teaches that punishments, including the death penalty, may be levied for four reasons: Rehabilitation – The sentence of death can and sometimes does move the condemned person to repentance and conversion. The death penalty may be a way of achieving the criminal's reconciliation with God. Defense against the criminal – Capital punishment is an effective way of preventing the wrongdoer from committing future crimes and protecting society from him. Deterrence – Executions may create a sense of horror that would prevent others from being tempted to commit similar crimes. Retribution – Guilt calls for punishment. The graver the offense, the more severe the punishment ought to be. In Holy Scripture death is regarded as the appropriate punishment for serious transgressions. Thomas Aquinas held that sin calls for the deprivation of some good, such as, in serious cases, the good of temporal or even eternal life. The wrongdoer is placed in a position to expiate his evil deeds and escape punishment in the next life. Pope John Paul II 1992 Catechism of the Catholic Church The §2267 of the first edition of the Catechism of the Catholic Church (1992; first published in English in 1994) states: Evangelium vitae, 1997 Catechism In his 1995 encyclical titled (The Gospel of Life), Pope John Paul II suggested that capital punishment should be avoided unless it is the only way to defend society from the offender in question, opining that punishment "ought not go to the extreme of executing the offender except in cases of absolute necessity: in other words, when it would not be possible otherwise to defend society. Today, however, as a result of steady improvements in the organization of the penal system, such cases are very rare, if not practically non-existent." The § 2267 of the second edition of the Catechism of the Catholic Church (1997) was thus changed to: However, in 2004, Cardinal Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI) suggested that the 1995 assessment of the contemporary situation advanced by John Paul II was not necessarily binding on the Catholic faithful in regard to capital punishment; he wrote: In January 1999, Pope John Paul II, without changing Catholic teaching, appealed for a consensus to end the death penalty on the ground that it was "both cruel and unnecessary". He said that criminal offenders should be offered "an incentive and help to change his or her behaviour and be rehabilitated". The 1997 update