EWTN News, the flagship media organ of the conciliar sect, publishes a hagiographic profile of Joaquín José Martínez, a Spanish national exonerated from Florida’s death row in 2001, who now serves as the poster child for the neo-church’s crusade to abolish capital punishment. The article, authored by Daniel Payne of Catholic News Agency, presents the abolition of the death penalty not as a prudential judgment but as a doctrinal imperative, framing the Church’s perennial teaching on the legitimacy of the civil sword as a barbarism from which humanity must “evolve” and “grow.” This is not Catholic advocacy; it is the zeitgeist of the Antichrist masquerading as mercy.
Theological Subversion: Replacing Divine Justice with Sentimental Humanitarianism
The cited article relates that Martínez, flanked by fellow exonerees Herman Lindsey and Seth Penalver, demanded Florida’s Governor-elect Byron Donalds halt executions, declaring: “It just needs to evolve. It just needs to grow.” This language of evolutio (evolution) applied to moral doctrine is the hallmark of Modernism, condemned by St. Pius X in Pascendi Dominici Gregis (1907) as the “synthesis of all heresies.” The dogmatic truth that the State possesses the right, divinely delegated, to inflict capital punishment for grave crimes (Genesis 9:6; Romans 13:4) is not a stage of development to be outgrown, but a de fide principle of the natural and revealed law.
The article quotes the Florida bishops arguing the governor should “recognize with awe that God is the author of life, and to reserve to him the taking of human life except where it is otherwise impossible to maintain the common good.” This formulation, lifted from the Catechism of the Catholic Church (1992) as modified by the antipope Bergoglio in 2018, deliberately obscures the traditional doctrine. The Roman Catechism of the Council of Trent teaches unequivocally: “Another kind of lawful slaying belongs to the civil authorities, to whom is entrusted power of life and death, by the legal and judicious exercise of which they punish the guilty and protect the innocent. The just use of this power, far from involving the crime of murder, is an act of paramount obedience to this Commandment which prohibits murder.” The neo-church’s “seamless garment” rhetoric reduces the ius gladii (right of the sword) to a mere concession of necessity, effectively denying the iustitia vindicativa (vindictive justice) which is the primary end of punishment.
The Colosseum Calumny: Equating Roman Justice with Pagan Spectacle
Martínez is quoted comparing executions in the U.S. to “ancient Rome’s Colosseum… how barbaric!” This is a calculated blasphemy against the order established by God. St. Paul, writing to the Romans under Nero, affirms the magistrate “beareth not the sword in vain: for he is God’s minister, an avenger to execute wrath upon him that doth evil” (Rom 13:4). To call the lawful execution of a justly condemned murderer “barbaric” is to call the Holy Ghost barbaric, Who inspired that text. It is to condemn Pope Pius XII, who in his Address to the First International Congress of Histopathology of the Nervous System (1952) declared: “Even in the case of the death penalty the State does not dispose of the individual’s right to life. Rather public authority limits itself to depriving the offender of the good of life in expiation for his guilt, after he, through his crime, deprived himself of his own right to life.”
The article notes Florida carried out 23 executions in the last year alone, presenting this statistic as an indictment. From the perspective of integral Catholicism, it is a sign that the temporal power still retains a vestige of its God-given duty to coercere malos (restrain the wicked), however imperfectly exercised within a Masonic constitutional order.
The “Exoneree” as Lay Prophet: Inversion of Ecclesiastical Hierarchy
The report centers entirely on a layman — a former prisoner — as the moral authority, while the “bishops” are reduced to supporting actors quoting a falsified catechism. This is the democratizatio (democratization) of the Church condemned by Pius XI in Quas Primas (1925), where he teaches that “men united in societies are no less subject to the authority of Christ than individuals” and that the State must “publicly honor Christ and obey Him.” The article’s narrative — “advocacy is much more united and focused… the media now offers much fairer coverage” — celebrates the triumph of the civitas terrena (earthly city) over the Civitas Dei (City of God). The reference to Gavin Newsom’s “historic exoneration of every prisoner on that state’s death row” is held up as progress; in reality, it is the abolitio iustitiae (abolition of justice) by a tyrant who governs sine lege Dei (without God’s law).
Silence on the Supernatural: The Grave Omission
Nowhere in the article — nor in the quoted statements of the “bishops” or Martínez — is there mention of: the state of grace of the condemned; the salvific value of suffering united to the Cross; the duty of the priest to prepare the soul for judgment; the reality of Hell for unrepentant murderers; or the rights of God violated by the crime. The “humanity of the condemned” is invoked in a purely naturalistic, Pelagian sense — as if temporal life were the supreme good. This is the laicism (secularism) Pius XI identified as “the plague that poisons human society” in Quas Primas. The “mercy” offered is a counterfeit, misericordia sine veritate (mercy without truth), which leaves the sinner in his chains while patting him on the back.
The Conciliar Sect’s Media Apparatus: EWTN as Propaganda Organ
The source, EWTN News / Catholic News Agency, is a creature of the post-conciliar structure, founded by the Franciscan “Mother Angelica” under the patronage of the usurper Montini (Paul VI). Its function is to legitimize the theological novelties of the novus ordo regime. Daniel Payne, the author, is identified as a “senior editor” previously of The College Fix and Just the News — secular conservative outlets — confirming the naturalistic framing. The article ends with a newsletter subscription prompt: “Which newsletter would you like? Daily Weekly… I agree to receive communications from EWTN.” The salvation of souls has been replaced by marketing metrics.
Sedevacantist Verdict: The Abolitionist Heresy is Schism from the Living Tradition
From the perspective of the integral Catholic faith — the sole criterion of truth — the campaign to abolish the death penalty is a doctrinal rebellion against the Holy Ghost. It denies the potestas ordinata (ordered power) of the State derived from Christ the King (Quas Primas: “all power in heaven and on earth has been given to Him”). It embraces the hermeneutic of rupture disguised as “development.” The “Catholic” arguments deployed are argumenta ad passiones (appeals to emotion), not argumenta ex fide (arguments from faith). Martínez’s exoneration proves only the fallibility of human tribunals — a reason for better justice, not no justice. The true Catholic prays for the conversion of the condemned on the scaffold, that he may meet the Just Judge with a contrite heart, not for the abolition of the scaffold itself.
Qui non judicat iuste, non diligit iustitiam. (He who does not judge justly, does not love justice.) The neo-church’s “mercy” is the mercy of the Antichrist: broad is the way that leads to destruction, and many there are who enter by it (Matt 7:13).
Source:
In Florida, a Catholic former death row prisoner works to save those still condemned to death (ewtnnews.com)
Date: 14.11.2026