Pope Francis dies newest: Vatican sources share particulars of ultimate moments; Prince William to attend funeral on behalf of King Charles | World Information

Many observers agree that Pope Francis leaves behind a legacy of reform, modernisation and compassion.

We have already checked out two areas on this in our Francis the reformer posts – his (comparatively) heat stance in direction of the LGBTQ+ neighborhood (12.43 publish), and his much less versatile stance on contraception (13.50 publish).

Now, a take a look at how he approached the demise penalty and prisons.

‘All Christians ought to battle for finish of demise penalty’

Francis modified the church’s place on the demise penalty, declaring it inadmissible in all circumstances.

In 2014, he mentioned: “It’s impos­si­ble to imag­ine that states in the present day can­not make use of anoth­er means than cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment to defend peo­ples’ lives from an unjust aggres­sor.”

He cit­ed the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which says that the demise penal­ty can be utilized provided that it’s the ​”solely pos­si­ble method of effec­tive­ly defend­ing human lives towards the unjust aggres­sor,” and that mod­ern alter­na­tives for professional­tect­ing soci­ety imply that ​”cas­es wherein the exe­cu­tion of the offend­er is an absolute neces­si­ty are very uncommon, if not prac­ti­cal­ly nonex­is­tent”. 

However Francis went additional, calling for compassion and higher situations in prisons, too.

Pope Francis added on the time: “All Christians and peo­ple of excellent will are thus referred to as in the present day to strug­gle not just for abo­li­tion of the demise penal­ty, whether or not or not it’s authorized or ille­gal and in all its varieties, but in addition to enhance jail con­di­tions, out of respect for the human dig­ni­ty of per­sons disadvantaged of their lib­er­ty.”

Lifelong dedication to ‘do what Jesus did’

Francis was dedicated to serving to the poor and deprived all through his life, together with earlier than his time as pontiff.

In Argentina, as a youthful man, he spent weekends visiting the deprived parishes. He would go to prisons then, too, travelling by bus or metro to talk to prisoners, the poor and monks in slums and jails.

And final Thursday, only a few days earlier than his demise, whereas frail himself, Francis stored an appointment to go to a jail in Rome.

He met for almost half-hour with some 70 inmates on the Regina Caeli jail in Rome’s Trastevere neighbourhood. 

It is a jail Francis has visited earlier than to carry out the annual Holy Thursday ritual of washing the ft of 12 individuals to re-enact Christ’s gesture of humble service of washing the ft of 12 apostles earlier than his crucifixion.

Francis informed the inmates he could not do it this 12 months, given his well being, however wished to nonetheless be with them and “do what Jesus did on Holy Thursday”.