Anti-Catholic Coalition Seeks to Undermine Divine Justice Through Death Penalty Abolition
The Catholic News Agency portal (December 3, 2025) reports on the formation of a “U.S. Campaign to End the Death Penalty” (USCEPD) coalition involving modernist “Catholic” groups collaborating with organizations fundamentally opposed to Catholic moral teaching. The article promotes Sister Helen Prejean’s activism against capital punishment while celebrating declining public support for this divinely sanctioned practice.
Naturalism Masquerading as Mercy
The coalition’s arguments rest entirely on naturalistic premises, ignoring the lex aeterna (eternal law) governing civil authority’s God-given power to punish capital crimes. Prejean’s statement that executions constitute “semi-secret rituals behind prison walls” reveals a gnostic contempt for the state’s potestas gladii (power of the sword), which Saint Paul explicitly affirms: “For he [the ruler] is God’s minister to you, an avenger to execute wrath on him who does evil” (Romans 13:4).
“When we bring them close, they get it,” she said. Prejean said people who are poor and people who are ethnic minorities tend to face harsher penalties in the criminal justice system.
This Marxist analysis of criminal justice substitutes class warfare for moral culpability. The Church teaches that distributio justitiae (distribution of justice) must consider individual guilt, not demographic categories. Pope Pius XII condemned such collectivist thinking in Ci Riesce (1953), affirming that states retain “the right to punish transgressors with appropriate penalties, not excluding, in cases of extreme gravity, the death penalty.”
Theological Subversion Through False Compassion
The Catholic Mobilizing Network’s claim that abolishing capital punishment “honor[s] the dignity of all life” constitutes heretical revisionism. The Council of Trent’s Roman Catechism teaches: “The execution of criminals is not contrary to the precept, ‘Thou shalt not kill’… the power of life and death is permitted to certain civil magistrates” (Part III, 5,6). Krisanne Vaillancourt Murphy’s statement exemplifies the conciliar sect’s inversion of Catholic moral theology by placing murderer and victim on equal moral footing.
Demetrius Minor’s attempt to frame abolition as a “pro-life perspective” demonstrates how post-conciliar language corrupts Catholic thought. Casti Connubii (Pius XI, 1930) defines true pro-life principles as defending “the sacredness of the life of the innocent,” a protection forfeited by those committing capital crimes. The coalition’s partnership with Amnesty International – which promotes abortion and sexual deviancy – exposes its fundamentally anti-Catholic character.
Rejection of the Social Kingship of Christ
Nowhere does the article mention the Regnum Christi (Kingship of Christ) over civil societies. As Pius XI declared in Quas Primas (1925): “Nations will be reminded by the annual celebration of this feast that not only private individuals but also rulers and princes are bound to give public honor and obedience to Christ.” The campaign’s exclusion of Christ’s royal authority reduces justice to human sentiment rather than divine ordinance.
Prejean’s misuse of Psalm 85:12 – “truth will spring from the earth” – blasphemously implies popular opinion supersedes revealed truth. The Church has always taught that civil authority derives from God (Romans 13:1), not democratic consensus. Gallup polling showing declining support for capital punishment only demonstrates society’s deepening apostasy, not moral progress.
False Ecumenism and Masonic Alliances
The coalition’s structure embodies the conciliar sect’s embrace of religious indifferentism condemned in Mortalium Animos (Pius XI, 1928): “This perverse opinion is spread… that all religions are more or less good and praiseworthy.” By collaborating with ACLU activists and secular humanists, these “Catholic” groups participate in what Pope Leo XIII called the “Masonic plan” to destroy Christian civilization (Humanum Genus, 1884).
Sister Prejean’s activism exemplifies the neo-modernist heresy condemned in Lamentabili Sane (1907), particularly proposition 58: “Truth changes with man, because it develops with him, in him, and through him.” Her work with death row prisoners substitutes psychological manipulation for sacramental confession, reducing spiritual conversion to social work.
Omission of Magisterial Teaching
The article completely ignores the unanimous pre-conciliar tradition:
- Saint Thomas Aquinas: “It is lawful to kill… when execution is carried out by the authority of the governing power” (ST II-II Q64 A3)
- Pope Innocent III: “Secular power can without mortal sin exercise judgment of blood” (Profession of Faith Prescribed to the Waldensians, 1208)
- Catechism of Pope Saint Pius X: “The Fifth Commandment forbids murder… but doesn’t extend to those who kill by public authority” (Q14)
This coalition represents not Catholic reform but apostasy from divine justice. As Pope Pius XII warned: “When the State sets aside divine law… it undermines its own authority” (Radio Message, 1944). Their campaign completes the conciliar revolution’s assault on Christ’s social reign by denying the state’s right to fulfill its God-ordained punitive function.
Source:
Catholics form coalition opposed to the death penalty amid execution surge (catholicnewsagency.com)
Date: 03.12.2025