PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad--Roman Catholic Archbishop Joseph Harris has delivered a stinging rebuke of Father Ian Taylor, one of his priests who advocated this week for the imposition of the death penalty.
Harris declared that capital punishment was an offence against the inviolability of life and the dignity of the human person and it was highly irresponsible for anyone representing the Church to promote it.
Harris was responding to calls by certain sectors of society to bring back hanging as a deterrent to serious crime.
Roman Catholic priest Father Ian Taylor called Saturday for the death penalty to be swiftly reinstated. Taylor said the country may never come to terms with last week’s killing of bank employee Shannon Banfield.
He said the country was in a state and called for Banfield’s killers to face the hangman as soon as possible.
But Harris, head of the Roman Catholic Church, issued a release on Tuesday stating, “It is highly irresponsible, therefore, for any person who speaks in the name of the Church, or is perceived to be speaking in the name of the Church, to urge the imposition of the death penalty on any criminal or class of criminal. More and more it is seen as an offence against the inviolability of life and the dignity of the human person, which contradicts God’s plan for man and society and His merciful justice, and impedes the penalty from fulfilling any just objective.”
Harris said the Antilles Episcopal Conference had put out a statement two months ago opposing the use of capital punishment and asking the Governments of Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados to change their laws on this issue.
Harris said the Catholic magisterium in recent years had become increasingly vocal in opposing the practice of capital punishment. ~ Trinidad Express ~
