Alabama's execution of a man by nitrogen gas is raising ethical questions about whether the practice is cruel and experimental. As other states consider the method, one Catholic advocacy leader called it "extremely troubling."
The latest news on active nonviolence: Group plans to help immigrants leave sanctuary safely; Catholic Mobilizing Network condemns execution; people of faith oppose natural gas compression station
The latest news on active nonviolence: Protectors support counterprotesters at "Unite the Right" rally; action follows catechism change on death penalty; vigils mark Hiroshima, Nagasaki anniversaries.
Distinctly Catholic: The key shift in doctrine was effected by Pope John Paul II, who saw the inviolable dignity of the human person as the cornerstone of Catholic social teaching.
On an American Bar Association panel, Chicago cardinal praises Pope Francis' decision, announced hours earlier, to revise church teaching to forbid the use of the death penalty.
With capital punishment called "inadmissible," activists see an end to "any remaining ambiguity about the Church's teaching against the death penalty" — and they hope for action.
Vatican City -- Building on the development of Catholic Church teaching against capital punishment, Pope Francis has ordered a revision of the Catechism of the Catholic Church to assert "the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person" and to commit the church to working toward its abolition worldwide.
The Catholic Mobilizing Network has urged the state of Nevada to spare the life of convicted murderer Scott Dozier, who was scheduled to be executed July 11 at the state prison in Ely, Nevada.
Encouraging an act of mercy and arguing it would not compromise justice, Nebraska's three Catholic bishops said July 6 they oppose the scheduled execution of death-row inmate Carey Dean Moore.