In its weekly bulletin «Panorama Catolico,» the Church notes, «It is not by taking the killer´s life that we give life back to the victim.»
«Society certainly has the legitimate right and inalienable duty to sanction and punish delinquents, but there is a great distance between this [right] and its extension to the power to kill,» the Church added.
The Church´s position was clarified in the bulletin, after a congressman said he would present legislation to establish the death penalty, in the face of Panama´s rise in crime. Recently, President Mireya Moscoso expressed opposition to this measure.
