This article was updated July 26.
WASHINGTON — The July 25 announcement by the Justice Department
that it is reinstating the federal death penalty for the first time in 16 years
was unwelcome news for Catholic leaders who have advocated against capital
punishment.
"The United States' death penalty system is tragically
flawed. Resuming federal executions — especially by an administration that
identifies itself as 'pro-life' — is wrongheaded and unconscionable," said
Krisanne Vaillancourt Murphy, executive director of Catholic Mobilizing
Network, a group that champions restorative justice and an end to the death
penalty.
The execution of five inmates on federal death row will take
place from December 2019 through next January.
Attorney General William Barr said in a statement: "The
Justice Department upholds the rule of law — and we owe it to the victims and
their families to carry forward the sentence imposed by our justice
system."
The last time there was a federal execution was in 2003.
In 2014, President Barack Obama directed the Bureau of Prisons to
conduct a review of federal capital punishment cases and issues surrounding the
use of lethal injection drugs. According to the July 25 announcement, that
review is complete and the executions can proceed.
Currently, there are 62 inmates — 61 men and 1 woman — on federal
death row, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Most of the
federal death-row prisoners are at the U.S. Penitentiary in Terre Haute,
Indiana.
Inmates in the group include convicted Boston Marathon bomber
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and Charleston, S.C., church shooter Dylann Roof.
In a July 25 statement released by the U.S. Conference of
Catholic Bishops, Bishop Frank J. Dewane of Venice, Fla., chairman of the USCCB
Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development, said that Pope Francis in
2015 called for "the global abolition of the death penalty," which he
said the U.S. bishops also have supported for many years.
"In light of these long held and strongly maintained
positions, I am deeply concerned by the announcement by the United States Justice
Department that it will once again turn, after many years, to the death penalty
as a form of punishment, and urge instead that these federal officials be moved
by God's love, which is stronger than death, and abandon the announced plans
for executions."
Sister Helen Prejean, a Sister of St. Joseph of Medaille, who is
a longtime opponent of capital punishment, tweeted a brief reaction to the July
25 announcement saying that as she was about to "board a plane to Alaska
to join the celebrations of 62 years without the death penalty in that
state" when she learned "the federal government plans to restart
executions later this year after a 16-year hiatus."
"The DOJ regresses as the rest of our country evolves,"
she added.
Other church leaders also reacted on Twitter to the announcement.
In a July 25 tweet, Chicago Cardinal Blase J. Cupich called
Barr's announcement "gravely injurious to the common good, as it effaces
the God-given dignity of all human beings, even those who have committed
terrible crimes."
He also pointed out that last year that Pope Francis ordered a
revision to the Catechism of the Catholic Church to say that capital punishment
is "inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity
of the person."
The Sisters of Mercy called the Justice Department's decision
"tremendously disappointing" and said in a July 25 tweet that they
would continue to uphold Catholic social teaching regarding the dignity of
human life with education and advocacy efforts to "continue to work for
the death penalty's abolition."
In a statement released the afternoon of July 25, Sister Prejean
described the Justice Department's announcement as a "seemingly measured
statement," which "belies the fact that this is a rush to kill: They
plan three executions in one week using a new, untested — and not yet approved —
lethal injection protocol."
She also said it is "disheartening that the administration
has chosen to follow the death road, when the life road calls us to work for
justice for all."
Sister Prejean, echoing a message she has said before, added:
"The death penalty is deeply flawed, with a terrible history of racism in
its implementation and an equally terrible history of errors, resulting in many
innocents on death row. We also know that it does not offer the healing balm to
victims' families that is promised."
Federal death penalty cases are authorized by the Department of
Justice in consultation with local U.S. Attorney Offices.
Vaillancourt Murphy said in her July 25 statement that in the 16
years since the federal government executed a death-row prisoner, the American
public has changed its collective thinking on the death penalty. Last October,
she said 49 percent of Americans said they believed the punishment is applied
fairly and currently, 25 states have distanced themselves from the death
penalty in some capacity, most recently, California, with its governor-imposed
execution ban in March and New Hampshire's repeal of capital punishment by
legislative veto override in May.
Hannah Cox, national manager of Conservatives Concerned about the
Death Penalty, offered a similar response saying the reinstatement of federal
executions "goes against the trend we have seen in states across the
nation, where executions and sentences are at historic lows."
She also pointed out that a growing number of conservative state
lawmakers "realize that capital punishment goes against their principles
of valuing life, fiscal responsibility and limited government, and that the
death penalty does nothing to make the public safer."
Vaillancourt Murphy reiterated that the Catholic Church's
teaching is very clear on capital punishment, noting the Catechism of the
Catholic Church calls it "inadmissible" in all cases "because it
is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person."
She said the Justice Department's announcement "flies in the
face" of American values of equality and fairness "and for Catholics,
above all, a belief in the sanctity of all human life."
She said the decision also "promotes a culture of death
where we so desperately need a culture of life."