Let the punishment fit the crime

A senior adviser to the Pope has said excommunication could be used to punish Mexican drug traffickers. Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, who is the Vatican secretary of state, said it was the church’s severest form of rebuke.

Cardinal Bertone said the church was alarmed at what it called the disasters of drug-fuelled violence in Mexico, a largely Catholic nation…

Speaking ahead of a trip to Mexico, the cardinal said excommunication could be a possible punishment for the traffickers, who last year alone were blamed for more than 5,000 deaths…

Cardinal Bertone said it was a very harsh deterrent, that the church used only for the most serious of crimes.

Of course, you could stand in the middle of the fracking Sahara and pray for rain, too.