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Pope Francis changes Catholic Church teaching to say death penalty is inadmissible
Key Excerpts from Article on Website of Washington Post


Washington Post, August 2, 2018
Posted: August 6th, 2018
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/pope-francis-changes-ca...

Pope Francis has changed Catholic Church teaching to fully reject the death penalty, the Vatican announced Thursday, saying it would work to abolish capital punishment worldwide. The revision to several sentences of the catechism, the compendium of Catholic beliefs, has the potential to recast debates around the world on how to handle those accused of the most heinous crimes. The churchs updated teaching describes capital punishment as inadmissible and an attack on the dignity of the person. Previously, the church allowed for the death penalty in very rare cases, only as a means of defending human lives against the unjust aggressor. Francis has for years been a vocal critic of the death penalty, calling it an inhuman measure. The Argentine pontiff has pointed to the churchs stance on the death penalty as evidence of how the Vatican can evolve: The church for centuries permitted executions, but in 1997, John Paul II dramatically narrowed the standards for when the punishment was permissible. Franciss latest move places the issue toward the forefront of his own efforts to overhaul and modernize the Roman Catholic Churchs approach to social justice. The full political significance of the new teaching stands to emerge slowly, as priests and bishops speak more clearly about the death penalty to planets 1.2 billion Catholics. Because the practice has already been abolished in most countries with large Catholic populations ... the United States is among the places where the shift could have the greatest consequence.

Note: In 2014, a major study found that about 300 wrongfully-convicted people had been executed in the US between 1973 and 2004. from reliable major media sources. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing prison system corruption news articles from reliable major media sources.


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