“The mystery of Divine Mercy Sunday,” says PREPARE THE WORD scripture commentator Alice Camille this Sunday, “is that Jesus . . . moves through the greatest violence history can muster and comes out the other side as dedicated to peace and forgiveness as before. . . . No excuses, no reprisal. Peace and forgiveness. God’s answer to the world’s hostility is in gently extended wounded and glorified hands.”

If, however, non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect peoples safety from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and more in conformity with the dignity of the human person.

From a high of 315 in 1996, the number of death sentences handed out across the country fell to just 30 in 2016.