Catholic Church in Myanmar to Bishop Bigandet, his predecessor in the vicariate, who consecrated him at Rangoon (24 June 1893). He succeeded to the vicariate on the death of Bishop Bigandet, 19 March 1894. Catholic Church in Myanmar The Catholic Church in Myanmar (also known as Burma) is part of the worldwide Catholic Church, under the spiritual leadership of the Pope in Rome. There are around 750,000 Catholics in Burma - approximately 1% of the total population. The country is divided into sixteen dioceses including three archdioceses. Each of the archdioceses is also a metropolitan. The representative of the Holy See to the Catholic
Capital punishment in the Soviet Union Capital punishment in the Soviet Union Capital punishment was a legal penalty in the Soviet Union for most of the country's existence. The legal justification of capital punishment was found in Article 22 of the Fundamental Principles of Criminal Legislation, which stated that the death penalty was permitted "as an exceptional measure of punishment, until its complete abolition". According to Western estimates, in the early 1980s Soviet courts passed around 2,000 death sentences every year, of which two-thirds were commuted to prison terms. The death penalty was not applied to minors or pregnant women. The first person to be sentenced