A group set up by the Irish Bishops' Conference has...

A group set up by the Irish Bishops' Conference has said it is "not only desirable but morally incumbent on Irish Catholics" to vote for the removal from the Constitution of references to the death penalty, in the referendum on June 7th.The Irish Commission for Justice and Peace has said in a statement, that "to retain even the possibility of re-introducing execution as a punishment in the ordinary criminal justice system appears increasingly at odds with the church's overall witness to the sacredness of human life from conception to natural death." Historical developments, the universal availability of long-term custodial alternatives to judicial execution, and the growing Catholic insight that a pro-life stance has to be consistent across the board, "make any toleration of capital punishment increasingly indefensible in moral terms, even in cases of extreme gravity," it said. Traditional Catholic teaching had justified capital punishment by reference to society's right to self-defence in the interests of the common good, but "today the common good can be protected without using the death penalty.""Irrespective of the degree of guilt and the gravity of the crime involved, Catholic teaching now asserts that the state's judicial taking of life is now to all intents and purposes unjustifiable," the Commission said.