WASHINGTON -- More than 180 faith leaders in Texas, including 18 Catholics, signed a statement sent to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice July 23 asking the agency to change its policy banning prison chaplains from execution chambers.

WASHINGTON -- The July 25 announcement by the Justice Department that it is reinstating the federal death penalty for the first time in 16 years was unwelcome news for Catholic leaders who have advocated against capital punishment.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- A Franklin County Circuit judge ruled July 2 that Kentucky's death penalty regulations are unconstitutional because they fail to provide for an automatic stay of execution for intellectually disabled inmates.

VATICAN – The death penalty is an inhumane form of punishment that ignores the primacy of mercy in the name of justice, Pope Francis said.

SYDNEY – Asia Bibi has been released from death row and prison in Pakistan and is now under heavy protective guard in a secret location with her family, reported a longtime Catholic missionary involved with negotiations in Pakistan about her case.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – Pakistan's Supreme Court has set aside the death sentence of Asia Bibi, a Catholic convicted of blasphemy, and ordered her release from prison.

VATICAN – Abolishing the death penalty worldwide would reflect the brave and hope-filled belief that crime can be dealt with without capital punishment and that a criminal should be given the chance to reform, a top Vatican diplomat told world leaders.

By categorically rejecting the death penalty, the Church has finally removed an unsettling contradiction to its teaching that all human life is sacred from conception to natural death. 

MANDALAY, Myanmar – Cardinal Charles Bo of Yangon, Myanmar, hailed Pope Francis' admonition that imposing the death penalty is always inadmissible.

VATICAN – Building on the development of Catholic Church teaching against capital punishment, Pope Francis has ordered a revision of the Catechism of the Catholic Church to assert "the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person" and to commit the church to working toward its abolition worldwide.

The death penalty, no matter how it is carried out, "is, in itself, contrary to the Gospel," Pope Francis said.

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Catholic leaders in Ohio stressed the need to replace the death penalty with mercy and spiritual conversion, following the execution of convicted child murderer Ronald Phillips.

JAKARTA, Indonesia – Indonesia has rejected the possibility of abolishing the death penalty at a United Nations hearing reviewing the country's human rights situation.

“Okay din si Duterte! (Duterte is alright!),” my dad said in approval. Gathered at the dinner table, talk of the boorish Filipino president peppered our family meal.

LINGAYEN, Philippines – The Catholic bishops of the Philippines have praised a cross-country march showing opposition to the restoration of the death penalty.