UK: public petitions government on death penalty

The issue of the death penalty is the subject of around 40 epetitions on the UK Government’s new website, and a call for reinstatement is being supported by at least one national newspaper. If petitions gain more than 100,000 signatures the topic could be debated in the House of Commons.

So far, however, the most signed e-petition on the subject is one introduced by Martin Shapland, calling for it not to be reinstated.

Mr Shapland writes:

A petition to call on the government to retain its position regards the abolition of the Death Penalty for all offences. That the British people note that only 58 nations currently use capital punishment, as opposed to 95 which have abolished it, further notes the un-retractable nature of such a sentence in incidents of miscarriages of Justice, further notes the death penalty does not reduce crime or act as a deterrent and in US states which practice capital punishment incidents of homicide are higher than US states which do not, further notes the higher cost of capital punishment compared to life imprisonment, believes that British Justice should not be in the same league as China, Iran, North Korea, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Libya and Syria which do practice capital punishment on a routine basis and that the death penalty is the ultimate denial of human rights and an affront to the values of British Justice.

Catholic Teaching on Capital Punishment

The Catechism of the Catholic Church, issued in September 1997, states that although the death penalty would be theoretically permissible in instances when it is "the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor," such instances are "practically non-existent" in today's world, given the resources available to governments for restraining criminals.

Since then, both Pope John Paul II and his successor, Pope Benedict XVI, have spoken out strongly against the death penalty.

In a 10 July 2009 statement welcoming Mexico's new ambassador to the Vatican, Pope Benedict congratulated the Mexican government for having formally repealed the nation's death penalty laws in 2005.

“It cannot be overemphasized that the right to life must be recognized in all its fullness,” the Pope said. He called upon governments to enact laws and public policies that “take into account the high value that a human being has at every moment of existence,” and added: “In this context, I joyfully welcome the initiative by which Mexico abolished the death penalty in 2005, and the recent measures adopted by some Mexican states to protect human life from its beginnings."

At his 13 September 2000 general audience in St Peter's Square, Pope John Paul II expressed the hope "that there no longer be recourse to capital punishment, given that states today have the means to efficaciously control crime, without definitively taking away an offender's possibility to redeem himself."

In his homily on 27 January 1999 in St Louis, Missouri, John Paul II termed the death penalty "both cruel and unnecessary," and went on to say: "The new evangelization calls for followers of Christ who are unconditionally pro-life: who will acclaim, celebrate and serve the Gospel of Life in every situation. A sign of hope is the increasing recognition that the dignity of human life must never be taken away, even in the case of someone who has done great evil. Modern society has the means of protecting itself, without definitively denying criminals the chance to reform."

In a message to a 29 September 2008 conference in Rome, Cardinal Renato Martino, president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, termed the death penalty "contrary to the great Christian values which sustain the universal rights of man," and said he looked forward to the day when the practice is "definitively eliminated."

In a 25 May, 2009 address, Cardinal Martino stated: "We should reach the point in which the death penalty is abolished throughout the entire world, because it is a sign of incivility, as one crime cannot be punished with another crime."

In a 28 March 2008 interview with the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, Cardinal Martino noted that Pope Benedict XVI has publicly expressed his opposition to the death penalty on several occasions. "The death penalty does not fit into the concept of justice," the cardinal said, "because the defense of life - which goes from conception to natural death - is preferred in every way by the Holy See."

In a declaration to the first World Congress on the Death Penalty held on June 21-23, 2001 in Strasbourg, France, the Vatican described the death penalty as "a sign of desperation," and said it pursued the abolition of capital punishment as "an integral part of the defense of human life at every stage of its development.... The universal abolition of the death penalty would be a courageous reaffirmation of the belief that humankind can be successful in dealing with criminality and of our refusal to succumb to despair before such forces, and as such it would regenerate new hope in our very humanity."

In a 20 June 2001 address to members of the organization Priests for Life, the then- Archbishop Martino, serving as the Holy See's ambassador to the United Nations, said: "Our voice must be heard not only in the fight against abortion, but in the fight against euthanasia and capital punishment as well. We can never condone the deliberate taking of human life created in love by God and redeemed in Jesus Christ."

In a 1992 newspaper interview, the Vatican's Cardinal Fiorenzo Angelini stated: "Among the individuals and groups against legalized abortion in the United States, there are some who support the continuation of capital punishment. This is an inconsistency and an unacceptable contradiction."

To sign the e-petition see: http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/1090

For more information go to the website of the US Catholic Bishops' Campaign to End the Use of the Death Penalty: www.usccb.org/deathpenalty.