Joe.My.God. LGBT News
From the far-right Catholic site LifeSiteNews:
Pope Francis has called for Catholics to pray for an end to the death penalty, saying that “in the light of the Gospel, the death penalty is unacceptable,” despite the Catholic Church’s nearly 2,000-year teaching, tradition, and contents of Sacred Scripture all upholding the legitimacy of the death penalty.
It is even against the words of Scripture, for in the book of Genesis capital punishment is permitted precisely because murder violates man’s dignity as being made in the image of God: “whosever shall shed man’s blood, his blood shall be shed: for man was made to the image of God.” (Gen 9:6)
“Let us pray that the death penalty, which attacks the dignity of the human person, may be legally abolished in every country,” stated Pope Francis, in his September video released as part of the “Pope Video” project, which has a new video and prayer intention every month.
Catholic News Service reports:
“Capital punishment offers no justice to victims, but rather encourages revenge. And it prevents any possibility of undoing a possible miscarriage of justice,” he said. “From a legal point of view, it is not necessary,” the pope added.
At the start of each month, the network posts a short video of the pope offering his specific prayer intention. For the month of September, the pope dedicated his prayer intention for the abolition of the death penalty.
In his video message, the pope said the death penalty was unnecessary because society “can effectively repress crime” without denying those who offend “the possibility of redeeming themselves.”