A plea for the abolition of the death penalty was part of the text of the Way of the Cross led by Pope Francis at the Colosseum in Rome on Good Friday.

At the Eleventh Station, ‘Jesus is nailed to the Cross’, the following meditation was read: “We gaze at you, Jesus, as you are nailed to the cross. And our conscience is troubled.

“We anxiously ask: When will the death penalty, still practised in many states, be abolished? When will every form of torture and the violent killing of innocent persons come to an end? Your Gospel is the surest defence of the human person, of every human being.”

Pope Francis has spoken out more than once against capital punishment during his pontificate. In a recent letter to the International Commission against the Death Penalty, he wrote: “When the death penalty is applied, it is not for a current act of aggression, but rather for an act committed in the past. Nowadays, the death penalty is inadmissible, no matter how serious the crime was.”

Meanwhile, hundreds of Christian religious leaders of various churches signed up to a Holy Week call to end the death penalty in the US.

A statement released on March 31 said: “Torture and execution is always a profound evil, made even more abhorrent when sanctioned by the government in the name of justice when other means of protecting society are available.

“All who reverence the sanctity of human life, created in the image of God, must never remain silent when firing squads, lethal injections, electric chairs and other instruments of death are viewed as morally acceptable.”

Of the 32 American states with the death penalty, Texas enforces it most enthusiastically, with more than 500 executions since 1976.