ABSTRACT
Networks of social activists can span sovereign borders, seeking to affect human rights policy change within an individual country. Keck and Sikkink argue that such advocates are most effective when they champion a vulnerable population. This poses a problem for transnational advocates of death penalty abolition, because persons guilty o f serious crimes are not, intuitively, vulnerable people. The Catholic Church, as a member o f the abolition network, attempts to alter discourse on capital punishment such that guilt does not preclude vulnerability. This article examines statements of the Holy See as one way of understanding the Church’s contribution to the transnational abolition movement. By emphasising humans’ vulnerability before God, treatment o f violent criminals in the Bible, and the importance of a consistent ethic o f life, the Holy See works to prevent the conflation o f criminal guilt with moral invulnerability.
