I remember a similar round table on the death penalty at a �Peoples and Religions� meeting � believe it was in Barcelona � where a Shiite theologian from Iran asked a Christian theologian whether the Christians do not take their holy book, the Bible, seriously. He pointed out that the first part of the Bible, especially the Five Books of Moses, the Jewish Torah, explicitly stipulate the death penalty for certain offences. This remark of his certainly touches an important issue: We Christians have certainly made the books of the so called Old Testament part of our Bible, but we choose critically according to what we consider good and right according to the spirit of Jesus Christ. And as to the New Testament, the genuinely Christian scriptures, we do not understand them literally but we try to understand what is due to the times when they were written and what corresponds to the core message of the gospel. It is indeed possible to discuss the understanding of the Holy Scriptures � and this would be a discussion subject of its own right � but in a long history, we have decided for this way of interpretation. It was already Martin Luther who told us to examine the Scriptures according to the question as to whether they correspond to the spirit of Jesus.

It is also quite clear that the death penalty was legitimated throughout centuries by the Christian churches. They gave different reasons for that legitimation, one of them being that the respective State (�the authorities�) does have the right to dispose of the lives of its subjects. And even today, there are Christian theological approaches that do not categorically forbid the death penalty.

I want to use a text from the New Testament to show what, in my view and according to my firm conviction, speaks against the death penalty. One passage of the Gospel according to John (John 8, 2-11) tells the following story:

Early in the morning He came again into the temple, and all the people were coming to Him; and He sat down and began to teach them.

The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman caught in adultery, and having set her in the center of the court,

they said to Him, "Teacher, this woman has been caught in adultery, in the very act.

"Now in the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women; what then do You say?"

They were saying this, testing Him, so that they might have grounds for accusing Him. But Jesus stooped down and with His finger wrote on the ground.

But when they persisted in asking Him, He straightened up, and said to them, "He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her."

Again He stooped down and wrote on the ground.

When they heard it, they began to go out one by one, beginning with the older ones, and He was left alone, and the woman, where she was, in the center of the court.

Straightening up, Jesus said to her, "Woman, where are they? Did no one condemn you?"

She said, "No one, Lord." And Jesus said, "I do not condemn you, either. Go. From now on sin no more."

According to the Jewish Torah, this woman must be stoned to death for what she has done. In the time of Jesus, this cruel form of execution was still common practice. And even today, there are unfortunately some states that use this form of execution.

Jesus� point is not about observing or violating a law. He does not have himself caught in a casuistic discussion. He sees a human being. He puts the woman into the middle. What he cares about is a human life, a unique and unmistakable human creature of God.

Jesus knows that rational arguments will not convince the men that are prepared to stone the woman. Nevertheless, he tries to integrate the denouncers into the solidarity and community of all humans.

"He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her."

This means that no one is free from sin. Every human, consciously or inconsciously, violates life, again and again. His own life, the life of others, the life of this world. There is no life that is without guilt. The fact that one will act sinfully, again and again, is part of human nature.

This is why no one may ultimately make himself the judge of anyone else. God lawyers know that. We simply know much too little about the others. We often do not know how things are connected, we do not know in which circumstances someone grew up, why he became an offender. And even if we try to understand this, there will still be something else, a secret in every human being, an inviolable secret which constitutes the dignity of every human being and we believe that it God who gives every human this dignity. The French writer Camus, who was not a Christian, who was an existentialist, who had a great love and who was a firm opponent of the death penalty said that the human being and his life are an ultimate and unquestionable value to which all other rights and norms � and even justice itself � have to be subordinated.

A second point follows from this: No one should be reduced to his or her deeds. Everyone is more than his acts and omissions. It is true that we can say �What you are doing is evil!� But we cannot say �You are a thoroughly evil person!� We cannot help qualifying human actions and we should do so. It is quite possible to morally condemn or praise acts and omissions. However, for a Christian ethics, there remains an elementary difference between what a human person does and what he or she is.

What is marvellous about the story that we heard is that Jesus makes people understand that, in fact, they are also sinful and faulty. I am not sure whether people one will always manage to convince people of that. There are many people today that either consider themselves morally good, exemplary, faultless or please themselves in looking down on whom they consider worse than themselves. There are people who therefore don�t have second thoughts about taking away other people�s lives. There are people that would throw the stone without any hesitation. However, I do not believe that they may call themselves Christians!

It is therefore a miracle that Jesus manages to convince these men and to get them to drop their stones.

There is a last point that we can see here: After this woman was, so to speak, taken out of Death Row, she is shown a way. She is not told �What you did was good.� Jesus sees her wrongdoing but he gives her the chance to change her life: �Go. From now on sin no more.�

According to Christian teaching, this is also part of human dignity: No one has to remain the way he or she has become. Everyone has the right and the chance to change their his or her life.

It may well be that we have to protect people from their own appetites and that we have to protect society from murderers or other criminals by taking away their liberty. You cannot just let a child murderer walk freely and tell him: �Don�t you do that any more!� But we can also go towards a brutal criminal with Christ�s charity, help him to understand and admit to his guilt and to actually change his ways. Being Christians, we do not give up hope for anybody. If we kill someone, he cannot understand anything and he cannot change his ways.