Geneva, Switzerland, Mar 7, 2017 / 16:17 pm
The Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the United Nations reiterated the Vatican's defense of all human life in a meeting with UN Human Rights Council on the death penalty.
"My Delegation reaffirms that life is sacred 'from conception to natural death,' and recalls the words Pope Francis, that 'even a criminal has the inviolable right to life,'" said Archbishop Ivan Jurkovic last Wednesday.
He cited the words of Pope Francis: "For a constitutional state the death penalty represents a failure, because it obliges a State to kill in the name of justice. But justice is never reached by killing a human being."
The archbishop also expressed concern for possible failures in human justice which may bring about the death of the wrong person.