WHAT A DAZZLING POPE!

POPE FRANCIS  CONDEMNS THE DEATH PENALTY

This is the best news  that I have heard recently. In a world that seems to be suddenly devoid of  inspiring leadership, Pope FRANCIS presents an exceptional  model of leadership coupled with humility and simplicity.  I am so grateful to God that He sent such a leader to bring his Church back from the Brink.

This is not new--Francis spoke about his opposition to the death penalty when he visited the United States in 2015, saying in his address to the United States Congress that “every life is sacred, every human person is endowed with an inalienable dignity, and society can only benefit from the rehabilitation of those convicted of crimes.”

On that trip, he visited a Pennsylvania prison and met with a few inmates and their families. He also wrote a detailed letter that year to the International Commission against the Death Penalty, arguing that capital punishment “does not render justice to the victims, but rather fosters vengeance.”

In it, he made two arguments that specifically spoke to the American context: The death penalty is illegitimate because many convictions have later been found to be in error and have been overturned, and because executions of prisoners in some states have been badly botched.

 My opposition to the DEATH PENALTY has been since childhood and I believe has ethnic roots.

One of the glories of Early Celtic society was that it was ruled by a system of BREHON LAW. The society did not permit capital punishment---punishment  took the form of fines and payment that would be entailed on the entire clan of the wrong doer.  This created a sense of CLAN responsibility and also made each individual aware that anything that he did would reflect for good or bad on his Clan of origin.

The English occupation dismantled all these rules and  laws and instigated the barbaric  punishments that the English had  promoted, HANG, Drawn and Quartered., Beheadings, etc.

Also as a child  I was appalled by the details of  the Passion and suffering and  death of  Jesus--it was so  cruel.  Moreover, it always seemed  evident to me that a religion that had as it's central symbol the image of an innocent man being  publicly executed after torture and shaming and abuse-- that

such a religion  must be against capital punishment.

 SO  it shocked me when I  learned that the Church did not prohibit the execution of wrong doers. 

Taking their cue from the Barbaric practices of Imperial Rome, the Church joined the Circus of depravity and public slayings that were a feature at the Coliseum. 
What happened to the lessons that Jesus taught in the  moves he made to stop the stoning to death of a woman taken in adultery?
Let he who is without fault cast the first stone.

We are ,made in the IMAGE OF GOD and  although our crimes may besmirch that image, it cannot be eradicated.

IMAGO DEI