Rome, 9 April 1995, from the Capitol to St Peter's Square

Promoted by: Radical Party, Hands off Cain, No Peace Without Justice

The suspension of executions remains the intermediate objective of our campaign for the abolition of the death penalty, and in 1995 there are two important testing-grounds: the General Assembly of the United Nations (September-December 1995) which can announce a universal moratorium; the Security Council of the United Nations, which can decide on a moratorium on executions in the event of coup d'état, civil war, or similar occurrences.

If we can overcome the obstacles which remain at the level of diplomacy and governments, the 50th General Assembly of the United Nations will be able to decide on the convocation of a Conference to establish the International Criminal Court, which will have the power to identify and punish genocide, acts of aggression and crimes against humanity, without inflicting the death penalty.

The role played on the world stage by the Catholic Church has always gone beyond its national confines, and throughout his papacy the message of Pope John Paul II has often gone beyond the confines of the Catholic religion themselves.

As the Catholic Church prepares to celebrate its great Jubilee for the year 2000 A.C. - the deadline we have set for the abolition of the death penalty in the world! - we remain hopeful that it will work for the creation of the first stage of supranational jurisdiction for crimes against humanity, and to ensure that the right that men have assumed to kill other men will be merely a memory of the millenium which is drawing to a close.

These are the objectives of the Easter March which we are organizing again this year in Rome, on Palm Sunday. Mayors, parliamentarians and citizens who support the abolition of the death penalty, from all over the world, will march from the Capitol to St Peter's Square, and will want to see in the words of the Pope a sign that will allow us to hope that the Catholic Church will commit itself to the cause of abolition and internationalism.

The following is the text of a letter-appeal to the Pope. Sign it, pass it round, collect signatures and send it back to Rome.

Holy Father,

We legislators, mayors, men of art and culture, lay and religious, citizens, wherever we are, whatever culture, faith or organization we belong to, join together to ask the powers that be to create, as soon as possible, new rules and new law to overcome the division between knowledge and conscience which is the harbinger of catastrophe.

We have chosen once again to turn to Your Holiness, in the conviction that Your word and Your work can reawaken men of government from indifference, resignation and sloth. The need for a new right for individuals and peoples is represented, in our action, by two initiatives: the abolition of the death penalty in the world by the year 2000 and the creation of a Permanent Court for crimes against humanity.

In order to prepare the way to the abolition of the death penalty in the world by the year 2000, we are striving to ensure that the United Nations approves a universal suspension of executions. A result which was nearly achieved last December, when the General Assembly rejected this proposal, debated for the first time in the United Nations, by just eight votes. Once again, the claims of national sovereignty have defeated the principles of universal right.

We are now making a new attempt. Its success may be related, Your Holiness, to Your intervention to reiterate the fact the life of an individual, even the most guilty, is an inviolable gift which is not subject to the will of the state.

This is the humble, but powerful prayer which we address to You, in the knowledge that Your voice can help to uphold a new right in the world, drawn from the ancient commandment of the Book "Hands Off Cain", and to express a univocal interpretation of the New Catechisn that the Church has published, which does not in principle exclude recourse to the death penalty.

The world - and above all the great minorities to which we feel we belong - has for some time been waiting for the completion of the process of creation of international jurisdiction that began with the union of states in a single Community

Important acts have been realized. In 1993 the International Tribunal for the crimes committed in the former Yugoslavia was established, followed in 1994 by the creation of the ad hoc Tribunal for the crimes committed in the Rwandan conflict. Both these courts exclude recourse to the death penalty.

1995 may be the year in which the General Assembly of the United Nations decides on the establishment of the Permanent Court to try genocide, acts of aggression and crimes against humanity. During these years, Your transnational message has made up for the absence, the inadequacy and the impotence of the United Nations Organization itself. This has happened, very often, against the warlords in the former Yugoslavia. Never, on the other hand, on the death penalty. This silence - and the text of the New Catechism - have allowed some countries, also in the Catholic world, to bring back or maintain the death penalty.

Holy Father, may diplomats and governments hear Your high voice. May this be another chapter in the great work of Your papacy.

Believers and non-believers, we will listen to Your words on the occasion of the Catholic Easter. On the day in which the liturgy transmits its highest message of peace and life, many of us, from scores of countries around the world, will be waiting for a sign that will give us hope, that will help to conceive, on life, liberty, and the security of the individual, of a possibility for today which will also be for new life, justice, and resurrection.