(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis on Thursday called on all men and women of good will to fight for the abolishment of the death penalty in “all of its forms” and for the improvement of prison conditions.
The Pope was addressing a group of members of the International Association of Criminal Law whom he received in the Vatican.
In his discourse the Pope also addressed the need to combat the phenomena of human trafficking and of corruption.
And he stressed that the fact that the enforcement of legal penalties must always respect human dignity.
In a dense and impassioned discourse to the Jurists assembled in the Vatican for a private audience, Pope Francis said that the “life sentence” is really a “concealed death sentence”, and that is why – he explained – he had it annulled in the Vatican Penal Code.
Many of the off-the-cuff comments during the Pope’s speech shone the light on how politics and media all too often act as triggers enflaming “violence and private and public acts of vengeance” that are always in search of a scape-goat.
Recalling the words of Saint John Paul II who condemned the death penalty as does the Catechism, Francis decried the practice and denounced “so-called extrajudicial or extralegal executions” calling them “deliberate homicides” committed by public officials behind the screen of the Law:
“All Christians and people of goodwill are called today to fight not only for the abolition of the death penalty be it legal or illegal, in all of its forms, but also for the improvement of prison conditions in the respect of the human dignity of those who have been deprived of freedom. I link this to the death sentence. In the Penal Code of the Vatican, the sanction of life sentence is no more. A life sentence is a death sentence which is concealed”.
And Pope Francis had words of harsh criticism for all forms of criminality which undermine human dignity, there are forms of his – he said – even within the criminal law system which too often does not respect that dignity when criminal law is applied.
“In the last decades” – the Pope said – “there has been a growing conviction that through public punishment it is possible to solve different and disparate social problems, as if for different diseases one could prescribe the same medicine.”
He said this conviction has pushed the criminal law system beyond its sanctioning boundaries, and into the “realm of freedom and the rights of persons” without real effectiveness.
“There is the risk of losing sight of the proportionality of penalties that historically reflect the scale of values upheld by the State. The very conception of criminal law and the enforcement of sanctions as an ‘ultima ratio’ in the cases of serious offenses against individual and collective interests have weakened. As has the debate regarding the use of alternative penal sanctions to be used instead of imprisonment”.
Pope Francis speaks of remand or detention of a suspect as a “contemporary form of illicit hidden punishment” concealed by a “patina of legality”, as it enforces “an anticipation of punishment” upon a suspect who has not been convicted. From this – the Pope points out – derives the risk of multiplying the number of detainees still awaiting trial, who are thus convicted without benefiting from the protective rules of a trial. In some countries – he says – this happens in some 50% of all cases with the trickledown effect of terribly overcrowded detention centers:
“The deplorable conditions of detention that take place in different parts of the world are an authentic inhuman and degrading trait, often caused by deficiencies of criminal law, or by a lack of infrastructures and good planning. In many cases they are the result of an arbitrary and merciless exercise of power over persons who have been deprived of freedom.”
Pope Francis also speaks of what he calls “cruel, inhuman and degrading punishments and sanctions,” and compares detention in maximum-security prisons to a “form of torture”. The isolation imposed in these places – he says – causes “mental and physical” suffering that result in an “increased tendency towards suicide”. Torture – the Pope points out – is used not only as a means to obtain “confession or information”:
“It is an authentic ‘surplus’ of pain that is added to the woes of detention. In this way torture is used not only in illegal centers of detention or in modern concentration camps, but also in prisons, in rehabilitation centers for minors, in psychiatric hospitals, in police stations and in other institutions for detention or punishment”.
And Pope Francis said children must be spared the harshness of imprisonment – as must, at least in a limited way – older people, sick people, pregnant women, disabled people as well as parents if they are the sole guardians of minors or persons with disabilities.
The Pope also highlighted one of the criminal phenomena he has always spoken out against vehemently: human trafficking which – he says – is the result of that “cycle of dire poverty” that traps “a billion people” and forces at least 45 million to flee from conflict:
“Based on the fact that it is impossible to commit such a complex crime as is the trafficking of persons without the complicity, be it active or of omission of action of the State, it is evident that, when the efforts to prevent and combat this phenomenon are not sufficient, we find ourselves before a crime against humanity. This is even truer if those who are responsible for the protection of persons and the safeguard of their freedom become an accomplice of those who trade in human beings; in those cases the State is responsible before its citizens and before the international community”.
Pope Francis dedicates an ample part of his discourse to corruption. The corrupt person – according to the Pope – is a person who takes the “short-cuts of opportunism” that lead him to think of himself as a “winner” who insults and persecutes whoever contradicts him. “Corruption” – the Pope says “is a greater evil than sin”, and more than “be forgiven, must be cured”.
“The criminal sanction is selective. It is like a net that captures only the small fish leaving the big fish to swim free in the ocean. The forms of corruption that must be persecuted with greatest severity are those that cause grave social damage, both in economic and social questions – for example grave fraud against public administration or the dishonest use of administration”.
Concluding, Pope Francis exhorted the jurists to use the criteria of “cautiousness” in the enforcement of criminal sanctions. This – he affirmed – must be the principle that upholds criminal law:
“The respect for human dignity must operate not only to limit the arbitrariness and the excesses of State officials, but as a criteria of orientation for the persecution and the repression of those behaviors that represent grave attacks against the dignity and the integrity of the human person”.
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) The Vatican on Thursday announced a significant reorganisation of the principle monastery of the Benedictine Order, located at Montecassino in Italy’s southern Campania region. A large part of the land, including 53 parishes with 37 priests and 50 women religious, which have been under the jurisdiction of the Abbey will be transferred to the local diocese of Sora-Cassino-Aquino-Pontecorvo. At the same time Pope Francis also appointed Abbot Donato Ogliari, O.S.B., as the new abbot of Montecassino.
A note issued by the Holy See Press Office said that since the Second Vatican Council the Church has been in the process of consolidating the role of abbots as fathers of the their religious communities, rather than Ordinaries who have to care for all the pastoral activities of their ecclesiastical territories.
The note says that in his 1976 Motu proprio “Catholica Ecclesia,” Pope Paul VI followed up on the suggestions of the bishops at the Second Vatican Council that no more territorial Abbeys should be established and that the existing ones should be either “more suitably defined” in terms of their territory or transformed into other ecclesiastical territories. The objective, the note says, was to encourage a more specific identity and legal definition which corresponded to the life of the monastic community, while at the same time ensuring that those living under the territorial Abbeys could enjoy the kind of pastoral care they needed in the modern world.
In order to promote this objective, in accordance with the agreements signed with the Italian State and in order to respect the great historic and cultural heritage of these territorial Abbeys, it was agreed that existing Abbeys in Italy would not be closed down, but would rather be limited to the area directly connected to the monastic community, namely the hermitage and related buildings.
Finally the note says that after lengthy reflection and careful consultation, the Holy See has decided that the time has come to bring Montecassino Abbey in line with “Catholica Ecclesia”, following on from a similar process at Subiaco Abbey in 2002, at Montevergine Abbey in 2005 and at Cava de’Tirreni Abbey in 2013. Montecassion Abbey will continue to be an ecclesiastical territory on a par with a diocese, although its territory has been significantly reduced.
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) The Vatican on Thursday announced a significant reorganisation of the principle monastery of the Benedictine Order, located at Montecassino in Italy’s southern Campania region. A large part of the land, including 53 parishes with 37 priests and 50 women religious, which have been under the jurisdiction of the Abbey will be transferred to…
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(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis received the Prime Minister of Grenada, Keith Mitchell, Thursday morning in the Vatican. Mr. Mitchell subsequently met with Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin, accompanied by Archbishop Dominique Mamberti, secretary for Relations with States.
A communiqué issued by the Holy See Press Office stated that “In the course of the cordial conversations, the parties focused on the good relations existing between the Holy See and Grenada, as well as the important contribution made by the Catholic Church in the educational, social, and charitable spheres, to meet the challenges of the country, especially with regard to youth. In this regard, the need for cooperation between all of the social services, in order to promote the common good and the development of the country, was affirmed”.
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) “We cannot be Christians without the grace of the Holy Spirit” who gives us the strength to love, said Pope Francis at Mass Thursday morning at Santa Marta.
Emer McCarthy reports:
Pope Francis centered his homily on St. Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians in which the Apostle describes his experience of Jesus, an experience “that led him to leave everything behind” because “he was in love with Christ.” His is an “act of adoration”: firstly, he bends his knees before the Father, who “has the power to do much more than we can ever think or ask “. He uses a “limitless language”: He adores this God, “who is like a sea without beaches, without limitations, an immense ocean”. Paul asks the Father for all of us, “to be powerfully strengthened in our inner selves, through his Spirit”.
“He asks the Father to send the Spirit to strengthen us, to give us strength. We cannot go forward without the power of the Spirit. Our own forces are weak. We cannot be Christians without the grace of the Spirit. It’s the Spirit that changes hearts, that keeps us moving forward in virtue, to fulfill the commandments “.
“He then, asks another grace from the Father”, “the presence of Christ, to help us grow in charity”. Christ’s love “which surpasses all knowledge”, can only be understood through “an act of adoration of such great immenseness”.
“This is a mystical experience of Paul and it teaches us the prayer of praise and the prayer of adoration. Before our pettiness, our many, selfish interests, Paul bursts out in praise, in this act of worship and asks the Father to send us the Holy Spirit to give us strength and to be able to move forward; he helps us understand the love of Christ and that Christ consolidates us in love. And he says to the Father: ‘Thank you, because You are able to do what we do not dare to think’. It is a beautiful prayer … It is a beautiful prayer”.
Pope Francis concluded his homily: “And with this inner life we can understand how Paul gave up everything and considered it all rubbish, in order to gain Christ and be found in Christ. It does us good to think of this, it does us good to worship God. It does us good to praise God, to enter this world of amplitude, of grandeur, generosity and love. It does us good, because then we can move forward in the great commandment – the only commandment, which is the basis of all others – love; love God and love your neighbor “.
(from Vatican Radio)…