“Today the death penalty is inadmissible, no matter how serious the crime of the condemned. It is an offence against the inviolability of life and the dignity of the human person that contradicts God’s plan for man and society and His merciful justice, and it impedes fulfilling the just end of the punishments. It does not do justice to the victims, but foments vengeance.”
As we enter Holy Week, it is appropriate to reflect on the above words written by Pope Francis in a letter to Federico Mayor, president of the International Commission against the Death Penalty, a letter in which he urged worldwide abolition. The Pope held an audience with a three-member delegation from the commission on March 20. He called capital punishment “cruel, inhumane and degrading”. He said, “the death penalty represents a failure” because it obliges the state to kill in the name of justice…Human justice is imperfect”. He added that the death penalty loses all legitimacy within penal systems where judicial error is possible.
As Zenit reports, the Pope has addressed this issue on various occasions, first by citing Scripture and the Church’s constant teaching regarding human dignity: “Human life is sacred because from its beginning, from the first instant of conception, it is fruit of the creative action of God (Cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, #2258), and from that moment, man, the only creature God loves for itself, is the object of personal love on the part of God (Cf. Gaudium et spes, 24).”
He has noted that states kill in various ways, both by action and omission: “By action when they apply the death penalty, when they take their peoples to war or when they carry out extra-judicial or summary executions. They can also kill by omission, when they do not guarantee to their peoples access to the essential means for life.”
“Life, especially human life, belongs to God alone,” the Pope continued. “Not even the murderer loses his personal dignity and God himself makes himself its guarantor. As St Ambrose teaches, God did not want to punish Cain for the murder, as He wants the repentance of the sinner, not his death (Cf. Evangelium vitae, 9).”
The Pope has also decried “debates about the way to kill, as if there were a way to ‘do it well’. There is no human way of killing another person.” He has also spoken out against sentences to life imprisonment, referring to them as “veiled death penalties”.
So when you go to a motivational seminar or read motivational books, you rationally question your beliefs and accept and reject rationally. generic levitra http://www.tonysplate.com/review_eatsmart_digital_nutrition_scale.php Increased cialis on line tonysplate.com blood circulation leads to improvement in sexual activity. This drug, if you can even call it that, and you will find out why in just a few minutes of intake, the generic viagra germany medicine gets higher and the people having the disease of erectile dysfunction. Hesperidine and natural viagra 20mg cipla tonysplate.com extracts from Vein Protex composition show a beneficial effect on blood circulation, preventing excess fat deposition and decreasing estrogen levels in females. I am the Chair of the Greater Caribbean for Life (GCL) and Pope Francis’ denunciation of the death penalty came four days after I presented a paper on the death penalty in the Greater Caribbean to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), along with GCL Deputy Chair Carmelo Campos-Cruz. We made the presentation at the Organisation of American States (OAS) headquarters in Washington, DC, United States at the 154th Session of the IACHR.
As I stated in a media release: “While GCL continues to campaign and work towards better responses to the needs of victims and their families, we believe that the death penalty does not make societies safer.”
GCL urged the IACHR to recommend that all OAS Member States:
- Sign and/or ratify the international and regional instruments which aim at the abolition of the death penalty.
- Strengthen the criminal justice systems in their countries by, among other actions, improving their law enforcement agencies, their detection and conviction rates, their forensic capabilities, and court facilities which may serve to improve efficiency and processing of cases.
- Provide accurate and ongoing information to the IACHR about the persons sentenced to death and their demographic characteristics.
- Build on the positive developments in the region and establish a moratorium on executions, with a view to abolishing capital punishment and commuting all death sentences to terms of imprisonment.
- Take appropriate action to address the root causes of crime, employ innovative and effective strategies to reduce crime, address the needs of the victims of crime, and find non-lethal means to protect society from offenders.
During our visit to Washington, we also met with officials of the IACHR, as well as with representatives of Permanent Missions to the OAS and abolitionist organisations.
