Reverend Joseph E. Kurtz, D.D. Bishop | Archdiocese of Louisville

VATICAN CITY — Capital punishment promotes a deadly attitude of revenge and denies the possibility of change in the lives of incarcerated people, Pope Francis said.

“The death penalty is in no way the solution to the violence that can strike innocent people,” the pope wrote in the preface to a new book on prison chaplaincy.

Capital executions, “far from bringing justice, fuel a sense of revenge that becomes a dangerous poison for the body of our civil societies,” the pope wrote. Rather than continuing the cycle of violence, governments “should focus on allowing prisoners the opportunity to truly change their lives, rather than investing money and resources in their execution, as if they were human beings no longer worthy of living and to be disposed of.”

The book featuring the pope’s preface, titled “A Christian on Death Row,” shares the experiences of Dale Recinella, a lay Catholic prison chaplain and licensed attorney who, along with his wife, has accompanied people on death row and in solitary confinement in Florida prisons since 1998. The book, published by the Vatican publishing house, was set to go on sale Aug. 27.

Pope Francis called Recinella’s work a “living and passionate witness to God’s school of infinite mercy,” describing it as a “great gift to the church and to society in the United States.”

In light of the upcoming Holy Year 2025, the pope wrote that Catholics should “collectively call for the abolition of the death penalty.”

“As the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy taught us, we must never think that there could be a sin, a mistake, or an action of ours that distances us permanently from the Lord. His heart has already been crucified for us,” he wrote. “And God can only forgive us.”

In 2018, Pope Francis formally changed the Catechism of the Catholic Church to unambiguously oppose capital punishment. While previous language allowed for it in extreme cases, the revised entry calls it “inadmissible” and states that the church “works with determination for its abolition worldwide.”

In his preface, Pope Francis said that God’s infinite mercy toward each person “can also be scandalous,” noting many criticisms and rejections Recinella has faced for his prison ministry. “But is it not true that Jesus welcomed in His embrace a thief condemned to death?” asked Pope Francis.

“Even the most heinous of our sins does not mar our identity in God’s eyes: we remain His children, loved by Him, protected by Him and considered precious.”

Pope Francis explained that in one loving gaze,“like that of Christ on the cross,” incarcerated people may find new meaning in their lives and indeed their deaths.