DEATH PENALTY: HANDS OFF CAIN, ANOTHER EXTRAORDINARY STEP OF POPE FRANCIS

August 2, 2018:

On the reform of the New Catechism on the death penalty, the leaders of Hands Off Cain as well as members of the Radical Party Presidency, Sergio D'Elia, Elisabetta Zamparutti and Rita Bernardini, said:
"It is another very important step by Pope Francis towards the abolition of inhuman and degrading punishments for the affirmation without exception of human dignity. The complete cancellation of the reserve of legitimacy of the death penalty in the most serious cases, albeit rare, still present in the New Catechism, represents a further stage of the evangelical mission of this extraordinary Pontiff.
After the introduction of the crime of torture and the abolition of life imprisonment - a "masked death penalty", as Francis defined it - from the Vatican legal system, this new reform is just as important because it concerns a universal text that commits Catholics all over the world to endeavor to put an end to this and to similar anachronisms in human history, such as the death sentence and life sentence, the death penalty and the penalty until death".