Vatican City, Feb 27, 2019 / 17:07 pm
In a video message sent Wednesday to an international anti-death penalty group Pope Francis encouraged them in their work and deliberations.
"Human life is a gift that we have received, the most important and primary, the source of all other gifts and rights. As such it needs to be protected," Pope Francis said Feb. 27 to the seventh World Congress Against the Death Penalty, being held in Brussels.
"The death penalty is a serious violation of the right to life of every person. While it is certain that societies and human communities often face very grave delicts which threaten the common good and the security of persons, it is no less certain that today there are other means to expiate the harm caused, and detention systems are increasingly more effective in protecting society from the evil which some persons can occasion," the pope stated.
"On the other hand, there can never be abandoned the conviction of offering even to those culpable of crimes the possibility of repentance."