Entries tagged with “Pope Francis”

Clemency

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Federal Death Penalty

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Dec 09, 2024

Religious Groups, Former Corrections Officials, Pro-life Voices, and Many Others Urge President Biden to Commute Federal Death Sentences

In let­ters released on December 9, 2024, hun­dreds of stake­hold­ers urged President Joe Biden (pic­tured) to com­mute all fed­er­al death sen­tences before his term ends, cit­ing racial bias, sys­temic arbi­trari­ness, and the fail­ure of the fed­er­al death penal­ty to enhance pub­lic safe­ty. This col­lec­tive request reflects broad, bipar­ti­san acknowl­edge­ment of the flaws in the cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment sys­tem and aligns with the nation­al down­ward trend of sup­port for the death penal­ty, now at his­toric lows. 40…

Facts & Research

Religion

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Jan 10, 2024

Catholic Organizers See ​“Renewed Momentum” for Death Penalty Abolition from Pope Francis’ Teachings

In 2018, Pope Francis for­mal­ly revised the Catechism of the Catholic Church — its core teach­ings — to oppose the death penal­ty. Characterizing cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment as ​“an attack on the invi­o­la­bil­i­ty and dig­ni­ty of the per­son,” he wrote that the Catholic Church ​“works with deter­mi­na­tion for its abo­li­tion world­wide.” This revi­sion updat­ed a 1997 Catechism edit by Pope John Paul II that per­mit­ted the death penal­ty in rare cas­es where it was deemed ​“the only pos­si­ble way of effec­tive­ly defending human…

Facts & Research

Religion

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Sep 08, 2022

News Brief: Pope Francis Calls for Prayer to Abolish the Death Penalty

Pope Francis has issued a renewed call to ​“all peo­ple of good will to mobi­lize for the abo­li­tion of the death penal­ty through­out the world,” devot­ing the September 2022 world­wide prayer inten­tion of his papa­cy to end­ing cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. In a video announc­ing his month­ly prayer inten­tion, the pon­tiff said, ​“Capital pun­ish­ment offers no jus­tice to vic­tims, but rather encour­ages revenge. And it pre­vents any pos­si­bil­i­ty of undo­ing a pos­si­ble miscarriage of…

Policy Issues

International

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Religion

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Oct 26, 2020

Orthodox Church Patriarch Calls Death Penalty Incompatible with Christian Beliefs

The leader of the world’s sec­ond largest Christian denom­i­na­tion has joined with the Roman Catholic Church in declar­ing the death penal­ty fun­da­men­tal­ly incom­pat­i­ble with Christian teach­ings. In an inter­view with Vatican News on October 20, 2020, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, the head of the Eastern Orthodox Church, called oppo­si­tion to the death penal­ty ​“the log­i­cal and moral con­se­quence” of adher­ence to Christian prin­ci­ples of human…

Facts & Research

Religion

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Aug 02, 2018

The 2018 Revised Catholic Catechism

On August 2, 2018, the Vatican announced that it had for­mal­ly changed the offi­cial Catechism of the Catholic Church on the death penal­ty, call­ing cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment ​“an attack on the invi­o­la­bil­i­ty and dig­ni­ty of the per­son” and deem­ing it ​“inad­mis­si­ble” in all…