End the death penalty

On Wednesday morning, January 13th, 2021 Lisa Montgomery became the first woman to be executed by the federal government in 67 years. Montgomery, 52, was executed by lethal injection in a federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana. Montgomery was found guilty of murdering a pregnant woman and cutting her baby out of the victim’s womb. The crime is horrific. However, Montgomery’s attorneys have stated that she is had endured serious physical and sexual abuse as a child and that she suffered from mental illness. They went on to say that “Our Constitution forbids the execution of a person who is unable to rationally understand his execution.” Through prayer, education and hope we call on the government of the United States to turn from the culture of death and forgo all executions in this country. The ending of the death penalty does NOT mean that one should not be punished or kept away from society for a crime committed. However, death is not the answer as it leaves no room for one to beg for forgiveness and change one’s ways.

John Paul II visited the United States in 1999 and while in St. Louis, Missouri he urged an end to the death penalty, which he described as being “both cruel and unnecessary.” Pope Benedict XVI urged society’s leaders to “make every effort to eliminate the death penalty.” In addition, he praised those lay Catholics who had been working tirelessly to end the death penalty around the world. Pope Francis has repeatedly emphasized with tough words that the death penalty is “totally unacceptable and is an affront to the Gospel and the respect of human life and dignity.” In 2015 in front of both chambers of Congress during his visit to the United States Pope Francis called for the abolition of the death penalty because “every life is sacred, every human person is endowed with an inalienable dignity, and society can only benefit from the rehabilitation of those convicted of crimes.”

Ending the death penalty does not mean that one is soft on crime, but rather that one is strong on the dignity of life. Evidence has shown that the death penalty in the United States is racially and economically biased. However, the most troubling of all is that innocent people have been sent to death row, 166 of whom have been exonerated since 1973. Pope Francis clearly underscores this idea when he wrote, “The death penalty loses all legitimacy due to the defective selectivity of the criminal justice system and in the face of the possibility of judicial error. Human justice is imperfect, and the failure to recognize its fallibility can transform it into a source of injustice.”

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops have stated that in 2020 the federal government of the United States has executed more people than all fifty states combined. There are three more federal executions scheduled soon in January. There should be a moratorium on federal executions in order to provide compassionate and professional help to each person accused and the families involved of the victims and the accused.

Lisa Montgomery is just the third woman executed by the federal government since 1900. She joins Bonnie Brown Heady who was put to death in a gas chamber in December 1953 for her role in the kidnapping and murder of a multimillionaire auto dealer’s 6-year old son, and Ethel Rosenberg who was executed in June of 1953 for trying to pass on war secrets to the Soviet Union. As a civilized nation and one founded on our belief in God, we have no excuse. We must end the death penalty now.

The Rev. Gus Puleo is pastor of St. Patrick Church in Norristown and served as an adjunct professor of Spanish at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Philadelphia. He is a graduate of Norristown High School and attended Georgetown University, where he received B.A. and B.S. in Spanish and linguistics. He has master’s degrees in Spanish, linguistics and divinity from Middlebury College, Georgetown University and St. Charles Borromeo Seminary. He holds a Ph.D. in Spanish from the University of Pennsylvania.