Cincinnati’s Aggressive DA and a Vatican Priest (His High School Classmate) Spar About the Death Penalty

Pope Francis’ recent dec­la­ra­tion com­mit­ting the Catholic Church to oppos­ing cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in all cir­cum­stances has pro­duced an unusu­al pub­lic war of words about the prac­tices of Catholic pub­lic offi­cials in one of the coun­try’s most aggres­sive death-penalty counties. 

Hamilton County, Ohio, has pro­duced more death sen­tences and exe­cu­tions than any oth­er coun­ty in Ohio, and is one of the 2% of U.S. coun­ties respon­si­ble for a major­i­ty of death sen­tences and exe­cu­tions in the United States. Its County Prosecutor, Joe Deters (pic­tured, left) is Catholic but, while pur­su­ing a death sen­tence in the resen­tenc­ing of Anthony Kirkland, made dis­mis­sive com­ments about Pope Francis’ dec­la­ra­tion that the death penal­ty is ​“inad­mis­si­ble.”

“My dear friends who are priests don’t under­stand what we’re deal­ing with,” Deters said. ​“There is evil in this world and there comes a point where soci­ety needs to defend itself.” 

Those com­ments pro­voked a rebuke from Rev. Paul Mueller (pic­tured, right, with Pope Francis), vice direc­tor and supe­ri­or of the Jesuit com­mu­ni­ty at the Vatican Observatory, and a high school class­mate of Deters. In a let­ter to the pros­e­cu­tor, Father Mueller wrote, ​“I am dis­ap­point­ed, embar­rassed, and scan­dal­ized that you, not only a Catholic but also a fel­low alum­nus of St. Xavier High School, have used the plat­form of your pub­lic office to oppose and con­fuse the moral teach­ing of the Church in so open a fashion.” 

Deters reit­er­at­ed his stance in com­ments to WLWT tele­vi­sion on August 21, say­ing, Pope Francis is ​“in an ivory tow­er, God bless him. … I’m just telling you they don’t know what we’re dealing with.” 

St. Xavier High School, which both Deters and Mueller attend­ed, weighed in on the issue, as the school’s pres­i­dent, Tim Reilly, wrote, ​“St. Xavier is a Catholic school, and we inten­tion­al­ly and specif­i­cal­ly fol­low the teach­ings of the Catholic Church. The Church teach­es that peo­ple are oblig­ed to fol­low a well-formed con­science. One of the key com­po­nents of a well-formed con­science is a seri­ous con­sid­er­a­tion of and reflec­tion upon Catholic moral and social teaching.” 

Kirkland was resen­tenced to death on August 28. At his sen­tenc­ing, Judge Patrick Dinkelacker, also a Catholic, tan­gen­tial­ly referred to the reli­gious debate about cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, say­ing, ​“As a per­son who moral­ly believes in the sanc­ti­ty of life, to judge anoth­er to deter­mine if the impo­si­tion of the death penal­ty is appro­pri­ate is not a duty I take light­ly. … I took an oath to fol­low the law and I will do that. To do oth­er­wise, is moral­ly, legal­ly, philo­soph­i­cal­ly and theologically wrong.”