Pope Francis declared that the death penalty is inadmissible in all cases, the Vatican announced Thursday, claiming it was “an attack on the inviolability and dignity of a person.”
Francis, who has spoken out against the death penalty in the past, added the change to the Catholic Catechism, marking a major shift in Roman Catholic teachings on capital punishment, the New York Times reported.
Before the change, the catechism allowed the death penalty if it was “the only practicable way to defend the lives of human beings effectively against the aggressor.”
In the announcement, the spiritual leader of 1.2 billion Catholics worldwide said the church would work “with determination” to abolish the death penalty in all countries.
“There is an increasing awareness that the dignity of the person is not lost even after the commission of very serious crimes,” the new formal teaching acknowledges. “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.”
Fully abolishing the death penalty from Catholic teachings has been a top priority for Francis, and he even spoke on the matter before the U.S. Congress in 2015.
He told lawmakers that since the beginning of his ministry, he has been led to “advocate at different levels for the global abolition of the death penalty.”
