Father Chris Ponnet, participates in a protesting against the death penalty in Anaheim, Calif., February 25, 2017.
(Andrew Cullen/Reuters) The same theological commitments should inform resistance to both abortion and capital punishment.
Late last year, the outgoing Trump administration started carrying out federal executions for the first time in 17 years. By the time he left office yesterday, President Trump had overseen 13 such executions, more than any president in over 100 years.
Before November’s election, there had been a 130-year-old precedent of pausing executions during a presidential transition. But the Trump Justice Department raced through as many executions as possible in the lead-up to Joe Biden’s inauguration. This might be because Biden has promised to put an end to the federal death penalty, or it might be because Trump had such a difficult time reconciling himself to the fact that the last few months even constituted a transit