News Briefs

Missouri executes Muslim prisoner Marcellus Williams despite Catholic protest

September 25, 2024 Catholic News Agency 0
The lethal injection room at California’s San Quentin State Prison. / Credit: California Department of Corrections via Wikimedia (CC BY 2.0)

St. Louis, Mo., Sep 25, 2024 / 13:20 pm (CNA).

Missouri executed Marcellus “Khaliifah” Williams on Tuesday evening for the brutal murder of a St. Louis journalist in 1998 despite significant local and national outcry from Catholics and others who begged state authorities not to carry out the execution, citing opposition to the death penalty and doubts about Williams’ guilt.

Williams, 55, died by lethal injection just after 6 p.m. local time. Republican Gov. Mike Parson, who has never granted clemency to a death row inmate during his governorship, declined to do so in Williams’ case, and the U.S. Supreme Court also rejected a plea brought by Williams’ attorneys. 

Felicia “Lisha” Gayle, a reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, was found brutally stabbed dozens of times in her home in the St. Louis suburb of University City in 1998. 

Circumstantial evidence, including the discovery of several of Gayle’s personal belongings in Williams’ car, tied him to the break-in and murder, though none of his DNA was ever found on the murder weapon. Williams allegedly confessed to the murder to his girlfriend and a fellow inmate, but critics have questioned the veracity of those witnesses.

Williams, who was already serving jail time for two unrelated robberies, was charged with Gayle’s murder in 1999 and convicted in 2001. St. Louis County Circuit Court Judge Bruce Hilton upheld Williams’ conviction earlier this month.

Attorneys for Wiliams had argued before the state Supreme Court on Monday that Williams did not receive a fair criminal trial in part because of the racial makeup of the jury and the fact that the trial prosecutor struck at least one juror in part because the juror and Williams, who is Black, “looked like brothers.”

The Catholic Church teaches that the death penalty, even for those who have committed heinous crimes, constitutes an attack on human life and dignity. The Missouri Catholic Conference, which advocates for public policy on behalf of the state’s bishops, had encouraged Catholics to contact Parson to express their opposition to Williams’ execution. 

Led by the St. Louis Archdiocese’s Office of Peace and Justice, about 25 people protested the scheduled execution on Tuesday afternoon in downtown St. Louis, the Post-Dispatch reported. Outside the prison where the execution took place, about an hour south of St. Louis, more than 90 protesters gathered. 

Williams’ attorneys had recently pushed for his release after new DNA testing revealed at least two other people’s DNA on the knife used in the murder, although it later came to light that the DNA belonged to law enforcement professionals who had handled the knife without gloves.

Williams, a Muslim, had his imam with him during the execution. His final statement reportedly read, “All Praise Be To Allah In Every Situation!!!”

Missouri is among the most prolific of all U.S. states when it comes to the death penalty; it was one of only five states to carry out executions in 2023, carrying out four that year. In April, Parson denied a death row inmate’s clemency request despite protests from Catholics and others, clearing the way for the state’s first execution of 2024.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church, reflecting an update promulgated by Pope Francis in 2018, describes the death penalty as “inadmissible” and an “attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person” (CCC, No. 2267). 

The change reflects a development of Catholic doctrine in recent years. St. John Paul II, calling the death penalty “cruel and unnecessary,” encouraged Christians to be “unconditionally pro-life” and said that “the dignity of human life must never be taken away, even in the case of someone who has done great evil.”

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Pope Francis condemns pornography as ‘a language of the devil’

September 25, 2024 Catholic News Agency 2
Pope Francis spoke about pornography and how to avoid the temptation to sin during the 500th general audience of his pontificate, held in St. Peter’s Square on Sept. 25, 2024. / Credit: Daniel Ibanez/CNA

Vatican City, Sep 25, 2024 / 05:55 am (CNA).

Pope Francis at his general audience on Wednesday called pornography a work of the devil, and warned Christians to reject this and other temptations accessed through the internet.

“Any cell phone has access to this brutality, this language of the devil,” the pope said at the weekly audience in St. Peter’s Square Sept. 25.

While modern technology has many positive resources to appreciate, he noted, it also gives the devil an opportunity to tempt us, “and many people fall for it.”

“Think of internet pornography, which there is a thriving market behind,” he continued. “We all know the devil works there.”

Pope Francis spoke about pornography and how to avoid the temptation to sin during the 500th general audience of his pontificate. 

Addressing thousands at the Vatican, he said pornography “is a very widespread phenomenon, but one that Christians must be very careful to guard against and strongly reject.”

At the Wednesday audience on the eve of a four-day trip to Luxembourg and Belgium, the pontiff spoke softly and had to pause occasionally to cough, after canceling two meetings on Monday morning due to suffering from “flu-like” symptoms, according to the Vatican.

Pope Francis walks to his chair for the general audience in St. Peter's Square, Sept. 25, 2024. The pope spoke softly and had to pause occasionally to cough after canceling two meetings earlier in the week due to what the Vatican said was a “mild flu-like condition.”. Credit: Daniel Ibanez/CNA
Pope Francis walks to his chair for the general audience in St. Peter’s Square, Sept. 25, 2024. The pope spoke softly and had to pause occasionally to cough after canceling two meetings earlier in the week due to what the Vatican said was a “mild flu-like condition.”. Credit: Daniel Ibanez/CNA

The pope’s catechesis was the latest in a series of reflections on the Holy Spirit as a guide, and took inspiration from the beginning of the fourth chapter of Luke, when, “filled with the holy Spirit, Jesus returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the desert for forty days, to be tempted by the devil.”

“In the wilderness, Jesus freed himself of Satan, and now he can deliver from Satan,” Francis underlined, noting that by going into the wilderness Jesus was following an inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

Pope Francis offered advice for avoiding sin when tempted by the devil, including not to believe in superstition or to become involved with occultism, spiritualism, astrologers, sellers of spells and amulets, and satanic sects, which are prevalent despite modern society’s denial of the existence of Satan.

He also said, when temptation hits, to ask the Virgin Mary for help, and to immediately send the devil away — “do not dialogue with the demon.”

“Be careful because the devil is clever, but we Christians, thank God, are smarter than he is,” the pope reminded.

Quoting from a Father of the Church, Saint Caesarius of Arles, Francis said, “after Christ on the cross, defeated forever the power of the ‘ruler of this world,’ the devil … ‘is bound, like a dog on a chain; he cannot bite anyone except those who, defying the danger, go near him… He can bark, he can urge, but he can bite only those who want.’”

While it is true, the pontiff continued, that the devil is present and working in extreme forms of evil and wickedness in human history, do not be discouraged.

“The final thought must be, also in this case, of trust and safety,” he said. “Christ overcame the devil and gave us the Holy Spirit to make His victory our own. The very action of the enemy can turn to our advantage, if with God’s help we make it serve our purification.”

He concluded by encouraging everyone to ask the Holy Spirit for help, using words from the hymn, “Veni Creator:”

“Drive far away our wily Foe,

And Thine abiding peace bestow;

If Thou be our protecting Guide,

No evil can our steps betide.”

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