Καθολικός διάκονος: moving ahead after a shaky year

This is the post in which I can blog a bit (more) about blogging. 2024 was touch-and-go for my little effort here on Καθολικός διάκονος. This year, I composed the fewest number of posts in the history of this effort, excepting the eleven months between when I made my first tentative start in 2005 and began blogging in earnest in July 2006.

Counting this one, I put up 66 posts this year. That still averages out to five and-a-half per month. I posted nothing in April, May, or September, and in August only once. As Advent approached, I had to reckon with the possibility of just letting my blog go after a run of a little more than eighteen years or continue. It was either walk away or commit.

I took time to give this dilemma some prayerful thought. I feel very good about continuing my efforts. This is what led to 17 posts in December, more than one every other day! I posted more in December than I did the previous 8 months combined. Due to length, this post may count for several. For my fellow Miranda fans- Bear with...

It's hard to believe that August 2025 marks the 20th anniversary of when I first discovered I was able to post stuff onto the worldwide web. It seems silly now, but back then, as someone who grew up before any of this existed, it was astounding to me. As the original title of this effort- Scott Dodge for Nobody- indicated, I didn't launch with great expectations.

What I did in August 2005 was compose 6 quite lame posts and then left it for almost a year. So, July 2025 will mark the 19th anniversary of Καθολικός διάκονος. This blog had some golden years when I achieved more popularity than I had ever dared hope for. I didn't do anything different during that time, but I was very prolific. Back then I was writing for a few online publications, such as Il Sussidiario- an ezine I still miss.

In 2010, I posted 386 times. This marked the peak. I am quite certain I will never come anywhere close to that again- something for which we can all be grateful. I don't have a goal for either a minimum or a maximum number of posts. I think somewhere around 10 posts per month on average is sustainable with some months being a bit more and others a bit less. I write this even as I realize that blogging like I do is a bit outdated.

On Good Friday this year, I hit a wall with social media. I logged out, deactivated, and felt absolutely no pull back for nearly two months. Since then, I have reduced my social media presence. I also took a hiatus in the summertime. Coming back from that I posted something about how politicians are actors and really bad ones at that. I used an appearance by Tim Walz as a case-in-point.

I could've easily chosen someone other than Walz but he was the newly selected Democratic VP candidate and was making the rounds, which means for all politicians trying look and sound "relatable." At the time, I knew little-to-nothing about him other than he was a politician, the governor of Minnesota.

My observation about the fakeness of politicians was taken by a now (I guess) former friend as not only some kind of attack on Walz but as a sign of MAGA affiliation. This despite both my original post and my subsequent comments indicating that my criticism applied across-the-board. Egads! Let me just say, it ain't only the MAGA folks, folks (using "folks" makes me relatable, right?). Getting bogged down in that interfered with an otherwise fun family get-away. Stupid me. Never again!

So, in 2025, I plan to spend less time on algorithm-driven platforms programmed to make us stupider (this is a word, I looked it up to be sure), narrower, and to divide us. Riffing off The Miami Sound Machine: "The algorithim is going to get you." This blog will once again be my main medium for online engagement.

Comments are on, though moderated. I am happy to engage in constructive, charitable discussion. If your starting point is that I am acting in bad faith, resulting in not giving me the benefit of the doubt, then we have nothing to discuss. I remain convinced that how you communicate is as important as what you communicate. I am fine with straigt forward. I look to my readers to hold me accountable for being honest, accurate, and charitable.

Writing is a means of growth for me personally. I have also received a number of communications recently about the impact my writing has had on a number of people and their urging me to continue. I like doing what I do non-commercially and with no pressure on me or those who read what I post. If someone, anyone, benefits from reading what I write, then I am quite happy. As a Catholic Deacon (it's in the title!), I write from a Catholic perspective.

I remain convinced God loves each and every one of us with a love that is incomprehensible, even to those of us who have experienced God's love in some measure. The old line "God loves you and there is nothing you can do about it" applies. As a deacon, it is my calling to express in my limited, fragile, and very incomplete way, God's love to others without exception, even as I struggle myself to receive it in the measure God deigns to communicate it to me. I do my best never to belittle, demean, or derogate anyone.

Blogging has certainly made me a better writer. I don't claim to be a great writer, or even a very good one. But I am better than I used to be. Hopefully, I am still improving.

In 2025, I plan to resume my reflections on the readings for Sundays and Solemnities I do not preach as well as posting my homilies for the Sundays, Solemnities, and weekdays I do preach. I plan to work on bringing back the Friday traditio. There will be occasional posts on matters theological, cultural, political. I like having some consistency in my cyberspace in an otherwise dizzyingly dynamic online environment. Judging from communications from readers, you appreciate it too.

I have great reading plan for 2025, which consists of digging into the pile of books I've managed to accumulate over the past 18 months. My plan, at least for now, is not to add to the pile. We'll see how that goes!

In November 2025, I turn 60. Yeah, I know! Hence, I will retire from moderately successful career, which will give me more personal time and more time to focus on my responsibilities heading up the Office of the Diaconate for my Diocese. I don't mind saying, the past 5 years have been more than a little exhausting, which has contributed to my inability to write more.

Through the intercession of our our Blessed Mother, may 2025 be filled with good health and blessings for you and your family. Catch you on the other side of midnight. Ciao until the New Year.

Feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph

Readings: Sirach 3:2-6.12-14; Psalm 128:1-5; 1 John 3:1-2.21-24; Luke 2:41-52

Today we celebrate the Feast of the Holy Family. Our Gospel for this Feast, which marks the end of Saint Luke’s Infancy Narrative, is an episode unique to this Gospel.

Our Gospel tells of the time when Jesus was a boy of twelve and traveled with his family from Galilee to Jerusalem to celebrate Passover. His age is notable because, among Jewish people, thirteen is the age when a male is reckoned to be a man, when he takes responsibility for himself before God.

Mentioned in the Mishnah and Talmud, written centuries before Christ, a young man turning thirteen marks the occasion by becoming bar mitzvah. Bar is a Babylonian Aramaic word, dating from that exile (ben in Hebrew), meaning “son.” Mitzvah is Hebrew for “law” or “commandment.” Hence, by becoming bar mitzvah, he becomes “son of the Law.”

His age makes what Jesus does remarkable because he is not yet considered bar mitzvah. Yet, he is found, in rabbinical fashion, asking questions, listening, and asking more questions. Among us Gentiles, we call this the Socratic method, which is mystagogical as opposed to didactic. Being largely didactic, lacking in mystagogy, is why our catechesis isn’t as effective as it needs to be. Mere information can’t save you.

We’ve all heard the stories of the child left at the gas station or rest stop during a long road trip. Hence, it’s easy to imagine Mary and Joseph’s anxiety once they realize Jesus is missing from their group. It took them four days to find Him. Unlike a panicked child abandoned at the gas station while using the restroom, Jesus was not the least bit worried or concerned. He was at home in His Father's house.

It’s wonderful that the fruit of the Fifth Joyful Mystery of the Holy Rosary- Finding Jesus in the Temple- is the joy of finding Jesus. To find Jesus is an experience unlike any other. It is lifechanging. It brings about a profound change, a conversion. Conversion is required even if you were raised in the faith. Speaking of families, while it is of the utmost importance to hand the faith on to children, God has no grandchildren, only children.

Pope Benedict XVI wrote: “Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction.”¹ Faith is an experience, an encounter with a Person. Faith is the joy of finding Jesus!

You’re not a Christian by virtue of being Italian, Argentinean, Irish, Polish, French, etc. Sentimentality is easily mistaken for faith. As Saint Paul insisted, “no one can say ‘Jesus is Lord,’ except by the holy Spirit.”² Being a supernatural virtue, faith is a gift from God.

Der_zwölfjährige Jesus im Tempel, by Max Liebermann, ca. 1879

You can’t give another person faith. Sometimes parental efforts are frustrated by trying too hard, sometimes having the opposite of the intended effect. You can, however, live in such a way as to make your faith credible.

Since faith without works is dead, to have faith means bearing good fruit by performing good deeds.³ In our day, faith really comes to the fore in how one deals with life’s disappointments, even with its devastation. As so many saints show us, it is important to experience the joy of finding Jesus in your sorrows.

It’s not uncommon when going through a difficult time to wonder and even ask out loud- “God, where are you?” It’s easy to say, “What have I done to deserve this?”, seeing circumstances as God’s punishment. Christ, through the power of the Holy Spirit, always says, “I am right here.” Let’s not forget that weird word Paraclete, which is Greek and refers to an advocate who comes alongside you. The Lord accompanies you through the valley of the shadow of death.⁴

“Disciple” comes from the word “discipline.” Hence, a disciple is a person who practices the disciplines of a Master, like an apprentice. It isn’t just hard to be like Jesus, it’s impossible without God’s grace. But the Lord does teach disciplines: prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. These spiritual practices aren’t only meant for Lent.

Our reading from 1 John encourages us, as Christians, to be bar mitzvah- bat mitzvah, bat meaning “daughter,” for the women. Through baptism, which is the result of faith, or at least should be, we are children, not of the Law, but of God through Christ. Just as faith without works is dead, a good child is an obedient child. Therefore, to follow Jesus is to be about the Father’s business, which is reconciling the world to Himself through Christ. Christ, in turn, does this through the Church, the family of God, composed as it is of God’s children.

Through experience, through the circumstances of your life, your faith needs to mature and grow in order to flourish. According to the inspired author of 1 John, you can only be confident that God will give whatever you ask because you “keep his commandments and do what pleases him.”⁵ This is not transactional: do what I am supposed to do and God will do what I want Him to do. No!

Doing what pleases God can only be done for love of God. This changes what you want and so changes how you pray and what you pray for. It is those “who keep his commandments,” scripture teaches, who “remain in him, and he in them.”⁶

Being a Christian, to borrow the title of a book written years ago by Eugene Peterson, is A Long Obedience in the Same Direction. Keeping in mind that in Luke, Jesus only goes to the holy city one other time, consider the path He trod from that Passover trip to Jerusalem at age 12 to the journey there for Passover about twenty years later.

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1 Pope Benedict XVI. Encyclical Letter Deus Caritas Est [God is Love], sec. 1.^↩
2 1 Corinthians 12:3.^↩
3 James 2:17.^↩
4 Psalm 23:4.^↩
5 1 John 3:22.^↩
6 1 John 3:24.^↩

Reflecting during the Christmas Octave

Days two through four of the octave of Christmas are glorious feasts in and of themselves. First comes the Feast of Saint Stephen, followed by the Feast of Saint John the Evangelist, and then the Feast of the Holy Innocents. These days respectively are for deacons, priests, and altar servers. Following these days is the Memorial of Thomas Becket, which this year, falling on a Sunday, is superceded by the Feast of the Holy Family.

The liturgical year, too little understood, is such a great gift. It's sad when knowledge of the year fades and along with it the traditions that have developed. One example is near disappearance of Ember and Rogation Days. Hence, I think it is largely a good thing that many people, younger people, young couples raising families, are retrieving these concrete ways of living the Christian faith, receiving what has been handed on, developing it with the aim of, in turn, handing it down. Tradition doesn't develop by disappearing. It just disappears in the sea of secularization.

I am struck each year when reading A Christmas Carol by Scoorge's promise to the Ghost of Christmas Future to "live in the Past, the Present, and the Future." This is what means to live Tradition, which we too quickly only associate with the past. As Pope Saint John XXIII insisted when speaking about the Christian life, “We are not on earth to guard a museum, but to cultivate a flowering garden of life.” Cultivation, not brute force, is how Tradition and traditions develop- the word for this kind of development is organic.

Living the days and seasons of the liturgical year is one of the best ways of imparting the faith to children because their are fun activities and crafts that can be done together. This is a form of mystagogia. Rather than a didactic "lesson" or lecture, it's important to engage imagination and hands.

The Christmas octave is brought to its conclusion by the Church's celebration of the Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin on 1 January, which is a holy day of obligation.

I love the octave because all the hussle and bustle that too often mark Advent is over. At least for me, it's usually a time of quiet and rest. This year it is for sure, something for which I am grateful.

While composing this today, I ran across this book review on The Gospel Coalition: "Post-Christianity Is an Opportunity for Real Christianity." It seems very relevant to understand our present moment in order to move into the future while not forgetting our past, maybe even retrieving our distant past.

There has never been what one might call a Christian society, "Christendom" not withstanding. "Christians need to learn (or re-learn"- this is how Christianity started and remained for its first several centuries- insists the reviewer of Post-Christian: A Guide to Contemporary Thought and Culture, "how to be creative and faithful minorities. The transition may be painful and difficult, but nostalgic attitudes toward a status quo somewhat marked by Christianity will not serve the cause of the gospel."

Happy Feast of Saint John the Evangelist. A special greeting to all my friends who are priests. Our traditio for today is my favorite Christmas hymn, "O Holy Night"-

Feast of Saint Stephen, First Martyr

Readings: Acts 6:8-10; 7:54-59; Psalm 31:3-4.6.8.16-17; Matthew 10:17-22

In his first encyclical letter, Deus Caritas Est, Pope Benedict XVI noted:

The Church's deepest nature is expressed in her three-fold responsibility of proclaiming the word of God (kerygma-martyria), celebrating the sacraments (leitourgia), and exercising the ministry of charity (diakonia)¹

Today, the Second Day of Christmas and second day of the Octave, the Church celebrates the Feast of Saint Stephen, who is the Church’s first martyr. Stephen is the most representative of a group of seven men set apart by the apostles after their selection by the community to serve the community.² At least initially, their service consisted of ensuring a fair distribution of goods within the early Christian community, which held all things in common- an aspect of the faith that often goes overlooked.

At least from the time of Saint Irenaeus of Lyons in the second century, the Church has viewed these seven men as “the seed of the future ministry of ‘deacons’.”³ The criteria according to which these seven were chosen was threefold: their good reputation, their wisdom, and being filled with the Holy Spirit.⁴

That Stephen is an important figure in the nascent Church is made clear by the fact that in his second volume, known as the Acts of the Apostles, Luke “dedicates two whole chapters to him.”⁵ It seems that Stephen’s martyrdom marked the beginning of the persecution of the primitive Church. It was this persecution that caused those who followed “the Way’ to flee Jerusalem.

Philip is the only other one of the seven named in Acts 6 about whom Luke writes more. He fled the persecution by heading to Samaria.⁶ There he continued he continued proclaiming the Gospel, winning and baptizing converts. This early persecution was the first great push of the Church beyond Jerusalem. While God was certainly not the immediate cause of the fulfillment of this prophecy given by Jesus in today’s Gospel, God used this to further the Gospel, thus expanding the Church.

The Stoning of Stephen, by Giovanni Battista Lucini, ca. 1680

Of course, the next big push would be when Saul, the one holding the cloaks and encouraging those stoning Stephen, was converted and, after a period of preparation, would begin to proclaim to the Gospel to the nations, that is, to the Gentiles.

Deacons are ordained for the threefold munera of word, liturgy, and charity.⁷ In this way, deacons participate in the Apostolic ministry of their Bishop, which consists of teaching, sanctifying, and governing, to whom they are closely connected. While Acts is a bit early to see the distinctive office of deacon emerge in the Church, Philippians 1:1 is not ("overseers"=episcopoi and "ministers"=diakonoi). Hence, a good argument can be made that, along with the episcopate, the diaconate is an older office in the Church than the presbyterate.

In Deus Caritas Est, Pope Benedict also noted that three distinctive activities of the Church, which he calls “duties,” “presuppose each other and are inseparable.”⁸ Hence, the beautiful quote by theologian Herbert Vorgrimler that beautifully captures the essence of the diaconate- it is the deacon who “makes it clear that the liturgy must have consequences in the world with all its needs.”⁹

In Saint Stephen, who is usually depicted as vested in a dalmatic in paintings of his stoning, martyria, leitourgia, and diakonia come together.

Sancte Stephanus, ora pro nobis.

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1 Pope Benedict XVI. Encyclical Letter Deus Caritas Est [God is Love], sec. 25a.^↩
2 See Acts 6:1-6.^↩
3 Pope Benedict XVI. Catechesis for General Audience 10 January 2007.^↩
4 Acts 6:3.^↩
5 Pope Benedict XVI.Catechesis for General Audience 10 January 2007.^↩
6 See Acts 8:4-40.^↩
7 Second Vatican Council. Lumen Gentium [Dogmatic Constitution on the Church], sec. 29.^↩
8 Deus Caritas Est, sec. 25a.^↩
9 Herbert Vorgrimler, Sacramental Theology, 270.^↩

Urbi et Orbi- Christmas 2024

URBI ET ORBI MESSAGE
OF THE SUPREME PONTIFF
FRANCIS

Christmas 2024

Dear sisters and brothers, happy Christmas!

The mystery that never ceases to amaze and move us was renewed this night: the Virgin Mary gave birth to Jesus, the Son of God, wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger. That is how the shepherds of Bethlehem, filled with joy, found him, as the angels sang: “Glory to God and peace to men” (cf. Lk 2:6-14). Peace to men and women.

This event, which took place over two thousand years ago, is indeed made new thanks to the Holy Spirit, the same Spirit of Love and Life who made fruitful the womb of Mary and from her human flesh formed Jesus. Today, amid the travail of our times, the eternal Word of salvation is once more truly made incarnate, and speaks to every man and woman, to the whole world. This is the message: “I love you, I forgive you; come back to me, the door of my heart is open for you!”

Brothers and sisters, the door of God’s heart is always open; let us return to him! Let us go back to the heart that loves and forgives us! Let us be forgiven by him; let us be reconciled with him! God always forgives! God forgives everything. Let us allow ourselves to be forgiven by him.

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Nativity of the Lord- Mass during the Night

Readings: Isaiah 9:1-6; Psalm 96:1-3.11-13; Titus 2:11-14; Luke 2:1-14

Silent night! Holy night!
All is calm, all is bright

How is the night bright? The night is bright when the Light of the World, the Son of God descends into this darkness. As the psalmist observed, singing to and about God: “Darkness is not dark for you, and night shines as the day.”¹ This anticipates the Gospel for Christmas Day, which comes from the prologue to the Gospel According to Saint John:

What came to be through [the Word] was life,
    and this life was the light of the human race;
    the light shines in the darkness,
      and the darkness has not overcome it²

I love walking into the Church on Christmas Eve night. The tree by the bell tower is alight. Light is pouring out of the round window above the main doors and emanating through the windows along the north and south sides of the Church. Coming from the dark and the cold into the light and warmth of the Church takes on profound meaning. As our first reading for tonight, taken from Isaiah, puts it:

The people who walked in darkness
     have seen a great light;
  upon those who dwelt in the land of gloom
     a light has shone³

We gather to worship the newborn King. Yet, “born of the Father before all ages,” the Son of God existed before there was anything. In Him the past, the present, and the future come together. After being visited by the Ghosts of Christmas Past and Present, a humbled, if not humiliated, Ebeneezer Scrooge, swears to the Ghost of Christmas Future: “I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future.”⁴ You see, to be made holy, you must first be made whole.

One of the most neglected readings in the lectionary is our reading from the Letter to Titus. This beautiful passage brings some much-needed gravitas. “The grace of God has appeared.”⁵ Grace is nothing other than God sharing divine life with us and since this life is brought into the world by the Word, Jesus Christ is God’s grace. He is the One who saves us.

Salvation consists in being trained in God’s grace, trained to reject godlessness and worldly desires, trained to live temperately and devoutly “as we await the blessed hope.”⁶ Advent ended at sundown this evening. When viewed from a Christian perspective, history both before and after the coming our Savior is an advent, a time of expectant waiting.

The Lord’s Nativity is the third Joyful Mystery of Our Lady’s Rosary. The fruit of this mystery is poverty. It is poverty that brings us to Saint Luke’s account of the birth of our Lord. It’s important not to miss out on the poverty of the Lord’s nativity.

Even in modern translations, we still read that the Blessed Virgin Mary wrapped her newborn babe in “swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger.”⁷ At the time those words were used to translate from the Greek they were not as stylized as they are now, more descriptive and less poetic then than now. What they sought to convey was that the Lord was born in a cold, dark cave surrounded by animals, wrapped in rags, and placed in a feeding trough.

Being no mere happenstance, the circumstances of the Lord’s birth matter greatly. How you follow the Lord through the sojourn of life greatly matters too. In the end, it is the only thing that truly matters. Celebrating Mass is what the Lord taught his followers to do. Mass gives this day its name: Christ mas. It is in the Mass that the babe of Bethlehem makes himself present under the unassuming signs of bread and wine.

Just as it was not glaringly obvious that the baby wrapped in rags and lying in a trough was God in the flesh, so it is not readily apparent that bread and wine, by the power of the same Spirit by whom the Son of God was conceived in the womb of the Virgin, are transformed into His body and blood.

In Holy Communion we receive the greatest gift imaginable: Jesus Christ. He is not the means to some other end. Just as in His sacrifice He is both victim and priest, He is both means and end. The reward for following Jesus is Jesus. Therefore, it is truly right and just that we celebrate “the most sacred night on which blessed Mary, the immaculate Virgin brought forth the Savior for this world."⁸

Silent night! Holy night!
Son of God, Love’s pure light
radiant, beams from Thy Holy face,
with the dawn of redeeming grace
Jesus, Lord at Thy birth

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1 Psalm 139:12.^↩
2 John 1:4-5.^↩
3 Isaiah 9:1.^↩
4 Charles Dickens. A Christmas Carol, Stave IV, “The Last of the Spirits.^↩
5 Titus 2:11. ^↩
6 Titus 2:12-13.^↩
7 Luke 2:7.^↩
8 Roman Missal. The Order of Mass. Eucharistic Prayer I, Communicates for the Octave of the Lord's Nativity, sec 86.^↩

Giving the gift of life and Jesus' toughest commandment

Fifteen years ago last summer while driving to my sister's wedding in Carmel, California, in the midst of a political conversation in which I had been highly critical of both President Bush and the still fairly new President Obama, my then-fifteen year-old son said, "Dad, you just don't like anyone who is the president." There is no little truth in that observation. You know what? I wouldn't want to be any other way!

I am writing this to laud President Biden for commuting the death sentences of 37 federal prisoners (see "Biden commutes sentences of 37 of 40 inmates on federal death row"). There are forty total federal prisoners who've been sentenced to die. As someone who opposes the death penalty, I would've like for the president to have commuted all the sentences. I am not alone in this.

Nonetheless, I commend the president for commuting the death sentences of what amounts to a little under 93% of condemned federal prisoners. Responses to the president's act of mercy have been mixed (see "'A mistake': Biden faces backlash upon commuting sentences of death row inmates").

It disappoints me that the death penalty remains so popular among people in the United States. So many people of different political stripes favor the death penalty that many Republican and Democrat office holders and candidates tend to officially support it. President Biden, for example, was a supporter of the federal death penalty for a long time. In 2023 53% supported the death penalty for someone convicted of murder, while 44% did not (see Statistica).

I have personally been opposed to the death penalty since reading George Orwell's short story "A Hanging" my junior year of high school. Now, as a Cathoilc and a member of the clergy, I oppose the death penalty not only on personal grounds, but on religious grounds as well.

In August 2018, Pope Francis promulgated a change to section 2267 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. This same section, which sets forth Church teaching on the death penalty, was also altered by Pope John Paul II in 1997, just a few years after he promulgated this wonderful compendium of Catholic teaching. Here is what the Catholic Church's officially teaches on the death penalty:

Recourse to the death penalty on the part of legitimate authority, following a fair trial, was long considered an appropriate response to the gravity of certain crimes and an acceptable, albeit extreme, means of safeguarding the common good.

Today, however, there is an increasing awareness that the dignity of the person is not lost even after the commission of very serious crimes. In addition, a new understanding has emerged of the significance of penal sanctions imposed by the state. Lastly, more effective systems of detention have been developed, which ensure the due protection of citizens but, at the same time, do not definitively deprive the guilty of the possibility of redemption.

Consequently, the Church teaches, in the light of the Gospel, that “the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person”, and she works with determination for its abolition worldwide

For brief history of section 2267 through three the first three editions of the Catechism see "State Your Peace Tonight."

Too often being pro-life is reduced to being opposed to abortion. Opposing abortion, while neccessary, is not sufficient of itself to be pro-life. Being pro-life includes opposing the death penalty, physician assisted suicide, euthanasia, and certainly requires coginizance of the relevant facts concerning firearms (see Pew Research Center "What the data says about gun deaths in the U.S.").

President Biden's commutation of 37 death sentences is good news. Forty of forty would've been better news. Stating this in no way diminshes the suffering caused by the crimes those sentenced to death committed both to their victims and the victims families. The death penalty does not bring either healing or closure to survivors of victims. It merely perpetuates the cycle of violence.

In his Sermon on Mount, Jesus addresses the lex talionis directly. The result of an eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth is blindness and toothlessness. It is in this context that the Lord gives what is probably His most challenging commandment: "love your enemies" (see Matthew 5:38-48).

ADDENDUM:

Following President Biden's commutations of the death sentences of thirty-seven federal prisoners to life in prison without the possibility of parole, President-elect Trump vowed: "As soon as I am inaugurated, I will direct the Justice Department to vigorously pursue the death penalty to protect American families and children from violent rapists, murderers, and monsters... We will be a Nation of Law and Order again!" Being a country of law and order can be achieved without making recourse to the death penalty. No one is advocating for the release of violent criminals.