Vatican ready to help stop Iran adultery stoning

(September 6, 2010) The Vatican has raised the possibility of using behind-the-scenes diplomacy to try to save the life of an Iranian widow sentenced to be stoned to death for adultery. Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani was convicted in 2006 of adultery. In July, Iranian authorities said they would not carry out the stoning sentence for the time being, but the mother of two could still face execution by hanging for adultery and other offences. Her son, Sajad, told Italian news agency Adnkronos that he was appealing to Pope Benedict XVI and to Italy to work to stop the execution. However, Vatican spokesman Fr. Federico Lombardi told Associated Press on Sunday that no formal appeal had reached the Vatican. But in a statement he said that the Holy See “is following the case with attention and interest.” He hinted that Vatican diplomacy might be employed to try to save Ashtiani. “When the Holy See is asked, in an appropriate way, to intervene in humanitarian issues with the authorities of other countries, as it has happened many times in the past, it does so not in a public way, but through its own diplomatic channels,” Fr. Lombardi said in the statement. He decried stoning as a particularly brutal form of capital punishment saying the Catholic Church opposes the death penalty in general.