The death penalty does not bring justice, but poisons society

Pope Francis writes the foreword to A Christian on Death Row: My Commitment to the Condemned, a new book by Dale Recinella to be published by Vatican Publishing ( lev ) on August 27. The 72-year-old former Wall Street lawyer, together with his wife Susan, has been a lay chaplain since 1998, providing spiritual support to those sentenced to death in several Florida prisons. Below you will find a translation of the Holy Father's foreword.

The Gospel is the encounter with a living person who changes lives: Jesus is able to revolutionize our plans, our aspirations and our perspectives. Getting to know him means giving meaning to our lives, because the Lord offers us a joy that never ends, because it is the true joy of God.

The story of Dale Recinella, whom I met during an audience and through the articles he has written over the years for The Roman Osservator and now, through this deeply moving book, what I have said is confirmed: only in this way can we understand how a man who had other goals in mind for his future could become a pastor of those sentenced to death – as a Christian layman, husband and father.

His task is extremely difficult, risky and arduous, because it touches on evil in all its dimensions: the evil done to the victims and which cannot be undone; the evil experienced by the condemned, knowing that he is doomed to certain death; the evil instilled in society by the application of the death penalty. Yes, as I have repeatedly stressed, the death penalty is in no way a solution to the violence that can affect innocent people. Executions by death sentence do not bring justice, but fuel a sense of revenge that becomes a dangerous poison for the body of our civil societies. States should focus on giving prisoners the opportunity to really change their lives, rather than investing money and resources in their execution, as if they were people no longer worthy of life and to be disposed of. In his novel The IdiotFyodor Dostoyevsky summed up the logical and moral untenability of the death penalty succinctly when he spoke of a man sentenced to death: “It is an injury to the human soul, nothing more! It is written: 'Thou shalt not kill,' and yet others kill him because he killed. No, that is something that should not happen.” The Jubilee should, in fact, oblige all believers to call together for the abolition of the death penalty, a practice which, as the Catechism of the Catholic Church states, “is inadmissible because it violates the inviolability and dignity of the person!” (No. 2267).

Furthermore, Dale Recinella's work, not forgetting the significant contribution of his wife Susan, expressed in the book, is a great gift to the Church and society in the United States, where Dale lives and works. His commitment as a lay minister, especially in such an inhumane place as death row, is a living and passionate testimony of God's infinite mercy. As the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy taught us, we must never think that there could be a sin, a mistake, or an act of ours that permanently separates us from the Lord. His heart has already been crucified for us. And God can only forgive us.

Of course, this infinite divine mercy can also be scandalous, just as it scandalized many people in Jesus' time when the Son of God ate with sinners and prostitutes. Brother Dale also faces criticism, protests and rejection for his spiritual commitment to the condemned. But is it not true that Jesus embraced a thief condemned to death? Well, Dale Recinella has truly understood and testifies with his life every time he crosses the threshold of a prison, especially the one he calls “the house of death,” that God's love is limitless and immeasurable. And that even our most heinous sins do not affect our identity in God's eyes: we remain his children, loved by him, cared for by him and considered precious by him.

That is why I would like to thank Dale Recinella sincerely and from the bottom of my heart: because his work as a chaplain on death row is a persistent and passionate adherence to the deepest truth of the Gospel of Jesus, namely God's mercy, his unconditional and unwavering love for every person, even those who have gone astray. And that through a loving gaze, like that of Christ on the cross, they can find new meaning in their lives and also in their deaths.

Vatican City, 18 July 2024