VATICAN CITY, April 24 (Reuters) – Pope Leo condemned capital punishment for a second day running on Friday, calling for its abolition \u200cin the United States just as President Donald Trump’s administration moved \u200cto broaden methods of execution for federal inmates.<\/p>\n
In a message sent to DePaul University in \u200bChicago to mark the 15th anniversary of the state of Illinois abolishing the death penalty, the pope said the Catholic Church taught that every human life was sacred from the moment of conception.<\/p>\n
“The right to life is the \u200cvery foundation of every other \u2060human right,” the pope said. “For this reason, only when a society safeguards the sanctity of human life will it \u2060flourish and prosper.”<\/p>\n
Leo said effective prison systems could protect citizens while preserving the possibility of redemption for people convicted of serious crimes.<\/p>\n
His comments come a day \u200bafter a \u200breporter had questioned him about news \u200bof waves of executions in \u200cIran. “I condemn all actions that are unjust. I condemn the taking of people’s lives. I condemn capital punishment,” he had replied.<\/p>\n
Earlier on Friday, the U.S. Justice Department said the government should expand the methods available for carrying out federal executions, citing difficulties in obtaining drugs for lethal injections.<\/p>\n
In a report, \u200cthe department said execution protocols should be \u200bmodified to include methods such as firing \u200bsquads, electrocution and gas asphyxiation, \u200balongside lethal injection.<\/p>\n
The move follows Trump’s pledge to resume capital \u200cpunishment. His predecessor, Joe Biden, had \u200bcommuted the sentences \u200bof 37 federal death row inmates, leaving three facing execution.<\/p>\n
Pope Leo, the first pontiff from the United States, has regularly rebuked the Trump \u200badministration over the past \u200cyear, criticising his administration’s clampdown on migrants and repeatedly denouncing \u200bthe U.S.-Israeli war on Iran.<\/p>\n
Trump in turn has called Leo “terrible”.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by \u200bCrispian Balmer; Editing by Daniel Wallis)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"VATICAN CITY, April 24 (Reuters) – Pope Leo condemned capital punishment for a second day running on Friday,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18446,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[9349,17,9346,9348,162,9350,9347,1996],"class_list":["post-18445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-administration","tag-canada","tag-capital-punishment","tag-depaul-university","tag-donald-trump","tag-executions-in-iran","tag-methods-of-execution","tag-pope-leo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18445"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18445\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}