Posted on 12/15/2024 3:34:56 PM PST by ebb tide
Issuing a message for the 2025 World Day of Peace, Pope Francis renewed calls for global peace, the tackling of climate change issues, and the “elimination” of the death penalty.
Entitled “Forgive us our trespasses: grant us your peace,” Francis’ message for the annual World Day of Peace – January 1, 2025 – focused on certain of his favored talking points, as well as a renewed call for global peace in the midst of rapidly escalating conflicts in many regions. Notably, in addition to the customary European language translations, the message was translated into Russian rather than Ukrainian this year, the opposite of the 2024 message.
First observed by Pope Paul VI in 1968, the World Day of Peace has been used by subsequent popes to highlight particular themes especially relating to areas pertaining to the Church’s social teaching and the various pressing issues of society at the time.
In his 2025 message, Francis called for three main actions to be taken: namely the elimination of foreign debt, the eradication of the death penalty, and the eradication of world hunger.
Framed in light of the 2025 Jubilee, which has a theme of “Hope does not disappoint,” Francis cited Pope John Paul II’s 1978 encyclical Sollicitudo Rei Socialis to denounce “structures of sin.” Such structures “arise not only from injustice on the part of some but are also consolidated and maintained by a network of complicity,” wrote Francis. “Cultural and structural changes are necessary, so that enduring change may come about” he opined.
READ: How to gain a plenary indulgence during the 2025 Jubilee year
Francis paid attention to the relationships between nations in terms of fostering peace and canceling debts, both financial and “ecological debt.”
“The international system, unless it is inspired by a spirit of solidarity and interdependence, gives rise to injustices, aggravated by corruption, which leave the poorer countries trapped,” he wrote.
The Pontiff focused on the issue of climate oriented issues by calling for wealthy nations to address the “ecological debt.”
“Each of us must feel in some way responsible for the devastation to which the earth, our common home, has been subjected, beginning with those actions that, albeit only indirectly, fuel the conflicts that presently plague our human family,” he wrote, adding:
I think, in particular, of all manner of disparities, the inhuman treatment meted out to migrants, environmental decay, the confusion willfully created by disinformation, the refusal to engage in any form of dialogue and the immense resources spent on the industry of war.
In asking for the reduction or complete cancelation of international debt, Francis stated that this takes on a new weight in light of “ecological debt” from rich nations to poorer ones.
“Foreign debt and ecological debt are two sides of the same coin,” said Francis, identifying it as “the mindset of exploitation that has culminated in the debt crisis.” “In the spirit of this Jubilee Year, I urge the international community to work towards forgiving foreign debt in recognition of the ecological debt existing between the North and the South of this world. This is an appeal for solidarity, but above all for justice.”
Commenting on the two kinds of debt highlighted by Francis, Cardinal Michael Czerny, S.J. – prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development – said that financial and ecological debt must be treated differently and as holding different moral characters. This, Czerny said, was due to the financial debt being more easily quantifiable than the ecological.
The Pontiff also recommended that nations assign money toward humanitarian and climate related issues rather than building up arms. He called for a “fixed percentage of the money earmarked for armaments” to be used in establishing “a global Fund to eradicate hunger and facilitate in the poorer countries educational activities aimed at promoting sustainable development and combating climate change.”
Francis also issued a call urging “a firm commitment to respect for the dignity of human life from conception to natural death, so that each person can cherish his or her own life and all may look with hope to a future of prosperity and happiness for themselves and for their children.”
To this end, he added a renewed call for the “elimination of the death penalty in all nations,” something which has become a regular theme in his pontificate. “This penalty not only compromises the inviolability of life but eliminates every human hope of forgiveness and rehabilitation,” he wrote.
Francis recently made an appeal for the commutation of execution for those on death row in America, and to highlight the import of this aspect of his message the executive director of an anti-death penalty advocacy group gave an intervention at the press conference launching the message. Krisanne Vaillancourt Murphy, of the Catholic Mobilizing Network which fights against the death penalty, stated during the press conference that “the death penalty’s very existence epitomizes a throwaway culture.”
Describing it as a “structural sin,” Murphy lamented how a majority of U.S. states permit the death penalty, and that capital punishment “leaves in its wake ripples of suffering in families, in communities, and in our social systems.”
Instead, Murphy stated that when “our hearts are oriented toward a spirit of forgiveness, abolition of the death penalty is a tangible expression of mercy that signals our personal and structural commitment to the pursuit of peace.”
Francis famously made groundbreaking changes to Pope John Paul II’s and Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger’s Catechism of the Catholic Church in 2018, declaring that the death penalty “is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person.”
Since then, he has often repeated his opposition to the death penalty, not by simply proposing his personal opposition to it, but by asserting that it is “unacceptable” in light of the Gospel.
While advocacy against the death penalty has grown in recent years, Catholic Tradition and Sacred Scripture has always attested the licit nature of the punishment as scholars – such as Edward Feser and Joseph Bessette, joint authors of By Man Shall His Blood Be Shed: A Catholic Defense of Capital Punishment – have extensively pointed out.
READ: Pope Francis contradicts Catholic teaching on the death penalty yet again
The death penalty finds Scriptural support, since in the book of Genesis capital punishment is permitted precisely because murder violates man’s dignity as being made in the image of God: “Whosever shall shed man’s blood, his blood shall be shed: for man was made to the image of God.” (Gen 9:6)
This teaching is further expounded upon by St. Thomas Aquinas, who drew from Scripture to teach that the common good is protected, and justice preserved, by observing the death penalty. (Summa Theologiae, 2a 2ae, q64, a2 & a3).
Avery Cardinal Dulles stated in 2004 that “the reversal of a doctrine as well established as the legitimacy of capital punishment would raise serious problems regarding the credibility of the Magisterium … [if] the previous teaching had been discarded, doubt would be cast on the current teaching as well.”
Indeed Francis’ change to teaching on the death penalty has already been cited by leading prelates wishing to alter Catholic teaching on LGBT and pro-life issues.
READ: Cdl. Müller says Pope Francis has the ability to change Church teaching on the death penalty
His actions have also been somewhat defended by Cardinal Gerhard Müller, former prefect of the Vatican’s doctrinal office, who said the death penalty was part of “natural ethics of the state” and thus could be changed.
But following Francis’ 2018 change to the Catechism on the death penalty, a group of clergy and lay scholars appealed to the college of cardinals, urging them to tell the Pope to teach the true Catholic doctrine on the matter. The signatories noted that, far from being a teaching which can change with the times, the death penalty is “a truth contained in the Word of God, and taught by the ordinary and universal Magisterium of the Catholic Church.”
Indeed Francis’ change to teaching on the death penalty has already been cited by leading prelates wishing to alter Catholic teaching on LGBT and pro-life issues.
Ping
Meanwhile, Catholic Charities is handing “unaccompanied children” over to child sex traffickers at the US border.
Frankie:
Don’t execute the guilty!
Murder the innocent!
Pope Francis is right. The Catholic Church is opposed to killing the unborn and it is opposed to killing the born. Jesus said “let he who is without sin cast the first stone”.
Frank, back to south America and continue your 4th reich work.
My guess is that Laken Riley’s family is Catholic, and there is a pope who has no sympathy
People need to STOP calling this obvious evil, “Pope”. Pope Benedict did not offer a valid resignation; Pope is not a “shared” position and as such, this evil was not validly elected. He was placed, much like so many of the world “leaders” now. Absolute Evil is currently squatting in the seat, defiling all that it touches. I’ll say it again, STOP calling this evil, “Pope”. The “But… but… but he’ IS the Pope” mentality only allows the evil to continue in the face of common sense. The answer is NO.
4 For he is God's minister to thee, for good. But if thou do that which is evil, fear: for he beareth not the sword in vain. For he is God's minister: an avenger to execute wrath upon him that doth evil. 5 Wherefore be subject of necessity, not only for wrath, but also for conscience' sake. Romans 13
God is the One who instituted the death penalty and it has everything to do with justice.
That unborn baby did nothing wrong.
The murderer took the life of his or her victim which denies them the very *human dignity* and a future of prosperity and happiness for themselves and their children.
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Francis also issued a call urging “a firm commitment to respect for the dignity of human life from conception to natural death, so that each person can cherish his or her own life and all may look with hope to a future of prosperity and happiness for themselves and for their children.”
To this end, he added a renewed call for the “elimination of the death penalty in all nations,” something which has become a regular theme in his pontificate. “This penalty not only compromises the inviolability of life but eliminates every human hope of forgiveness and rehabilitation,” he wrote.
Francis recently made an appeal for the commutation of execution for those on death row in America, and to highlight the import of this aspect of his message the executive director of an anti-death penalty advocacy group gave an intervention at the press conference launching the message. Krisanne Vaillancourt Murphy, of the Catholic Mobilizing Network which fights against the death penalty, stated during the press conference that “the death penalty’s very existence epitomizes a throwaway culture.”
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Coddling the criminal and ignoring the victims is injustice. It further victimizes people who have already suffered an injustice done to them.
Furthermore, the death penalty protects society as it’s the most sure method we have of preventing recidivism.
Describing it as a “structural sin,” Murphy lamented how a majority of U.S. states permit the death penalty, and that capital punishment “leaves in its wake ripples of suffering in families, in communities, and in our social systems.”
Take it up with the College of Cardinals then.
THEY’RE the ones who elected him and sent up the white smoke.
You can not like it all you want but you have no say in what they do. You just have to live with it.
The only time he seems able to keep his big mouth shut is when it comes to defending traditional Catholic doctrine.
This imposter is a mortal enemy of good, decent true Christians.
What we have here is an anti-Pope.
In the old days armies were created to capture and remove such heretics.
P.S. The armies did believe in the death penalty.
Oh, BS. If Jesus meant what you think, there would be no justice for any crime committed on this earth. 🙄
We are not judging sins, we are judging crimes.
To be against the death penalty is to be against justice.
Just like you had to live with Joe Biden and Obama.
“In his 2025 message, Francis called for three main actions to be taken: namely the elimination of foreign debt, the eradication of the death penalty, and the eradication of world hunger.”
He supports ecological extremists who want to eliminate meat production and ban the fossil fuels used to distribute food, but he wants to eradicate world hunger.
Go away, Frank.
Dontcha know the Reformers who were put to death by Rome would have wanted to hear this!
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