ROME: Pope Francis has changed Catholic Church teaching to fully reject the death penalty, the Vatican announced on Thursday, saying it would work to abolish capital punishment worldwide.
The change addresses several lines of the catechism, the compendium of Catholic teaching, but it sharply amplifies the church’s opposition against one of the world’s most debated policy practices.
The church’s updated teaching states that capital punishment is “inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person.”
Previously, the church teaching allowed for the death penalty in very rare cases, only as a means of “defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.”
Francis has been a vocal critic of the death penalty, and in October called the punishment an “inhuman measure” that “heavily wounds human dignity.”
Several dozen countries still carry out the death penalty, including the United States. According to Amnesty International, more than 20,000 people across the world are on death row.
In the United States, according to the Pew Research Service, public support for the death penalty has ticked up slightly since hitting a four-decade low in 2016, with 54 per cent approving of the punishment for those convicted of murder. The attitudes of Catholics mirror those of the nation, with 53 per cent favouring the death penalty.
