FAMVIN: The International Vincentian Family

Despite increasing Church opposition to the death penalty and UN calls for a global moratorium on its use, a wave of executions has been scheduled in the U.S. in the wake of the Supreme Court’s approval of a widely used lethal injection method of execution. Read the story.

The president of Cuba, Raúl Castro, has announced that most death sentences will be commuted to terms of 30 years to life, which according to one estimate will spare the lives of about 30 prisoners. Read the story.

When the United States Supreme Court upheld the state of Kentucky’s method of execution, lethal injection, it gave the go-ahead to other states to resume the practice. One governor has already announced that executions would begin again. Read the story.

New Jersey has just become “the first [state] in a generation to abolish capital punishment.” In signing the law into effect, Governor Corzine expressed the hope that New Jersey can serve as a model for other states. Read the story.

The Third Committee of the U.N. General Assembly yesterday adopted a draft resolution calling for a moratorium on the use of the death penalty. Read the resolution and the voting sheet indicating how various countries voted on the resolution.

The president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace says that Christians are called to work for the abolition of “the death penalty, torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment against the human person,” calling such practices “grave crimes against the human person.” Read more.