"Resorting to death penalty is not just a refusal of the right to life, but also an offence for human dignity, shared by all mankind". It was repeated by the Holy See in a statement published today by the Vatican newsroom at the World Congress on Death Penalty that took place in Paris from 1st to 3rd February. As it reasserted its "support to all the initiatives that aim at defending the inherent value and the inviolability of every human life, from conception to its natural death", the Holy See recalls that there are "non-lethal methods of prevention and punishment" that "better fulfil the real conditions of the common good and that are more in agreement with the dignity of the human being", as the Catechism of the Catholic Church says. Hence the persisting topicality of the appeal, made by John Paul II on the occasion of the Jubilee 2000, for "a moratorium on death penalty". (to be continued)
