Pope Leo Condemns Death Penalty As Trump Administration Approves Firing Squad Executions
The pontiff reaffirmed the Church's rejection of capital punishment in a video message to participants at a Chicago event marking the 15th anniversary of Illinois’ abolition of the death penalty.
This story has been updated.
By Gary Gately
Hours after the Trump administration announced that it would reinstate the firing squad to execute federal death row prisoners, Pope Leo XIV reaffirmed the Catholic Church’s rejection of capital punishment as an “inadmissible” attack on human dignity.
“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,” the first U.S.-born pope said in a two-minute video message Friday to participants at an event at DePaul University in Chicago marking the 15th anniversary of Illinois’ abolition of the death penalty.
Pope Leo told participants at the Catholic university in his hometown — including renowned anti-death penalty activist Sister Helen Prejean — that he supports “those who advocate for the abolition of the death penalty in the United States of America and around the world.”
“I pray that your efforts will lead to a greater acknowledgement of the dignity of every person, and will inspire others to work for the same just cause,” the pope said.
Leo sent the video message after the Justice Department announced that it would allow federal executions by firing squad for the first time and restore the use of single-drug lethal injections of pentobarbital, which the Biden administration had removed as an execution method over concerns that it can cause extreme suffering. The Supreme Court last year allowed South Carolina to carry out the first execution by firing squad in 15 years. It is one of five states that allow executions by firing squad.
The first Trump administration had restored the federal death penalty after a 17-year hiatus and executed 13 death-row inmates — the most under any president in more than 120 years — all by pentobarbital injection. The Justice Department defended the use of the pentobarbital injections, saying in a report released Friday that the drug renders a prisoner unconscious quickly enough to prevent pain.
In his video message, Pope Leo pointed to Pope Francis’ revision of the Catechism of the Catholic Church in 2018 to state that “the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person.”
“We affirm that the dignity of the person is not lost even after very serious crimes are committed,” Leo said. “Furthermore, effective systems of detention can be and have been developed that protect citizens while at the same time, [they] do not completely deprive those who are guilty of the possibility of redemption.”
Krisanne Vaillancourt Murphy, executive director of Catholic Mobilizing Network, a Catholic organization that advocates for abolition of the death penalty, welcomed Leo’s statement.
“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,” Vaillancourt Murphy said in a statement. “Pope Leo makes it crystal clear that the death penalty is a priority for the universal Church.”
The Biden administration had ordered a federal moratorium on capital punishment in 2021, and just before leaving office in December 2024, then-President Joe Biden commuted the sentences of 37 of the 40 federal inmates on death row at the time.
Since Trump returned to the White House in January 2025, his administration has lifted the moratorium and pressed for more death sentences. The Justice Department said Friday that it is seeking death sentences for 44 federal defendants.
The department said in its report that expanding execution methods would “strengthen the death penalty” by “deterring the most barbaric crimes, delivering justice for victims, and providing long-overdue closure to surviving loved ones.”
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a statement that the Biden administration had “failed in its duty to protect the American people by refusing to pursue and carry out the ultimate punishment against the most dangerous criminals, including terrorists, child murderers and cop killers.”
But the Trump administration’s moves to dramatically expand the death penalty drew sharp criticism from Senator Dick Durbin, an Illinois Democrat.
“State-sanctioned killing is not justice,” Durbin, who is Catholic, said in a statement. “Today, DOJ is turning back the clock by strengthening the barbaric practice of the federal death penalty — a cruel, immoral, and often discriminatory form of punishment.”
Leo sent his video message to the DePaul University gathering a day after he spoke out forcefully against executions aboard the papal plane returning from his apostolic visit to Africa.
Asked about executions in Iran, the leader of the 1.4 billion-member Catholic Church said: “I condemn all actions that are unjust. I condemn the taking of people's lives. I condemn capital punishment. I believe that human life is to be respected and that all people, from conception to natural death, their lives should be respected and protected."
Public support for the death penalty for people convicted of murder has been steadily declining in the U.S. over the past three decades, falling from a high of 80% in 1994 to a 50-year low of 52%, according to an October 2025 Gallup poll.