Catechism of the Catholic Church
The Catechism of the Catholic Church, a universal catechism for the whole Catholic Church, was formally proposed in 1985 at the Second Extraordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops. Pope St. John Paul II convened this general assembly on the 20th anniversary of the closing of the Second Vatican Council to evaluate the ongoing implementation of the council. In response, John Paul II created a commission of cardinals and bishops, led by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI), to draft such a catechism. This new catechism would be a "compendium of all catholic doctrine regarding both faith and morals" and could be used as a reference for the creation of local catechisms.1
The first version of the Catechism of the Catholic Church—written in French—was promulgated with the Apostolic Constitution Fidei Depositum in 1992, the 30th anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council. This edition was translated into English in 1994.
In 1997, Pope St. John Paul II promulgated the Latin Typical Edition of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, providing a reference text for for all future editions and translations.2 The English edition was revised to reflect the new Latin Typical Edition.
In 2017, Pope Francis—addressing the participants of a meeting organized by the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization—noted that the Church preaches in a special way the human dignity, from the first moment of conception to natural death. He indicated that the death penalty was often driven by a mentality more legalistic than it was Christian, and he called on Christians to reaffirm the dignity of the human person. The following year, he promulgated new language for CCC, no. 2267, on the inadmissibility of the death penalty, teaching that the Church "works with determination for its abolition worldwide."