Pope Leo encourages death penalty abolitionists as US brings back firing squad and electric chair

(OSV News) — Pope Leo XIV sent a message of support to participants at a Catholic university event marking 15 years since the abolition of the death penalty in his home state of Illinois.

On the same day, the Trump administration announced plans to expand the available methods of federal execution, including bringing back the firing squad and the electric chair.

In a two-minute video released April 24, Pope Leo addressed those on hand that day at DePaul University in Chicago — some 25 miles north of where the pope grew up — for a gathering titled “A Beacon of Light in Darkness.”

The commemoration, which took place at the school’s student center, featured renowned anti-death penalty activist Sister Helen Prejean, a member of the Congregation of St. Joseph, and former Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn, who in 2011 signed the state bill abolishing capital punishment, commuting the sentences of the 15 death row inmates at the time to life in prison.

“The Catholic Church has consistently taught that each human life, from the moment of conception until natural death, is sacred and deserves to be protected,” said Pope Leo in his message. “Indeed, the right to life is the very foundation of every other human right.”

“For this reason,” he said, “only when a society safeguards the sanctity of human life will it flourish and prosper.”

Pope Leo then summarized the Catholic Church’s position on the death penalty, the formulation of which Pope Francis clarified in 2018, revising paragraph 2267 in the Catechism of the Catholic Church — a move that built on St. John Paul II’s frequent and longstanding calls to abandon the death penalty.

“In this regard, we affirm that the dignity of the person is not lost even after various serious crimes are committed,” said Pope Leo, paraphrasing a line of the passage — which in turn drew on the words of St. John Paul II, who in his 1995 encyclical “Evangelium Vitae” wrote, “Not even a murderer loses his personal dignity, and God himself pledges to guarantee this.”

“Furthermore, effective systems of detention can be and have been developed that protect citizens,” Pope Leo said, continuing his summary of the Catechism passage.

Such systems “at the same time do not completely deprive those who are guilty of the possibility of redemption,” he said.

“This is why Pope Francis and my recent predecessors repeatedly insisted that the common good can be safeguarded, and the requirements of justice can be met, without recourse to capital punishment,” the pope explained.

“Consequently,” said Pope Leo — quoting the catechism’s citation of an October 2017 address by Pope Francis — “the Church teaches that the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person.”

“I therefore join you in celebrating the decision made by the governor of Illinois in 2011, and I likewise offer my support to those who advocate for the abolition of the death penalty in the United States of America and around the world,” Pope Leo said. “I pray that your efforts will lead to a greater acknowledgment of the dignity of every person, and will inspire others to work for the same just cause.”

The pope added, “With these sentiments, I cordially invoke upon all of you the divine blessings of wisdom, joy and peace.”

In an April 24 statement, Krisanne Vaillancourt Murphy, executive director of Catholic Mobilizing Network — a national organization working to end the death penalty and advance justice solutions in line with Catholic teaching — said the pope “makes it crystal clear that the death penalty is a priority for the universal Church.”

“It was absolutely thrilling to hear the first American Pope’s encouraging words about death penalty abolition efforts in his home state and country,” she said. “It indicates the closeness of the Holy Father Pope Leo to the Church’s indefatigable work across the nation to end this death-dealing practice.”

She also noted that the message came just a few days after Pope Leo’s address at a prison in Equatorial Guinea, where he assured inmates, “Life is not defined solely by one’s mistakes, which are often the result of difficult and complex circumstances. There is always the possibility to start over, learn and become a new person.”

The pope also told the inmates, “Brothers and sisters, you are not alone.”

Also on April 24, the U.S. Department of Justice said it would seek to streamline the death penalty process and increase the means of administering the federal death penalty, directing the Federal Bureau of Prisons to restore the lethal drug pentobarbital and “additional manners of execution.”

“The additional manners of execution that BOP should consider adopting include the firing squad, electrocution, and lethal gas — each of which the Supreme Court has found to be consistent with the Eighth Amendment,” stated the DOJ Office of Legal Policy document “Restoring and Strengthening the Federal Death Penalty.”

Since the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976 — the same year the nation celebrated its bicentennial — 1,662 men and women have been executed in the U.S., according to the nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center. As of April 24, eight have been executed in 2026.

The center noted that “executions have declined significantly over the past two decades,” with most “concentrated in a few states and a small number of outlier counties.”

Oklahoma had the highest per capita execution rate from 1976-2024, followed by Texas and Missouri, according to the center’s data.

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