VATICAN URGES SOUTH KOREA TO ABOLISH DEATH PENALTY

during a recent visit to South Korea, a high-ranking Vatican official asked the prime minister, a Catholic, to abolish the country's death penalty. "The premier replied that he would consider it," Cardinal Renato Raffaele Martino, president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, said toward the end of a lecture in Seoul. The cardinal was speaking on The Church's Mission for an Integral Humanism in Solidarity to about 30 members of the Committee for Justice and Peace of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of Korea (CBCK). Later, during his talk, he said "it is important for the Church to highlight its teachings" on social issues, such as when "human rights are being violated."