Vatican City, 12 March 2015 (VIS) –
Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, Holy See Permanent Observer at the United
Nations and other international organisations in Geneva gave an
address at the 28th Session of the Human Rights Council on 4 March,
regarding the issue of the death penalty.
Speaking in English, the nuncio said,
“The Delegation of the Holy See … joins an increasing number of
States in supporting the fifth U.N. General Assembly resolution
calling for a global moratorium on the use of the death penalty.
Public opinion in support of the various provisions aimed at
abolishing the death penalty, or suspending its application, is
growing. This provides a strong momentum which this delegation hopes
will encourage States still applying the death penalty to move in the
direction of its abolition”.
The archbishop explained that twenty
years ago, during the papacy of St. John Paul II, the position of the
Holy See was “framed within the proper ethical context of defending
the inviolable dignity of the human person and the role of the
legitimate authority to defend in a just manner the common good of
society”. He continued, “Considering the practical circumstances
found in most States, as a result of steady improvements in the
organisation of the penal system, it appears evident nowadays that
means other than the death penalty are sufficient to defend human
lives against an aggressor and to protect public order and the safety
of persons. For that reason, public authority must limit itself to
such means, because they better correspond to the concrete conditions
of the common good and are more in conformity with the dignity of the
human person”.
Benedict XVI affirmed in 2011 that “the
political and legislative initiatives promoted in a growing number of
countries to eliminate the death penalty and to continue the
substantive progress made in conforming penal law both to the human
dignity of prisoners and the effective maintenance of public order
are moving in the right direction. Pope Francis has further
emphasised that the legislative and judicial practice of the State
authority must always be guided by the primacy of human life and the
dignity of the human person”, noting also “the possibility of
judicial error and the use made by totalitarian and dictatorial
regimes … as a means of suppressing political dissidence or of
persecuting religious and cultural minorities”.
“Respect for the dignity of every
human person and the common good are the two pillars on which the
position of the Holy See has developed. These principles converge
with a similar development in international human rights law and
jurisprudence. Moreover, we should take into account that no clear
positive effect of deterrence results from the application of the
death penalty and that the irreversibility of this punishment does
not allow for eventual corrections in the case of wrongful
convictions”.
Therefore, the Holy See “contends
that bloodless means of defending the common good and upholding
justice are possible, and calls on States to adapt their penal system
to demonstrate their adhesion to a more humane form of punishment. As
for those countries that claim it is not yet feasible to relinquish
this practice, my delegation encourages them to strive to become
capable of doing so”.
In conclusion, the Holy See delegation
“fully supports the efforts to abolish the use of the death
penalty. In order to arrive at this desired goal, these steps need to
be taken: sustaining the social reforms that would enable society to
implement the abolition of the death penalty and improving prison
conditions, to ensure respect for the human dignity of people
deprived of their freedom”.
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