{"id":19896,"date":"2018-08-02T21:27:29","date_gmt":"2018-08-02T21:27:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/?p=19896"},"modified":"2018-08-02T21:32:18","modified_gmt":"2018-08-02T21:32:18","slug":"pope-francis-calls-for-abolition-of-death-penalty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/?p=19896","title":{"rendered":"POPE FRANCIS CALLS FOR ABOLITION OF DEATH PENALTY"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><code><script async src=\"\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js\"><\/script><br \/>\n<!-- www.newsroom247.com.ng --><br \/>\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\" style=\"display: block;\" data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-2163942495525027\" data-ad-slot=\"1411897411\" data-ad-format=\"auto\" data-full-width-responsive=\"true\"><\/ins><br \/>\n<script>\n(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\n<\/script><\/code><\/p>\n<div class=\"blah\">\n<div class=\"l-article__container__container\">\n<section id=\"article-section-0\" class=\"l-article__section s-cms-content\">\u00a0<\/section>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<section class=\"l-article__section s-cms-content\"><a href=\"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Sheriff-1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-19311\" src=\"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Sheriff-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"737\" height=\"210\" srcset=\"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Sheriff-1.jpg 1080w, http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Sheriff-1-300x86.jpg 300w, http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Sheriff-1-768x219.jpg 768w, http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Sheriff-1-1024x292.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 737px) 100vw, 737px\" \/><\/a><\/section>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<section id=\"article-section-0\" class=\"l-article__section s-cms-content\">Pope Francis has approved a change to the official teachings of the Catholic Church, calling for the worldwide abolition of the death penalty. The pope has frequently spoken out against the death penalty; in a speech in Rome last year, for example, Francis called the punishment \u201cinadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person.\u201dThe new change to the Catechism, which is the official body of the Church\u2019s teachings, formalizes that opposition based on \u201can increasing awareness that the dignity of the person is not lost, even after the commission of very serious crimes.\u201d<button class=\"ha-c-newsletter-promo__submit ha-c-btn ha-js-submit-btn\" type=\"submit\">Sign Up<\/button>In approving this change, Francis has sent a signal about his priorities\u2014and his posture toward change. The Church has underscored its opposition to the destruction of any kind of life, even when that means defying the state. And Francis is willing to alter Church teaching to make that clear.<\/p>\n<div class=\"c-ad c-ad--house ad-housepromo-m-wrapper\" data-template=\"hippo\/components\/ads\/article-house-mobile.html\" data-pos=\"housepromo-m\"><\/div>\n<p>The Church has not always been a clear opponent of the death penalty. As Francis pointed out in his 2017 address, past popes presided over executions when they governed the Papal States, the territory in present-day Italy that was controlled by the Church until the late-19th century. Some of these killings were particularly gruesome: When Pope Clement VIII declared Giordano Bruno a heretic in 1600, the philosopher was\u00a0tied to a stake, burned alive, and dumped in the Tiber.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"l-rail l-rail--right l-rail--1\" role=\"complementary\">\n<div class=\"u-dynamic-content js-dynamic-content is-rendered lazyloaded\" data-include=\"\/api\/2.0\/articles\/566648\/related-articles\/?page_size=4 module:theatlantic:js\/components\/recirc-content\" data-insert=\"false\" data-section=\"side\" data-source=\"curated\" data-title=\"More Stories\" data-currentinclude=\"\"><\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"blah\">\n<div class=\"l-article__container__container\">\n<section id=\"article-section-1\" class=\"l-article__section s-cms-content\">Francis rebuked his predecessors: \u201cLet us take responsibility for the past and recognize that the imposition of the death penalty was dictated by a mentality more legalistic than Christian.\u201dIn recent years, however, the Church has been steadily moving toward a rejection of the practice. In 1995, Pope John Paul II welcomed efforts to oppose the death penalty in his encyclical\u00a0<em>Evangelium Vitae,\u00a0<\/em>affirming that \u201cmodern society in fact has the means of effectively suppressing crime \u2026 without definitively denying [criminals] the chance to reform.\u201d Some local groups of bishops have prioritized this issue: The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, for example, has frequently urged legislatures and governors to reject the procedure and put this issue at the center of its advocacy efforts.<code><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.alternativeadvert.com\/show.php?z=30&amp;pl=16800&amp;ad_type=62&amp;rl=180\" width=\"728\" height=\"90\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/code>But the Church never quite declared its full opposition to the death penalty. John Paul II wrote that cases in which the death penalty is an \u201cabsolute necessity\u201d are \u201cvery rare, if not practically non-existent,\u201d but allowed for those exceptions. Until this week, the Catechism had taught that \u201ctraditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty\u201d if it\u2019s the only way to protect human lives.<\/p>\n<p>Now Francis has moved to make the Church\u2019s position on the death penalty absolute. \u201cThe death penalty is an inhumane measure that, regardless of how it is carried out, abases human dignity,\u201d he said last fall. He called for an official change to the Catechism, which was formalized this week.<\/p>\n<p>For all of Francis\u2019s moral resolution, changing Church teachings is a big step, and can be controversial. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican body that oversees Church teachings, justified the update based on \u201cnew\u201d context: \u201cincreasing awareness\u201d of the dignity of human beings, a \u201cnew understanding\u201d of the consequences of state punishment, and the development of \u201cmore effective systems of detention\u201d that still allow for the \u201cpossibility of redemption.\u201d Because of this, the Church has concluded that the death penalty is \u201cinadmissible.\u201d The Church\u2019s new position doesn\u2019t actually contradict past teachings, they claimed; the context is what has changed.<\/p>\n<p>In general, this posture toward change has been one of Francis\u2019s legacies: He believes Church teachings should be updated to reflect contemporary moral understandings. As he said in his 2017 address on the death penalty, \u201cThe word of God cannot be mothballed like some old blanket in an attempt to keep insects at bay!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This is a controversial position within an institution that has often declared itself a bulwark against the moral relativism of modern times. Even when Francis has clearly desired to change Church teachings on various subjects, he has framed these changes as continuous with past teachings, and has had to\u00a0navigate dramatic internal Church politics along the way.<\/p>\n<p>The new Catholic teaching on the death penalty underscores the Church\u2019s commitment to the preservation of life. But it\u2019s also a case study in how the Church can choose to change to meet the moral demands of modern times.(www.theatlantic.com)<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js\"><\/script><br \/>\n<!-- www.newsroom247.com.ng --><br \/>\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\" style=\"display: block;\" data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-2163942495525027\" data-ad-slot=\"1411897411\" data-ad-format=\"auto\" data-full-width-responsive=\"true\"><\/ins><br \/>\n<script>\n(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\n<\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0 &nbsp; &nbsp; Pope Francis has approved a change to the official teachings of the Catholic Church, calling for the worldwide abolition of the death penalty. The pope has frequently spoken out against the death penalty; in a speech in Rome last year, for example, Francis called the punishment \u201cinadmissible because it is an attack [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":19897,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[4,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national","category-society"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/POPE-FRANCIS.jpg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4oswh-5aU","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19896","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19896"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19896\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19899,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19896\/revisions\/19899"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19897"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}