Voices united against capital punishment

Last month, Pope Francis invited the global Church to adopt his official prayer intention for an end to the death penalty. Notably, his appeal extended beyond a dimension of prayer alone — it specifically urged Catholics to take concrete action to “mobilize for the abolition of the death penalty throughout the world.” Globally speaking, capital punishment is falling out of favor among a majority of countries; 144 nations have outlawed the practice to date. Yet those that still retain the death penalty — states including China, Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and the United States — collectively execute thousands of their citizens each year, an egregious violation of human dignity. The United States is an outlier among these nations, applying the death penalty far more aggressively than its fellow democratic countries. In response to ...