society has the ability to punish crimes effectively without definitively
taking away the possibility of redemption for those who commit them," he
said.
More than
two-thirds of the world's countries -- including most predominantly Catholic
countries -- have abolished or suspended judicial killings.
Francis has
long opposed capital punishment, saying in June 2016 that "it doesn't give
justice to victims, but it feeds vengeance" and arguing that the biblical
commandment "thou shall not kill" applies equally to the innocent and
the guilty
More than
two-thirds of the world's countrys have abolished or suspended judicial
killings. The United States is the most developed country where it is still
used. Shown here in a Texas museum is "Old Sparky", the electric
chair discontinued in 1965.
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