Abolished in 1969
Capital punishment
in
Vatican City
was legal between 1929 and 1969, reserved for attempted
assassination
of the
Pope
, but has never been applied there.
[1]
Executions
were carried out elsewhere in the
Papal States
, which was the predecessor of the Vatican City, during their existence.
Background
[
edit
]
The death penalty had support from early Catholic theologians, though some of them such as
Saint Ambrose
encouraged members of the clergy not to pronounce or carry out capital punishment.
Saint Augustine
answered objections to capital punishment rooted in the
first commandment
in
The City of God
.
[2]
Augustine's argument is as such: "Since the agent of authority is but a sword in the hand [of God], it is in no way contrary to the commandment 'Thou shalt not kill' for the representative of the state's authority to put criminals to death".
[3]
Thomas Aquinas
and
Duns Scotus
argued that civil authority to carry out capital punishment was supported by scripture.
[2]
Pope Innocent III
required
Peter Waldo
and the
Waldensians
to accept that "secular power can, without mortal sin, exercise judgement of blood, provided that it punishes with justice, not out of hatred, with prudence, not precipitation" as a prerequisite for reconciliation with the church.
[2]
During the Middle Ages and into the modern period, the
Inquisition
was authorized by the
Holy See
to turn over heretics to secular authority for execution, and the
Papal States
carried out executions for a variety of offences.
[2]
The
Roman Catechism
(1566) codified the teaching that God had entrusted civil authorities with the power over life and death.
[2]
Doctors of the Church
Robert Bellarmine
and
Alphonsus Liguori
, as well as modern theologians such as
Francisco de Vitoria
,
Thomas More
, and
Francisco Suarez
continued this tradition;
Pope Pius XII
issued an
allocution
to medical experts to that effect.
[2]
History of the Statute
[
edit
]
The
Lateran Treaty
of 1929 copied from the contemporaneous Italian legal code (concerning attempted assassinations of the
King of Italy
), providing for capital punishment for anyone who attempted to assassinate the pope within Vatican City.
[1]
Article 8 of the Lateran Treaty provides:
Considering the person of the Supreme Pontiff to be sacred and inviolable, Italy declares any attempt against His person or any incitement to commit such attempt to be punishable by the same penalties as all similar attempts and incitements to commit the same against the person of the King.
All offences or public insults committed within Italian territory against the person of the Supreme Pontiff, whether by means of speeches, acts, or writings, shall be punished in the same manner as offences and insults against the person of the King.
[4]
There were no attempted assassinations of the pope within Vatican City while the statute was on the books.
[5]
It was no longer in force in 1981, when
Mehmet Ali A?ca
attempted to assassinate Pope John Paul II
, and in any case A?ca was tried by an Italian court rather than in the Vatican.
Abolition
[
edit
]
Pope Paul VI
removed the capital punishment statute from the "fundamental law" of Vatican City in 1969, along with other adaptations, four years after closing the
Second Vatican Council
, announcing the change only in the August 1969 issue of the
Gazette
, which is published in
Latin
.
[1]
The change came to public attention only in January 1971 after reporters had accused Paul VI of hypocrisy for his criticisms of planned executions in
Spain
and the
Soviet Union
.
[1]
[5]
See also
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References
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