death penalty

or the second time in his case, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed an inmate’s death penalty sentence because of his intellectual disability.

The latest death penalty case to be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court was not about if a death-row prisoner should be executed and the newest member of the court, Justice Brett Kavanaugh, could be the deciding vote on the outcome.

With or without closure on Judge Brett Kavanaugh, the court is set to resume what it does: listening to oral arguments and making decisions.

A Sept. 4 letter signed by more than 1,500 Catholic nuns, priests and other church leaders from around the country addressed to U.S. senators voiced concerns about Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh, a fellow Catholic, as he faced confirmation hearings on Capitol Hill in early September that may result in a seat for him on the Supreme Court of the United States.

Chicago Cardinal Blase J. Cupich, speaking during an Aug. 2 panel discussion, described how Catholic teaching on the death penalty has developed and stressed that putting people to death — even criminals who are certainly guilty of terrible acts — makes it seem that the God-given right to life is conditional.

Joining other Catholic death penalty opponents, the chairman of the U.S. bishops’ domestic policy committee praised the Aug. 2 announcement that Pope Francis had ordered a revision of the Catechism of the Catholic Church calling the death penalty “inadmissible.”

Building on the development of Catholic Church teaching against capital punishment, Pope Francis has ordered a revision of the Catechism of the Catholic Church to assert “the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person.”

Author delves into the life of Sister Helen Prejean and writes about how her own eyes were opened to what the death penalty is all about.