Catholic teaching on death penalty and the practice of capital punishment

Capital punishment, also known as death penalty, is a government-sanctioned practice whereby a person is killed by the state as a punishment for a crime. The sentence that someone be punished in such a manner is referred to as a death sentence, whereas the act of carrying out the sentence is known as an execution. Crimes that are punishable by death are known as capital crimes or capital offences. Death penalty can be handed down for treason, espionage, murder, large-scale drug trafficking, or attempted murder of a witness, juror, or court officer in certain cases. In the spirit of Aggiornamento, Pope Francis has revised the old stand of the Catholic Church from being permissible in extreme cases as well as to protect the common good of the society to being inadmissible since it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the human person. The Roman Pontiff is commended since with the new understanding of man there should be a significant distinction between a person and his actions-Being and Action- Actions do not diminish the person. A person is created in the image of God and hence draws his dignity from God. Only God can take life. The old policy has been updated in line with the reflections begun by Pope St. John Paul II pointed out in Evangelium Vitae, no. 56 that such cases that permitted it were very rare, if not practically non-existent. With the new formulation of n. 2267 of the Catechism, therefore, the Church takes a decisive step in promoting the dignity of every person, whatever crime he or she may have committed, and explicitly condemns the death penalty.