Pope Francis has changed church teaching concerning the death penalty:
"The church teaches, in the light of the Gospel, that the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person and she works with determination for its abolition worldwide," the new version of the text said, published on Thursday.
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Earlier, Amnesty International has published its research on the prevalence of use of the death penalty around the world throughout 2017 and noted encouraging signs that more countries are heading in the direction of abolishing the practice while still voicing concern over the number of state-sanctioned killings occurring every year.
To date, the death penalty has been eliminated in most of Europe and South America, though it is still used in the United States and some other countries.