75 clergy and lay scholars published an appeal to the College of Cardinals on August 15, 2018 urging them to call on Pope Francis to withdraw his new teaching on the death penalty.
The appeal insists the Pope’s novel teaching contradicts Scripture and Tradition and casts doubt on the credibility of the magisterium.
The Church has always taught that capital punishment is licit, and left its use to the prudential decision-making of civil leaders.
Sign this petition to join your voice to the appeal, which is thoroughly rooted in the teachings of St. Thomas Aquinas, who taught that if the faith were endangered, a subject ought to rebuke his prelate even publicly.
Canon 212 likewise says that the faithful “have the right and even at times the duty to manifest to the sacred pastors their opinion on matters which pertain to the good of the Church.”
The appeal observes that since Pope Francis has "more than once" publicly "manifested his refusal to teach” the Church’s authentic doctrine on capital punishment he has "brought great confusion upon the Church by seeming to contradict it.”
“We hereby call upon Your Eminences to advise His Holiness that it is his duty to put an end to this scandal, to withdraw this paragraph from the Catechism, and to teach the word of God unadulterated,” it adds.
The appeal comes just two weeks after Pope Francis ordered the teaching on capital punishment in the Catechism of Catholic Church to be revised.
