Pope: Death penalty fuels “poison” of revenge in society

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – The death penalty promotes a deadly attitude of revenge and denies the possibility of change in the lives of those imprisoned, Pope Francis said.

“The death penalty is in no way the solution to the violence that can affect innocent people,” the Pope wrote in the foreword to a new book on prison ministry.

Death sentences “far from bringing justice, they fuel a sense of revenge that becomes a dangerous poison for the body of our civil societies,” the Pope wrote. And instead of continuing the vicious cycle of violence, governments should focus on “giving prisoners the opportunity to truly change their lives, rather than investing money and resources in their execution as if they were human beings no longer worthy of life and who must be eliminated.”

The book, with a foreword by the Pope, is titled “A Christian on Death Row” and recounts the experiences of Dale Recinella, a Catholic prison chaplain and licensed attorney who, together with his wife, has been accompanying people on death row and in solitary confinement in Florida prisons since 1998. The book was published by the Vatican and is scheduled to go on sale on August 27.

Pope Francis called Recinella's work a “living and passionate testimony to God's school of infinite mercy” and said it was a “great gift to the Church and society in the United States.”

In light of the upcoming Holy Year of 2025, the Pope wrote, Catholics should “call together for the abolition of the death penalty.”

“As the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy taught us, we must never think that there could be a sin, a fault or an act of ours that would permanently separate us from the Lord. His heart has already been crucified for us,” he wrote. “And God can only forgive us.”

In 2018, the Pope formally amended the Catechism of the Catholic Church to clearly reject the death penalty. While the previous wording permitted the death penalty in extreme cases, the revised entry in the Catechism calls the death penalty “inadmissible” and states that the Church “works toward the determination to achieve its universal abolition.”

In his preface, Pope Francis said that God's infinite mercy towards every person “can also be scandalous,” and referred to the many criticisms and rejections Recinella faced for his prison service. “But is it not true that Jesus embraced a thief condemned to death?” the Pope asked.

“Even our worst sins do not affect our identity in God’s eyes: we remain his children, whom he loves, whom he protects, and whom he considers precious.”

Pope Francis explained that through a loving gaze, “like that of Christ on the cross,” imprisoned people “can find new meaning in their lives and even in their deaths.”