Catholics praise President Biden’s clemency for death row inmates

Catholic opponents of the death penalty praised President Joe Biden’s decision to commute the sentences of all but three of the 40 inmates on federal death row, a decision The White House said, will stop President-elect Donald Trump from resuming halted executions.

“Today’s historic decision by President Biden advances the cause of human dignity and underscores the sacred value of every human life,” said Krisanne Vaillancourt Murphy, executive director of Catholic Mobilizing Network.

Since the election, Catholic voices, led by Pope Francis, have called on America’s second Catholic president to issue the pendulars. The Catechism of the Catholic Church, revised by Pope Francis in 2018, calls the death penalty “unacceptable” and “an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person.”

The Catholic Mobilizing Network and other faith groups have called on the president to pardon the 40 inmates on federal death row. The US Catholic bishops similarly joined this appeal a few weeks ago, as did Francis. A Dec. 3 National Catholic Reporter editorial appealed to Biden’s faith to call for the action, which was taken on Dec. 23.

Archbishop Timothy Broglio, president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, called the act of the president a “significant step in advancing the cause of human dignity and respect for human life from womb to grave in our nation.”

“My brother bishops and I join in expressing our gratitude that President Biden has commuted the federal death sentences of 37 men,” he said. “We urge all legislators to continue working toward the total abolition of the death penalty and to redirect the energy and resources currently spent on executions to provide compassionate and professional assistance to victims’ families.”

In his weekly address from the Vatican on December 8, Francis had called for the lives of those on death row in the United States to be spared. “Let us pray that their judgment be reversed, changed,” the Pope said. “Let us think of these our brothers and sisters and ask the Lord to save them from death.”

Biden spoke with Francis on Dec. 19, just before a White House announcement that the two men will meet at the Vatican in January before Biden leaves office.

Sr. Helen Prejeana longtime opponent of the death penalty, has asked followers on social media to write and call the White House urging the president to commute the death sentences. On Monday, the Sister of St. Joseph said on X“This is a milestone in the fight to abolish the death penalty – thank you!”

Vaillancourt Murphy said in an interview with NCR that “the national and international attention to this historic decision” highlights the wrongs of the death penalty, but is also “an extraordinary gift and relief that feels like a Christmas miracle.”

“Our work to abolish the death penalty will continue, but these federal changes allow us to focus our efforts on states that are pursuing abolition or fighting executions,” Vaillancourt Murphy said. “This is a turning point for the death penalty in the United States.”

Vaillancourt Murphy said the importance of the president’s Catholic faith was a key factor. “It is not lost on any of us that an important aspect of his motivation to overturn these convictions rests on his appreciation of the dignity of human life,” she said.

Biden left the death sentences for three inmates guilty of terrorism or hate-motivated mass murder: Dzhokhar Tsarnaevone of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings that left three people dead and injured more than 250; Robert Bowersthe attacker at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018, killing 11 people; and Dylann Roofthat killed nine people in 2015 at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina.

“In good conscience, I cannot stand back and let a new administration resume executions that I stopped,” Biden said in a declaration.

Biden cited his experience as a public defender early in his career and his four decades in federal office. “I am more convinced than ever that we must end the use of the death penalty at the federal level,” he said.

He said the commutation of the death sentences of the 37 men, who will now serve life sentences without parole, is “consistent with the moratorium my administration has imposed on federal executions, other than terrorism and hate-motivated mass murder.”

“Make no mistake: I condemn these killers, mourn the victims of their despicable actions, and ache for all the families who have suffered unimaginable and irreparable loss,” the president said.

In his 2020 presidential campaign, Biden pledged to end the federal death penalty, but a proposed measure to do so failed in Congress. In 2021, Ministry of Justice issued a moratorium on federal executions while the federal death penalty was revised.

During Trump’s previous term, 13 federal death row inmates were executed after a nearly 20-year hiatus in federal executions.

The Catholic Mobilizing Network called for legislation to abolish the death penalty. “We will continue to pray fervently that President Biden’s bold steps will spur legislative action that ultimately leads to the abolition of the death penalty at all levels of government across the United States,” the group said in a statement.