Catholic leaders condemn Trump's order to expand use of death penalty

WASHINGTON (OSV News) -- President Donald Trump signed an executive order on the federal death penalty Jan. 20, among the first actions of his second term, directing the attorney general to "pursue the death penalty for all crimes of a severity demanding its use," prompting statements of concern from Catholic opponents of the practice.

Trump's order, signed just hours after he returned to the White House, also directed the attorney general to "seek the death penalty regardless of other factors for every federal capital crime" that involves the "murder of a law-enforcement officer" or a "capital crime committed by an alien illegally present in this country."

It also directed the attorney general to "encourage" state attorneys general and district attorneys to pursue death sentences and to "take all necessary and lawful action to ensure that each state that allows capital punishment has a sufficient supply of drugs needed to carry out lethal injection."

The death penalty order was among those Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and head of the U.S. Archdiocese for the Military Services, called "deeply troubling" in a Jan. 22 statement about Trump's first batch of executive orders in his second term.

In the order titled, "Restoring The Death Penalty And Protecting Public Safety," Trump called capital punishment "an essential tool for deterring and punishing those who would commit the most heinous crimes and acts of lethal violence against American citizens."

But some academic studies have cast doubt on the effectiveness of the death penalty as a deterrent to crime. A report brief on a 2012 study by the National Research Council of the National Academies said that "research to date on the effect of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment on homi­cide is not infor­ma­tive about whether cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment decreas­es, increas­es, or has no effect on homi­cide rates." It recommended against making policy judgements based on such claims.

Krisanne Vaillancourt Murphy, executive director of Catholic Mobilizing Network, a group that advocates for the abolition of capital punishment in line with Catholic teaching, said in a statement Trump's executive order on the death penalty "makes no sense.

"What we know about the death penalty is that it does not deter crime or make communities safer," Vaillancourt Murphy said. "It's immoral, flawed and risky, arbitrary and unfair, cruel and dehumanizing. Both the state and federal death penalty systems are broken beyond repair, and emblematic of a throwaway culture."

Catholic Mobilizing Network was part of a campaign last year to push former President Joe Biden to commute federal death sentences during his final days in office, in anticipation of Trump's planned expansion of the practice. Biden did not fulfill a campaign promise to end the practice at the federal level, but he commuted the sentences of 37 of the 40 individuals on federal death row on Dec. 23. He declined to do so for three individuals convicted on charges related to terrorism or mass shootings.

The Catholic Church's official magisterium opposes the use of the death penalty as inconsistent with the inherent sanctity of human life, and advocates for the abolition of the practice worldwide. In his 2020 encyclical "Fratelli Tutti," Pope Francis addressed the moral problem of capital punishment by citing St. John Paul II, writing that his predecessor "stated clearly and firmly that the death penalty is inadequate from a moral standpoint and no longer necessary from that of penal justice."

"There can be no stepping back from this position," Pope Francis wrote. Echoing the teaching he clarified in his 2018 revision of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the pontiff said, "Today we state clearly that 'the death penalty is inadmissible' and the church is firmly committed to calling for its abolition worldwide."

Pope Francis on Jan. 9 in his annual audience for members of the diplomatic corps, also said the death penalty "finds no justification today among the instruments capable of restoring justice."

Vaillancourt Murphy said, "As faithful anti-death penalty advocates, we know lives hang in the balance."

"Our work will not be over until capital punishment has been completely abandoned at every level of government in the United States," she said. "Despite this regrettable declaration from President Trump, we will keep doing what we have done for 15 years -- we will pray and advocate and educate and advance restorative practices until this system of death is dismantled and our communities flourish amid a culture of life."

The Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to vote on Pam Bondi, Trump's pick for attorney general, who will be tasked with implementing the executive order. The panel will vote Jan. 29 on whether to advance Bondi's nomination to the full Senate for its consideration.