How Catholics can urge Joe Biden to commute death row sentences before leaving office
President
Joe Biden speaks at the lighting of the National Christmas Tree near
the White House on Dec. 5, 2024. Catholic Mobilizing Network has
initiated a national petition for Catholics to urge President Biden to
commute the sentences of all 40 men currently on federal death row. (AP
Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)After months of election news, followed by an onslaught of reports about new political appointees, many of us feel the heavy weight of uncertainty and even fear about what is to come with the next administration.
I will be candid. Given what we heard on the campaign trail about expedited executions and expansions of death sentences, coupled with the first Trump administration’s record of carrying out 13 executions, the outlook of ending the immoral and failed practice of capital punishment in the United States now feels pretty grim and, dare I say, bends toward hopeless.
But in these bleak moments, reorienting ourselves to the sure hope in God and the reality of eternal things unseen can help us see—and act—clearly in what St. Paul described as “this present darkness.”
In mid-November, I returned from a trip to Rome that had been on my calendar for months. In hindsight, this post-election trip could not have been better timed. Providentially, I attended the World Day of the Poor Mass at St. Peter’s Basilica and heard Pope Francis’ striking homily on “anguish and hope.” It was just the lesson my hope-anemic heart needed to hear.
The pope said something I won’t forget: “If we limit our gaze to the narrative of events, we allow anguish to gain the upper hand… Faced with this scenario, we run the risk of falling into despondency and failing to recognize the presence of God within the drama of history. In so doing, we condemn ourselves to powerlessness.”
He went on to say, “Yet it is precisely here, in the midst of that apocalyptic scene, that Jesus kindles hope. He opens up the horizon, widens our gaze, so that even in the precariousness and pain of the world, we may learn to grasp the presence of God’s love, which comes close to us, does not abandon us, and acts for our salvation.”
At that moment, I recognized that I had allowed polarization and fear to distract my gaze and disorient my compass away from the true north of Christian hope—a hope that is not halfhearted or superficial but a kind of anchored hope, “born of grace.” Without being anchored in hope, I (and we) can allow cynicism or despair to seep in and eclipse our own agency to build up a culture of life and to serve the common good.
Even when it might feel late, God is always right on time. I was grateful for the pope’s lesson on the depths of hope, and his homily for World Day of the Poor can accompany all of us in the coming days.
Indeed, beyond the darkness of fear and uncertainty, there is a glimmer of hope.
On Christmas Eve, Pope Francis will open the Holy Door of St. Peter’s to Jubilee 2025, with its theme “Pilgrims of Hope.” Two days later, he will visit Rebibbia, a prison on the outskirts of Rome, to open a Holy Door there as a “tangible sign of the message of hope” for people in prisons around the world. The Jubilee Year’s Bull of Indiction, which was released by the Vatican last spring and describes its objectives, says that “All the baptized, with their respective charisms and ministries, are co-responsible for ensuring that manifold signs of hope bear witness to God’s presence in the world.”
A key aspect to anchoring ourselves in hope is attuning ourselves to cooperate in how God is at work in the world. So this year of “hope that does not fade” requires that Catholics do our part to usher in the hope that we seek.
Of course, this world belongs to God. Nothing is impossible for God. Yet he doesn’t want to do it without us. This Jubilee Year that we are about to enter needs peacemakers who are called the children of God (Matthew 5:9) in these challenging, uncertain times. “The need for peace challenges us all and demands that concrete steps be taken,” Pope Francis instructs us.
This is why Catholic Mobilizing Network has initiated a national petition for Catholics to urge President Biden—a fellow Catholic—to act in the spirit of mercy and justice to commute the sentences of all 40 men currently on federal death row. We are encouraging all Catholics and people of good will to sign the petition here.
Mr. Biden made history as the first U.S. president to openly oppose the death penalty. But while federal executions have been paused during the Biden presidency, 40 lives are still at stake, with a new administration weeks away. Until he leaves office, President Biden has the constitutional authority to offer clemency to each person on federal death row.
At a time when the Holy Father has called for “forgiveness, reconciliation, and an end to every form of death penalty,” such a bold Jubilee action from President Biden would not only leave open the door to redemption for these men, but also quite possibly mark a turning point in the movement to end the scourge of capital punishment throughout the United States.
Beyond moral arguments for eradicating the practice of capital punishment, we know the death penalty does not deter crime or make communities safer. Neither at the federal nor the state level is the practice acceptable. It’s too flawed and risky, too arbitrary and unfair, too cruel and dehumanizing to justify.
But we see signs of hope in our effort to end the practice. Since we began our work in 2009, nine states have abolished the death penalty, bringing the total of states without capital punishment to 23. Six others have moratoriums or executive actions in place. And Gallup reports that overall support for the death penalty in the United States, led by younger generations, has fallen to 53 percent—the lowest level in over 50 years. Change is here.
In short, we are at a critical juncture in the U.S. death penalty abolition movement. And we as Catholics—including President Biden—can light the way.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church states unequivocally that “the Church teaches, in the light of the Gospel, that ‘the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person,’ and she works with determination for its abolition worldwide” (No. 2267).
With the 2025 Jubilee of Hope offering us a favorable time to re-establish a proper relationship with God and with each other, a time to rebalance and recommit to justice and mercy, we must seize this providential moment.
As the Jubilee roadmap illustrates, being “anchored in hope born of grace enables us to live in Christ and to overcome sin, fear and death.” And maybe to overcome the death penalty in the United States.
[Read next: “A busy weekend for Pope Francis: The Immaculate Conception, a consistory and prayers for death row inmates in the United States”]
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