Saturday, October 14, 2017

Pope Francis calls for change to Catholic teaching on death penalty

From CNN-

Pope Francis said the death penalty was "inadmissable" and that official Catholic teaching should be changed to reflect that, comments with the potential to reshape the church's public stance on the controversial issue.

"It must be strongly stated that condemning a person to the death penalty is an inhumane measure," the Pope said Thursday. He was speaking at a Vatican conference celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, a guide to church teaching published under Pope John Paul II, who died in 2005.


The Catholic Church currently teaches that recourse to the death penalty is permitted but "the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity are very rare if not practically nonexistent."


Both John Paul II and Benedict XVI spoke out against the death penalty, but Francis is the first Pope to suggest changing official church teaching on the issue.



More here-


http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/12/world/pope-death-penalty/index.html

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