Death Penalty News

As the Catholic Church marks the feast of St. Maximilian Kolbe, the Executive Director of the Catholic Mobilizing Network shares her hopes for the future abolition of the death penalty in the United States. By Vatican News August 14 marks the liturgical feast of St. Maximilian Kolbe, who gave his life in 1941 in the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz to save the life of a young father. Now patron saint of the pro-life movement, the Polish priest provides a guiding light to Catholics who seek to abolish the death penalty, such as the Catholic Mobilizing Network, a nonprofit working for that goal in the United States.

Whoever saves one life saves the world entire Auschwitz-Birkenau, Poland — In a place built to erase human dignity, one man gave his life so another could live. The story of Father Maximilian Kolbe, Auschwitz inmate number 16670, stands as a lasting testament to the power of faith and sacrifice in the darkest of times. Kolbe, a Polish Franciscan friar, was arrested by Nazi authorities in February 1941. His crime: offering shelter to Jews and members of the Polish underground at his monastery in Niepokalanów, west of Warsaw. The priest had long been a thorn in the side of the Nazi regime. Through his religious publications and missionary work, he had spoken out against the rising tide of hatred sweeping across Europe.

An 88-year-old Japanese man who at one point was the world’s longest-serving death row inmate has been presented with a rosary blessed by Pope Francis. Archbishop Isao Kikuchi of Tokyo recently visited Iwao Hakamada, a former boxer and convert to Catholicism, to make the presentation of the papal gift to the now officially innocent octogenarian. Following his release from prison in 2014 because of new DNA evidence – after 48 years on death row – Hakamada still wasn’t officially proclaimed innocent until his definitive acquittal a decade later.

The mystery of Joe Biden’s views about capital punishment has finally been solved. His decision to grant clemency to 37 of the 40 people on federal death row shows the depth of his opposition to the death penalty. And his decision to leave three of America’s most notorious killers to be executed by a future administration shows the limits of his abolitionist commitment. The three men excluded from Biden’s mass clemency—Dylann Roof, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, and Robert Bowers—would no doubt pose a severe test of anyone’s resolve to end the death penalty. Biden failed that test.

Pope Francis on Dec. 8 made a special appeal for the lives of death row inmates in the United States to be spared. "Let us pray for their sentence to be commuted, changed," said the pope. "Let us think of these brothers and sisters of ours and ask the Lord to save them from death." The pope's remarks come at a critical time when American Catholic leaders are pushing U.S. President Joe Biden to commute the sentences of the 40 inmates currently on death row. 

Catholic Mobilizing Network urges president in final days to decide in line with Catholic teaching against death penalty Catholic Mobilizing Network, a group that advocates for the abolition of capital punishment in line with Catholic teaching, issued a statement Nov. 6 urging President Joe Biden to take action on the practice during the remainder of his presidency while 40 lives on death row "hang in the balance."

Pope Francis pens the preface to “A Christian on Death Row: My Commitment to Those Condemned ,” a new book by Dale Recinella, set for publication by the Vatican Publishing House (LEV) on August 27. The 72-year-old former Wall Street lawyer has spiritually accompanied death row inmates in several Florida prisons as a lay chaplain since 1998, alongside his wife Susan.

Baton Rouge, LA - The Vatican's Pontifical Academy of Life has urged Governor John Bel Edwards to use his full executive power to clear Louisiana's death row. In a letter sent on Tuesday, Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, President of the Academy, reiterated the Roman Catholic Church (the Church)'s opposition to the death penalty and called on the Governor to act. "Since every human life is sacred, every human person is endowed with an inalienable dignity. Much like you, the Catholic Church believes that our society can only benefit from the rehabilitation of individuals who have been convicted of crimes," the letter reads. "We think that the clearing of Louisiana's death row would be a monumental step towards the abolition of the death penalty."

For the first time, the Vatican has given an entire family one of Catholicism's highest honors. Jozef Ulma, his wife Wiktoria and their seven children were killed by Nazis in 1944 along with eight Jews they were hiding. The Vatican on Sunday beatified an entire family for the first time to honor it for giving shelter to Jews during World War II while Poland was under German occupation. Jozef Ulma, 44, his pregnant wife Wiktoria, 31, and their children, all under 8 years of age, were killed by German police on March 24, 1944, after being betrayed to Nazi authorities for sheltering eight Jewish people in their attic. The eight Jews were also killed.

Louisiana’s death penalty saga continues. Two steps forward, one step back, on the road toward abolition. The latest step forward came last Wednesday, when Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards exercised his executive authority and ordered the state’s clemency board to hold hearings on the petitions filed by 56 death row inmates this summer. His order tees up the possibility that, before he leaves office next January, Edwards may be able to issue the largest mass commutation in this country since Illinois Gov. George Ryan emptied his state’s death row in 2003.

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis criticized laws that criminalize homosexuality as “unjust,” saying God loves all his children just as they are and called on Catholic bishops who support the laws to welcome LGBT people into the church. “Being homosexual isn’t a crime,” Francis said during an interview Tuesday with The Associated Press.

Pope Francis on Monday broke his silence on the nationwide protests convulsing Iran, denouncing the recourse to the death penalty there and seemingly legitimizing the rallies as demonstrations “demanding greater respect for the dignity of women.” Francis made the comments in an annual speech to ambassadors accredited to the Vatican, a foreign policy speech the pope delivers at the start of each year outlining the areas of greatest concern for the Holy See.

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis on Saturday declared as martyrs a Polish couple who were executed by German police during World War II for hiding Jews in their farmhouse. A farmer and beekeeper, Jozef Ulma, and wife Wiktoria in the Polish town of Markowa hid several members of the Jewish community, who were being hunted down during the German occupation of Poland. An informant apparently betrayed them, and the Jews were killed by police in March 1944. The couple were then shot to death along with their six young children, the oldest of whom was 8 years old. Recognition of martyrdom would permit the couple to be beatified, the last formal step before possible sainthood. After beatification, a miracle attributed to their intercession would be necessary for eventual canonization, as the Catholic church's sainthood process is called. According to Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem, the couple had witnessed the execution of Jews who were seized from their h...

Sister Helen Prejean, a Sister of St. Joseph, shows no signs of slowing down in her long-standing fight to end the death penalty.  At 83, she is writing her fourth book while directing her advocacy organization, Ministry Against the Death Penalty, in New Orleans. She spends a fair amount of time on the road as she continues to give talks, especially on college campuses, about the injustices she sees with capital punishment. She also continues to minister to both death-row inmates and murder victims’ families. She has accompanied six men to their executions. When asked by Catholic News Service in a Sept. 30 interview where she gets her energy, her responses all revolved around the work she does. For starters, she said she is energized by those she ministers to on death row – currently a Louisiana inmate in his 60s, Manuel Ortiz. The Salvadoran has been on death row for close to 30 years and continues to claim innocence for the sentence he received for hiring someone to murder his wi...

One day after a parole board denied clemency to death row inmate Benjamin Cole, the Archbishop of Oklahoma City registered his disappointment in the decision. “The denial of clemency by the Pardon and Parole Board is disappointing as there is hardly any justice to be seen in taking the life of a man who is hardly able to speak and lacks the basic understanding of why the state is seeking his execution,” Archbishop Paul Coakley said Sept. 28. “While it is too late to provide Benjamin Cole with any care or treatment that might have prevented his crime almost 20 years ago, we still have an obligation to recognize the dignity bestowed upon him by God, and the effects of his debilitating mental illness.” Cole, the archbishop said, “should be allowed to live out what remains of his life in the hope that he receives the mental health care he should have received decades ago. Pray for the victims of violence and their families that God brings them comfort and peace. Pray for the soul of the co...

For the abolition of the death penalty “That the death penalty, which attacks the dignity of the human person, may be legally abolished in every country”. This is Pope Francis’ prayer intention for the month of September, released in a video published by the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network on 31 August. The short clip accompanying the Pope’s appeal opens with protesters publicly demonstrating against capital punishment, carrying signs calling out the inhumanity of the death penalty. The Holy Father then begins by noting that “there is a growing ‘NO’ to the death penalty around the world”, saying that “this is a sign of hope” for the Church. He goes on to explain that “society can effectively repress crime without definitively depriving the offenders of the possibility of redeeming themselves” and that “in every legal sentence, there must be a window of hope”. The video shows flashes of men and women behind bars, completing their legal sentences alone. Then there is a montage of the dif...

The death penalty is an affront to human dignity that offers no solace to victims and denies the possibility for conversion of those who commit serious crimes, Pope Francis said. The growing calls around the world for an end to capital punishment are “a sign of hope” for the church, the pope said in a video message released by the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network Aug. 31. “Capital punishment offers no justice to victims, but rather encourages revenge. And it prevents any possibility of undoing a possible miscarriage of justice,” he said. “From a legal point of view, it is not necessary,” the pope added. At the start of each month, the network posts a short video of the pope offering his specific prayer intention. For the month of September, the pope dedicated his prayer intention for the abolition of the death penalty. In his video message, the pope said the death penalty was unnecessary because society “can effectively repress crime” without denying those who offend “the possibility of...

In Oklahoma, 25 death row inmates have been placed in an execution queue that extends from August 2022 through Christmas 2024. If the plan survives court challenges and public resistance, 58 % of the people on Oklahoma’s death row, “including multiple prisoners with severe mental illness, brain damage, and claims of innocence,” will be put to death, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. The 29-month schedule of executions was approved by an appeals court on July 1. “This rush to execute would be reckless in any state, but Oklahoma in particular has a horrendous track record for problematic executions,” said Krisanne Vaillancourt Murphy, the executive director of Catholic Mobilizing Network, an anti-death-penalty advocacy group affiliated with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. Ms. Vaillancourt Murphy noted recent examples: the 2021 lethal injection of John Grant, “who convulsed and vomited repeatedly before dying”; the 2014 execution of Clayton Lockett, “who took mor...

Bishops in the US State of Texas have appealed for mercy to be offered to a mother of 14 and grandmother sentenced to die on April 27, following what has been called a flawed process and conviction. The Texas Catholic Conference of Bishops has asked the State of Texas to spare the life of Melissa Lucio , sentenced to death in 2008 for the death of her two-year-old daughter, Mariah.  Lucio claims Mariah died after a tragic fall down a staircase. The Bishops noted that Lucio was convicted on the basis of a forced confession following a rigorous interrogation the night her daughter died, in the absence of evidence or witnesses.  Many other organizations are rallying around Melissa Lucio's case, including domestic violence and battered women’s organizations, and former prosecutors.  RELATED |  Melissa Lucio | Texas Could Send An Innocent Latina Woman to the Execution Chamber The bishops write: "We ask the state to commute Melissa Lucio’s sentence of death and re-examine ...