Pope calls for end to capital punishment

POPE FRANCIS has called for abolition of the death penalty as well as life imprisonment, which he called a “hidden” death sentence, writes Hannah Roberts. And he denounced what he called a “penal populism” that metes out retribution for victims instead of pursuing true justice.
The Pope told representatives from the International Association of Penal Law: “It is impossible to imagine that states today cannot make use of a means other than capital punishment to defend people’s lives from an unjust aggressor.”

According to the Catechism, the Pope said, “the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor”. But he said that modern advances mean that “cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity are very rare, if not practically non-existent”.

He added: “A sentence of life (without parole) is a hidden death penalty.”

The Vatican recently eliminated life imprisonment from its own penal code.