Pope Francis and outgoing US president Joe Biden spoke by telephone yesterday about numerous present points, starting with peace efforts in view of Christmas. The US chief thanked the Pope for “his work to advertise human rights and shield non secular freedom.” He then accepted an invite to go to the Vatican in January. A theme near the Pope’s coronary heart is the destiny of US demise row inmates for whom he launched an enchantment on the Angelus on 8 December.
By Salvatore Cernuzio
Pope Francis and US President Joe Biden spoke with one another in a telephone name in a single day on 19 December. The dialog befell as President Biden concludes his time period in workplace and is the newest of the numerous occasions they’ve spoken or met lately.
The two leaders mentioned “efforts to advance peace around the globe through the vacation season,” in response to a White House assertion. The memo stated Biden “thanked the Pope for his continued advocacy to alleviate world struggling, together with his work to advance human rights and shield non secular freedoms.”
The President “additionally graciously accepted His Holiness Pope Francis’s invitation to go to the Vatican subsequent month.”
In a subsequent assertion, the White House press secretary famous Biden will likely be in Rome from 9-12 January, throughout which era he’ll maintain separate conferences with Pope Francis, Italian President Sergio Mattarella and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. The assertion famous that the viewers with the Pope is scheduled for 10 January.
His introduced go to to the Vatican will likely be his remaining one earlier than leaving the White House on 20 January, when his successor Donald Trump will likely be sworn in as the brand new US president.
Pope’s concern for these on demise row
One of the problems that’s significantly near the Pope’s coronary heart is the destiny of prisoners on demise row. This subject has at all times been vital to Pope Francis, who in 2018 amended paragraph 2267 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church to reaffirm the inadmissibility of the demise penalty beneath any circumstances—as a result of, he defined, human dignity stays intact even when an individual commits a grave crime.
Hopes through the Jubilee
In his video message for his month-to-month prayer intention in September, 2022, Pope Francis reiterated his “No” to a measure that doesn’t convey justice however fosters vengeance.
Earlier this month, he once more highlighted the difficulty in anticipation of the Jubilee, a time of hope and mercy throughout which—as he wrote within the Bull of Indiction of the Jubilee Year, Spes Non Confundit—he hopes for concrete steps such because the cancellation of international debt for poor international locations and the abolition of the demise penalty worldwide; at the moment, greater than 50 international locations proceed to make use of capital punishment.
The Pope has described the demise penalty as an act “at odds with Christian religion” and one which “eliminates all hope for forgiveness and rehabilitation.”
Angelus enchantment
During the Angelus on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception on 8 December, the Holy Father known as on the trustworthy to “pray for the prisoners who’re on demise row within the United States. (…)
“Let us pray,” he stated, “that their sentence be commuted, modified. Let us consider these brothers and sisters of ours and ask the Lord for the grace to save lots of them from demise.”
US Catholic Bishops’ enchantment
Following the Pope’s phrases, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops issued a direct enchantment to all Catholics within the US, urging them to ask outgoing President Biden to commute the demise sentences of forty people at the moment on federal demise row to life imprisonment.
Catholic Mobilizing Network
Earlier, the Catholic Mobilizing Network (CNN)—a nationwide Catholic group advocating for the abolition of the demise penalty within the U.S.—launched a marketing campaign to commute the sentences of 40 individuals at the moment held in federal prisons.
According to Executive Director Krisanne Vaillancourt Murphy, for President Biden—who had already imposed a brief moratorium on federal executions in June 2021 (a pause Trump promised to overturn)—it is a distinctive and remaining alternative to embrace Catholic instructing and save these lives. Doing so would coincide with the primary month of the Jubilee, and would mark the ultimate interval of his presidency.
