OSV News

WASHINGTON (CNS) — The passage of a bill by South Carolina lawmakers in early May to restart executions after 10 years and to add death by firing squad or electric chair as options if lethal injection drugs are not available is a “setback for South Carolina” and “stands in stark contrast to powerful efforts elsewhere to abolish the death penalty,” said a Catholic death penalty opponent.

A coroner in Northern Ireland ruled that a priest and nine lay Catholics who were shot dead by British troops almost 50 years ago were “entirely innocent” and their deaths were unjustified.

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has urged the U.S. bishops to proceed with caution in their discussions about formulating a national policy “to address the situation of Catholics in public office who support legislation allowing abortion, euthanasia or other moral evils.”

The Leadership Conference of Women Religious and the National Black Sisters Conference issued a joint statement May 5 on the importance of ensuring that all people enjoy the right to vote “regardless of their race, zip code, economic status or party affiliation.”

“The Eucharist must never be instrumentalized for a political end, no matter how important,” said Bishop Robert W. McElroy of San Diego in a May 5 essay published on the website of America magazine, the Jesuit journal.

At the 51st annual Washington Conference on the Americas, May 4, U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said four migrant families who remained separated under a Trump administration policy would be among the first to be reunited in early May by the Biden administration.