DEATH PENALTY CONTRARY TO THE GOSPEL: POPE

VATICAN CITY Pope Francis marked the 25th anniversary of a landmark compilation of Catholic teaching by saying Wednesday it should be changed to address an issue close to his heart: the death penalty.

During an anniversary ceremony at the Vatican, Francis repeated his insistence that capital punishment is “inadmissible” under any circumstance. He said the death penalty violates the Gospel and amounts to the voluntary killing of a human life, which “is always sacred in the eyes of the creator.”