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Pope, in book preface, lauds US chaplain, deplores death penalty

August 20, 2024

» Continue to this story on Vatican News

CWN Editor's Note: Pope Francis has written a preface to a book by Dale Recinella, a lay chaplain in Florida’s prisons.

The Pope lauded Recinella for his ministry to death row inmates: “his is an extremely difficult, risky, and arduous task, because it touches evil in all its dimensions: the evil committed against the victims, which cannot be undone; the evil the condemned person is living through, knowing they are destined for certain death; the evil that, through the practice of the death penalty, is instilled in society.”

The Pontiff also stated that the “death penalty is in no way a solution to the violence that can strike innocent people. Capital executions, far from bringing justice, fuel a sense of revenge that becomes a dangerous poison for the body of our civil societies.”

The book, Nel braccio della morte, was first published in Italian in 2012 and is a translation of Recinella’s Now I Walk on Death Row: A Wall Street Finance Lawyer Stumbles into the Arms of A Loving God (2011). The preface, dated July 18, was made public on August 18.

The above note supplements, highlights, or corrects details in the original source (link above). About CWN news coverage.

 


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