Catholics urge US President Biden to commute federal death row

By Devin Watkins

“We're asking President Biden to commute the federal death row, where 40 men are currently serving a death sentence.”

That’s the appeal launched by Catholic Mobilizing Network (CMN), the national Catholic organization seeking the abolition of the death penalty in the United States.

With nine weeks left in office, President Joe Biden has a unique opportunity to embrace Catholic teaching and save the lives of those 40 men on federal death row, according to Krisanne Vaillancourt Murphy, CMN Executive Director.

“We're in a time-sensitive and urgent moment because the president has constitutional authority and power to take action to commute the federal death row,” she told Vatican News.

Catholic teaching on death penalty

In 2018, Pope Francis changed the Catechism of the Catholic Church, a compendium of Catholic teaching, to assert the Church’s opposition to the death penalty on the basis of human dignity, which he said is not lost even when a person commits a serious crime.

“The Church teaches, in the light of the Gospel, that ‘the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person,’ and she works with determination for its abolition worldwide,” reads the new version of paragraph 2267 of the CCC.

In June 2021, President Biden imposed a temporary moratorium on federal executions, a pause which President-elect Donald Trump has promised to overturn.

“We know concretely that the president taking office at the end of January has a history of executions and is committed to expanding and expediting them once again, making this a rather urgent moment,” said Ms. Vaillancourt Murphy.

President Biden’s legacy and 2025 Jubilee of Hope

President Biden’s last month in office will overlap with the start of the 2025 Jubilee of Hope, a Holy Year with roots in the Old Testament practice of a special time to re-establish a proper relationship with God and other people.

“We're approaching the historic year of the 2025 Jubilee, a Biblical tradition whose history is tied to liberating the captives, setting the oppressed free, and bringing about a balancing of society,” said Ms. Vaillancourt Murphy. “It’s a historic year and one that may have particular relevance for a president whose Catholic faith is something important to him. This Jubilee year emphasizes a time to rebalance and recommit to justice and mercy.”

Pope Francis, she noted, launched a special call for the abolition of the death penalty in the Bull of Indiction of the 2025 Jubilee.

“In every part of the world, believers,” wrote the Pope, “should be one in demanding dignified conditions for those in prison, respect for their human rights, and above all the abolition of the death penalty, a provision at odds with Christian faith and one that eliminates all hope of forgiveness and rehabilitation.”

In conclusion, Ms. Vaillancourt Murphy highlighted that the end of President Biden’s term in office is a unique opportunity for the United States to offer the world a tangible sign of hope toward ending the death penalty.

“If President Biden were to take this step, it would have reverberations not only in the United States but around the globe,” she said. “The Jubilee year is the perfect time for this Catholic president to make this historic move.”