of the Catechism of the Catholic Church would remain in force until August 2018, when the Catechism was revised once again to take an even firmer stance against capital punishment and advocate for its complete abolition. Pope Benedict XVI (2011) In his Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Africae Munus of November 2011, Benedict XVI called for the abolition of the death penalty: Later that month, Benedict XVI again proposed abolishing the death penalty: Contemporary period (2014–present) Pope Francis (2014) Pope Francis has stated that he is against the death penalty. In 2013, Pope Francis advocated that "capital sentences be commuted to a lesser punishment that allows for time and incentives for the reform of the offender". In 2015, Pope Francis addressed the International Commission against the Death Penalty, stating that: "Today the death penalty is inadmissible, no matter how serious the crime committed." Francis argued that the death penalty is no longer justifiable by society's need to defend itself, and the death penalty has lost all legitimacy due to the possibility of judicial error. He stated that capital punishment is an offence "against the inviolability of life and the dignity of the human person, which contradicts God's plan for man and society" and "does not render justice to the victims, but rather fosters vengeance". Vatican support for UN campaign against death penalty (2015) The Vatican had also officially given support to a 2015 United Nations campaign against the death penalty. During a U.N. Human Rights Council meeting concerning the abolishment of capital punishment, Archbishop Silvano Tomasi declared that "The Holy See Delegation fully supports the efforts to abolish the use of the death penalty." The Archbishop also stated: Modification to the Catechism (2018) On 1 August 2018, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith sent a letter to the world's Catholic bishops to warn them about the coming change of the teaching on the death penalty in the Catechism. On 2 August 2018, it was announced that the Catechism of the Catholic Church was revised, through a papal rescript, to state that the Church teaches "in the light of the Gospel" that "the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person". The 1 August letter to the Bishops regarding the change stated that it was consistent with the previous teachings of the Catholic Church regarding the dignity of human life, and that