death penalty

Pope Francis’ recent statement that the death penalty is incompatible with the Gospel focused less on a government’s role in protecting its people and more on the need to defend the sacredness and dignity of every human life.

A pledge campaign to end to capital punishment that took root in January with the Catholic Mobilizing Network was signed by bishops at the U.S. bishops’ headquarters building May 9.

A U.S. Catholic bishop said he joins Catholics in Arkansas and people of goodwill across the country and the world in urging the governor of Arkansas to reconsider the scheduled executions of seven men in 11 days.

The statement “preaching to the choir” had double meaning Feb. 6 at the Washington National Cathedral where religious leaders spoke against the death penalty and members of the Washington National Opera sang arias from the “Dead Man Walking” opera.

In the second death penalty case before the Supreme Court this term, the justices were asked to consider if the state of Texas used accurate standards to measure intellectual ability to determine if a person can be executed.

In the first week of its new term, the Supreme Court reviewed the extent that racial bias might have played in a 1995 death penalty sentence.

The United States, with its mixed record on the death penalty, is about to take a closer look at the issue this fall with two cases before the Supreme Court and three referendums on state ballots in the November election.

The Catholic bishops of New Mexico in an Aug. 18 statement said they oppose Republican Gov. Susana Martinez’s plan to reinstate the death penalty and called on the Legislature to reject it.