Pope Francis has once again justified his total rejection of the death penalty.
In a foreword to a book published in advance by the Vatican News portal on Sunday, the Pope writes: "The death penalty is not a solution in the face of the violence that can affect innocent people. Executions do not create justice, but nourish a sense of revenge that becomes a dangerous poison in the organism of our society."
The Pope continues: "States must ensure that prisoners are given the opportunity to truly change their lives, instead of investing money and resources to exterminate them - as if they were human beings who are not worthy of living and should be eliminated from the world."
The head of the church wrote the foreword to the Italian edition of a book by US lawyer and lay counsellor Dale Recinella. He has been counselling inmates on death row in Florida prisons since 1998.
The book, entitled "Un cristiano nel braccio della morte." (A Christian on death row) is published by the Vatican publishing house LEV. Francis has met Recinella several times; the former Wall Street lawyer has written several articles for the Vatican newspaper "Osservatore Romano" on the subject of the death penalty.