News Briefs

Catholic group expresses concern over Alabama’s untested new execution method

January 23, 2024 Catholic News Agency 1
The Community of Sant’Egidio, a group founded in Rome and known for mediating conflicts worldwide, shared a petition Jan. 23, 2024, urging Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey to halt the execution of convicted murderer Kenneth “Kenny” Eugene Smith. / Credit: Alabama Department of Corrections

CNA Staff, Jan 23, 2024 / 17:50 pm (CNA).

A lay Catholic community dedicated to peace efforts has expressed concern about an execution scheduled in Alabama for Jan. 25, set to be carried out using a relatively untested method called nitrogen hypoxia.

The Community of Sant’Egidio, a group founded in Rome and known for mediating conflicts worldwide, shared a petition Jan. 23 urging Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey to halt the execution of convicted murderer Kenneth “Kenny” Eugene Smith.

Smith is scheduled to die Thursday after being convicted for the 1988 murder of Elizabeth Dorlene Sennett, whom Sennett’s husband, a Protestant pastor, had paid Smith to kill. The state of Alabama attempted in November 2022 to execute Smith by way of lethal injection but postponed his execution after an attempt to administer the injection was unsuccessful.

Sant’Egidio, which has advocated for many years for an end to the death penalty, says that Smith will be the first person in the world to be executed using nitrogen hypoxia, which involves the fitting of a mask over the condemned person’s face and pure nitrogen — a normally harmless gas — being pumped through it, leading to suffocation. 

“We are asking that this execution be stopped because the world cannot afford to regress to the stage of killing in a more barbaric way,” said Mario Marazziti, who heads Sant’Egidio’s death penalty abolition group, as reported Tuesday by ABC News. 

The United Nations Human Rights Office warned this month that the novel execution method — which is controversial due to a lack of data on what the inmate could experience during the execution — could amount to torture under international human rights law. In a Jan.16 press release, Ravina Shamdasani, U.N. high commissioner for human rights, noted that nitrogen gas has never been used in the United States to execute human beings.

“The American Veterinary Medical Association recommends giving even large animals a sedative when being euthanized in this manner, while Alabama’s protocol for execution by nitrogen asphyxiation makes no provision for sedation of human beings prior to execution,” the U.N. high commissioner noted.

Catholic Mobilizing Network, a Catholic advocacy group that demonstrates against the death penalty, urged Catholics to speak out against Smith’s scheduled execution and the method being used. 

“Kenny should not be subjected to a second execution, especially with the uncertainty that surrounds this new, untested method,” the group said. 

According to the Death Penalty Information Center, Alabama introduced nitrogen hypoxia as a method of execution in August 2023 and is the first state to create and release a protocol for using the method. “Lethal gas” is authorized as an execution method in seven states, though only three have specifically authorized the use of nitrogen, the center states. 

Alabama’s death penalty has been under scrutiny for the past several years because of a number of failed executions. A notable botched execution took place in 2018 when Doyle Lee Hamm was strapped to a gurney for two and a half hours as prison medical officials were unable to find a suitable vein for the lethal injection. 

The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday denied Smith’s request to review the constitutionality of his death sentence, the AP reported. 

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House Speaker Mike Johnson: ‘My parents were teenagers when I was born’ a year before Roe

January 22, 2024 Catholic News Agency 1
House Speaker Mike Johnson speaks with EWTN News’ Erik Rosales at the U.S. Capitol. / Credit: EWTN News

CNA Staff, Jan 22, 2024 / 19:00 pm (CNA).

House Speaker Mike Johnson spoke with EWTN News on the eve of the March for Life about his belief “in the sanctity of every human life at all stages” and shared a bit about his personal history.

“I’m the product of an unplanned pregnancy. My parents were teenagers when I was born, exactly one year before Roe v. Wade in 1972, in January,” Johnson told Capitol Hill correspondent Erik Rosales in an interview that aired Monday on “EWTN News Nightly.”

“Often we talk about the unborn, which is certainly important because we believe life has value from the moment of conception because it’s our Creator that gives us that and gives us our value,” Johnson said. “But it’s all the way through every stage of life.”

“This is an important thing to support young mothers who are in times of crisis in unplanned situations, to support families, to support them all the way through the pregnancy,” he said. 

“And then after, we need to be promoting adoption, cutting red tape that hinders the foster children system. So there’s a lot of work to do to build a culture of life.”

Johnson said Congress also has a role to play in protecting the pro-life community from attacks. In the aftermath of the overturning of Roe v. Wade, many pregnancy resource centers were victimized by arson attacks and acts of vandalism. 

“We have to, again, bring accountability,” he said. “We have a very important responsibility here in Congress to ensure that the rule of law is maintained, to ensure that the inherent and fundamental freedoms of all people are respected.”

The speaker pointed out that religious freedom is “literally the first freedom listed in the Bill of Rights,” which he said was “not by accident.”

“The founders understood that was essential not only to who we are as Americans but to who we are as human beings,” he told Rosales. 

“And so Congress has a role to advance that, to maintain those founding principles and to defend them at all costs.”

The weaponization of the U.S. government

Johnson also told EWTN that Congress needs to hold government institutions accountable for incidents like last year’s controversial federal investigation into traditionalist U.S. Catholics.

Rosales asked Johnson about last year’s revelations that the Federal Bureau of Investigation had circulated a memorandum that described an investigation into traditionalist Catholics for possible ties to domestic terrorist activities. 

The memorandum was the subject of hearings held by the House Judiciary Committee and its Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government. FBI Director Christopher Wray said in December that the bureau “[does] not and will not conduct investigations based on anybody’s exercise of their constitutionally protected religious [expression].” 

Johnson told Rosales that lawmakers describe the FBI as “weaponized” because “that’s exactly what it is.” Congress “[has] to bring accountability for agencies that have been spun out of control,” he said.

“It’s alarming,” Johnson said. “So we’ve called it out, we’ve drawn attention to it, and we’re demanding accountability for those who are in charge to ensure that those abuses of our agencies don’t happen again.”

“Ultimately, what’s at stake here is the people’s belief in our institutions, their faith in our institutions of government,” Johnson continued. “And that faith is at an all-time low right now. That’s what the polling shows. And that’s a very dangerous thing.” 

“To keep a constitutional republic — a government of, by, and for the people — the people have to believe that their justice system is fair and that they’re not picking on or discriminating against people of faith. And we’ve got to make sure that that happens,” Johnson concluded.

“EWTN News Nightly” airs weekday evenings at 6 p.m. ET.

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