Loading...
Loading...
Click here if you don’t see subscription options
Man holds sign reading 'Death penalty is murder' outside trial of accused Boston Marathon bomber (CNS photo/Brian Snyder, Reuters)

The Catholic Church firmly opposes the death penalty and urges all states to move toward its abolition, said the Vatican’s permanent observer to United Nations agencies in Geneva. “My delegation contends that bloodless means of defending the common good and upholding justice are possible and calls on states to adapt their penal system to demonstrate their adhesion to a more humane form of punishment,” Archbishop Silvano Tomasi told the U.N. Human Rights Council on March 4. The archbishop said the Vatican “fully supports the efforts to abolish” the death penalty and suggested two steps to reach this goal. The first is to “sustain the social reforms that would enable society to implement the abolition of the death penalty, and the second is to improve prison conditions to ensure the human dignity of prisoners.” Archbishop Tomasi said the “steady improvements in the organization of the penal system” in most states make it “evident nowadays that means other than the death penalty” are sufficient to protect public safety against aggressors. In an unprecedented joint editorial on March 5, four national Catholic journals—America, The National Catholic Register, The National Catholic Reporter and Our Sunday Visitor—urged, “Capital punishment must end.”

Comments are automatically closed two weeks after an article's initial publication. See our comments policy for more.

The latest from america

A Reflection for the Memorial of St. Athanasius, Bishop and Doctor of the Church, by J.D. Long García
J.D. Long GarcíaApril 30, 2025
A Homily for the Third Sunday of Easter, by Terrance Klein
Terrance KleinApril 30, 2025
In a pre-conclave meeting, an Italian cardinal, and backer of Cardinal Parolin as next pope, attacked Pope Francis for opening positions of responsibility in the church to men and women not in holy orders.
Gerard O’ConnellApril 30, 2025
Michael B. Jordan, left, in “Sinners” (Warner Brothers)
As the film’s title promises, there is plenty of sin on display, even before the vampires arrive.
John DoughertyApril 30, 2025