Recently Attorney General William Barr directed the Trump Justice
Department to bring back the barbaric and ineffective death penalty,
and immediately schedule the first five federal executions in 16 years.
There are many reasons why Christians and churches across the
country oppose capital punishment: DNA testing proves hundreds of innocent
people have been sentenced to die. It is expensive. And the racial disparities
within the system are the very height of injustice. Above all, we know that it
is simply immoral. Christians are called to forgive, to embrace grace, and
quite clearly to follow the command, "You shall not kill."
Statement from Pope Francis.
“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.
Today, however, there is an
increasing awareness that the dignity of the person is not lost even after the
commission of very serious crimes. In addition, a new understanding has
emerged of the significance of penal sanctions imposed by the state.
Lastly, more effective systems of
detention have been developed, which ensure the due protection of citizens but,
at the same time, do not definitively deprive the guilty of the possibility of
redemption.
Consequently, 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”, and she works
with determination for its abolition worldwide”.
Address to Participants in the
Meeting organized by the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New
Evangelization, 11 October 2017: L’Osservatore Romano, 13 October
2017.
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