Pope Francis Sep 11, 2017 Separation Families Not Prolife

Pope Francis speaks during his general audience in St. Peter'south Foursquare at the Vatican Oct. 11. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)

Pope Francis declared today that the decease penalization is "contrary to the Gospel." He said that "however grave the criminal offense that may be committed, the death penalty is inadmissible because information technology attacks the inviolability and the dignity of the person."

He did and so in a major talk on Oct. xi to an audition of cardinals, bishops, priests, nuns, catechists, and ambassadors from many countries on the 25th anniversary of the promulgation of the canon, affirming that at that place has been a development of doctrine in the church building and a change in the consciousness of the Christian people on the question of the death penalty. The pope's comments and the timing of them suggest that a revision of the Canon of the Cosmic Church may exist forthcoming to reflect this new evolution in the church building's understanding.

"I has to strongly affirm that condemnation to the expiry penalty is an inhuman measure that humiliates personal nobility, in any form it is carried out. And [it] is, of itself, opposite to the Gospel, because it is freely decided to suppress a human life that is always sacred in the optics of the Creator, and of which, in the final analysis, God lonely is the truthful judge and guarantor," Pope Francis said.

"One has to strongly assert that condemnation to the expiry penalty is an inhuman measure that humiliates personal dignity, in any form information technology is carried out."

Reiterating an observation in his Alphabetic character to the President of the International Commission against the Death Penalty, March 20, 2015, Francis said that "No homo ever, not even the murderer, loses his personal dignity, because God is a Father who always awaits the return of the son who, knowing that he has washed wrong, asks pardon and begins a new life." For this reason, he said, "life cannot be taken away from anyone" and there must ever exist "the possibility of a moral and existential redemption that will exist to the favor of the community."

His statement is sure to be welcomed by bishops' conferences and the overwhelming bulk of the Christian faithful around the world, many of whom take long called for the church building to have this stance. His predecessors accept been slowly moving towards the position taken today by Francis. Every pope since St. John XXIII has appealed to governments worldwide on behalf of persons condemned to death, asking for charity.

When St. John Paul II published the catechism in 1992 it still admitted the use of the death penalty (No. 2266). But strong reaction from bishops and the faithful in many countries led him to revise the text in 1997, with the help of so-Central Joseph Ratzinger. The revised text (No. 2267), however, however did not exclude the death penalty on moral grounds as Pope Francis did today; information technology said that given the possibilities the modern state has of rendering the criminal incapable of doing damage once more, and so "the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity 'are very rare, if non practically not-existent.'"

When St. John Paul Two published the canon in 1992 it still admitted the use of the death penalization.

Several times since becoming pope, Francis has made clear his total opposition to the decease penalty, including in his oral communication to the U.S. Congress and to the United nations in September 2015. Merely today he took a much greater step than any of his predecessors by declaring publicly on a solemn occasion, direct related to the Catechism of the Cosmic Church, that the capital punishment is "contrary to the Gospel" and "inadmissible," making articulate that the catechism must address the question in this more complete fashion.

The Jesuit pope began his talk by recalling that at the opening of the Second Vatican Council on Oct. 11, 1962, John XXIII said, "It is necessary kickoff of all that the church should never depart from the sacred patrimony of truth received from the Fathers. But at the same time, she must e'er await to the present, to the new conditions and new forms of life introduced into the modern world which have opened upward new avenues to the Catholic apostolate." Moreover, Pope John added, "our duty is non only to guard this treasure, as if we were concerned only with antiquity, simply to dedicate ourselves with an earnest will and without fright to that piece of work which our era demands of us, pursuing thus the path which the church has followed for 20 centuries."

Drawing on this, Francis said the church's "task and mission" is "to announce in a new and more than complete manner the everlasting Gospel to our contemporaries" with "the joy that comes from Christian hope, fortified past the medicine of mercy."

He recalled, too, that John Paul Two, in his presentation of the catechism 25 years ago, said "it should take into account the doctrinal statements which down the centuries the Holy Spirit has intimated to his Church" and "it should also aid to illumine with the light of faith the new situations and bug which had not yet emerged in the past."

He described the catechism every bit "an important instrument" for presenting and helping the faithful empathise ameliorate the faith and for coming close to our contemporaries by presenting the faith every bit "a meaning response for man being in this particular historical moment."

In a highly meaning argument, Pope Francis emphasized that "information technology's not sufficient to observe a new language to announce the faith of always; information technology is necessary and urgent that, faced with the new challenges and new horizons that are opening for humanity, the church can express the new things of the Gospel of Christ that, while enclosed in the Word of God, have not yet come to light."

He sought to contextualize the Catechism in the life of the church by explaining that "to know God" is not first and foremost "a theoretical exercise of human reasoning but an unquenchable desire impressed in the heart of every person. It's the cognition that comes from dear, considering nosotros have met the Son of God on our path. The canon is to be seen in this light of dear, as an feel of cognition, trust and abandonment to the mystery."

The "should find a more acceptable and coherent space in the Catechism of the Catholic C hurch."

In this context, he turned to the question of the capital punishment, which he said, "should detect a more than acceptable and coherent space in the Catechism of the Catholic C hurch."

Speaking of the way the church's teaching on the death penalty in presented, Francis alleged that "this trouble cannot exist merely reduced to a mere memory of historical didactics without bringing to the fore not only the progress in the teaching past the work of the last pontiffs but too the changed awareness consciousness of the Christian people, that rejects an attitude which consents to a penalisation that heavily harms human being dignity."

Aware that some will question this radical change in the light of what happened in the Papal States and church in the past, Francis explained that "in by centuries, when faced with a poverty of instruments of defense and social maturity had not all the same reached a positive development, recourse to the death sentence appeared as the logical issue of the application of justice which had to be adhered to."

"Sadly, too," he said, "also in the Papal State in that location was recourse to the farthermost and inhuman remedy, ignoring the primacy of mercy over justice." Speaking as the Successor of St. Peter, he said, "Nosotros assume responsibility for the past, and we recognize that those ways were dictated more past a legalistic than a Christian mentality. The concern to fully preserve the powers and the cloth riches led to an overestimation of the value of the constabulary, preventing a going in depth into the understanding of the Gospel."

Turning to the present time, Francis said, "Today, notwithstanding, to remain neutral [on this question] in the face of new demands for the reaffirmation of personal nobility, would render usa guiltier."

Clearly anticipating objections of a theological nature from some quarters, Francis explained, "Here we are not in the presence of whatever contradiction with past teaching, because the nobility of human life from the beginning instant of formulation to natural death has always found in the church its coherent and authoritative voice." Indeed, he said, "the harmonious evolution of doctrine requires putting aside positions in defense of arguments that already appear decidedly against the new understanding of Christian truth."

In this light, he declared, "It is necessary therefore to restate that, however grave the crime that may exist committed, the capital punishment is inadmissible because it attacks the inviolability and the nobility of the person."

Pope Francis ended by saying: "Tradition is a living reality and only a partial vision tin can call back of 'the eolith of faith' every bit something static. The Word of God cannot exist conserved in mothballs as if it were an quondam blanket to be preserved from parasites. No. The Word of God is a dynamic reality, always alive, that progresses and grows considering it tends towards a fulfillment that men cannot stop."

This "constabulary of progress," he said, "appertains to the peculiar condition of the truth revealed in its existence transmitted by the church, and does not at all signify a change of doctrine. One cannot conserve the doctrine without making it progress, nor can 1 demark it to a rigid and immutable reading without humiliating the Holy Spirit."

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Source: https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2017/10/11/pope-francis-death-penalty-contrary-gospel

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