On Thursday, December 19th, a telephone conversation took place between U.S. President Joe Biden, whose term ends on January 20th, and Pope Francis. This exchange, announced by the U.S. presidency, allowed the two leaders to discuss various topics, including efforts to promote peace in the world during the Christmas and New Year holiday period. Biden took this opportunity to express his gratitude to the Pope for his constant commitment to human rights and the protection of religious freedoms.
Among the major concerns raised by the Pope and American bishops is the issue of the death penalty in the United States. On this subject, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) recently issued an urgent appeal, exhorting citizens to urge Biden to commute all federal death sentences to life imprisonment before the end of his term. Indeed, the bishops have proposed that Catholics sign a form addressed to the president, requesting clemency for the 40 inmates currently on federal death row.
The engagement of the Catholic Church in the United States against the death penalty is not new. Since 1974, the USCCB has taken a position in favor of its abolition, a commitment that has been reaffirmed several times since, notably following the resumption of executions by the Supreme Court. The bishops emphasize that the reasons motivating this opposition remain relevant: lengthy judicial procedures, the risk of judicial errors, the suffering inflicted on the condemned and their families, as well as the inequality in the application of the death penalty. They also affirm that any execution ends all possibility of rehabilitation for the individual concerned.
Joe Biden, during his 2020 presidential campaign, spoke of the need for judicial reforms focused on redemption. Upon his arrival at the presidency, he was questioned by the bishops on this crucial subject. The USCCB had already called for commutation measures for death row inmates in 2021, and this call takes on particular resonance as Biden nears the end of his term.
Pope Francis, for his part, has also expressed his concern for death row prisoners. On December 8th, he invited the faithful to pray for these "brothers and sisters" by calling for the grace of their salvation. In the context of the 2025 Jubilee, the Pope calls for the abolition of the death penalty and modified the Catechism of the Catholic Church in 2018 to affirm a total rejection of this practice, considered contrary to human dignity.
Theologians, like Saint Thomas Aquinas, argued that capital punishment could be justified by the necessity of defending the common good and rendering justice, considering the death penalty as a means of repairing the disorder caused by serious criminal acts. These principles were based on the idea that justice should always aim for the good and redemption, and that execution should be the last option, after having exhausted all other possibilities for rehabilitation. This remains, nonetheless, a matter of pastoral prudence and it is not an infallible subject; a new Pope could very well revisit it.
I am personally against the abolition of the death penalty. Indeed, in the current context, where many states are led by false humanists and socialists, who are nihilists, we are witnessing a failing justice system that no longer protects citizens and does not offer genuine possibilities for rehabilitation based on Christian morality. Faced with these new societal challenges, including the rise of terrorism, a return to the death penalty could be considered as a response to serious threats to public security.