BREAKING: Pope Leo slams Trump’s firing squad order, calls life “the foundation of every human right”
Pope Leo XIV has directly challenged the Trump administration’s push to expand capital punishment, speaking out for the second time in a single week against the death penalty just hours after the Justice Department announced it would authorize firing squads as an official method of federal execution.
The first American-born pontiff delivered a video address to DePaul University in Chicago marking fifteen years since Illinois abolished capital punishment, using the occasion to draw a sharp contrast with Washington’s direction. “The right to life is the very foundation of every other human right,” he said. “Only when a society safeguards the sanctity of human life will it flourish and prosper.”
Pope Leo made clear that his position reflects longstanding Church teaching, arguing that even people convicted of serious crimes retain their dignity and that effective detention systems can protect the public without resorting to execution. “The Church teaches that the death penalty is inadmissible, because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person,” he said, adding his support to abolition movements across the United States and around the world.
The Justice Department’s announcement the same day went well beyond firing squads, reinstating lethal injection protocols using pentobarbital that the Biden administration had suspended in 2021, and pledging to accelerate the processing of death penalty cases. The moves align with Trump’s standing directive ordering the department to seek death sentences more aggressively and carry them out faster.
This is not the first time the two have clashed publicly. Trump has called Pope Leo “weak” on crime and urged him to “get his act together,” while the pontiff responded that he had “no fear” of the administration and would keep speaking out against war and injustice.