Emmjolee Mendoza Waters on the Work of the Catholic Mobilizing Network

Anne Holsinger 00:01

Hello, and welcome to 1201, The Death Penalty in Context. I’m Anne Holsinger, Managing Director of the Death Penalty Information Center. Our guest today is Emmjolee Mendoza-Waters, Director of Death Penalty Abolition for Catholic Mobilizing Network, a national organization mobilizing people of Catholic faith and moral conviction around issues of criminal justice, including death penalty abolition and restorative justice. Under the leadership of the late Pope Francis and Pope Leo XIV, the first American pope, the church has become increasingly outspoken in its opposition to the death penalty. CMN has been at the forefront of translating that teaching into action, engaging in legislative efforts, clemency advocacy, community organizing, and restorative justice issues across the United States. Thank you for joining us today, Emmjolee.

Emmjolee Mendoza Waters 00:49

Thanks, Anne, for having me. It’s a privilege to be here with all of you.

Anne Holsinger 00:53

To set the stage for our listeners who may not be familiar, what does Catholic teaching say about capital punishment and how has the Church’s position on the death penalty evolved over time?

Emmjolee Mendoza Waters 01:04

Thanks, Anne, for that question. I think the easiest way to understand Catholic teaching on the death penalty is to look at how the Church’s understanding has developed and become clearer over time. Historically, the Church did allow for the use of the death penalty in very limited circumstances. Particularly when it was considered necessary to protect society. But over the last several decades, as societies have developed other ways to keep people safe, the church has increasingly recognized that executions are just not necessary and that they raise serious questions about human dignity, mercy, and what justice really looks like. I think a real turning point came in 1995 with Pope John Paul, St.John Paul II’s encyclical called Evangelium Vitae. And this is where he said that cases where the death penalty would be necessary to protect society were rare, if not practically non-existent. And then when he came to St. Louis to visit in the United States, he made a strong call for abolition, reminding us that even someone who has committed a terrible crime does not lose their God-given dignity. And then you see the popes after Pope John Paul II follow along those lines. So, Pope Benedict continued with that teaching, emphasizing that modern societies can protect their communities without resorting to executions. Pope Francis brought even greater clarity. In 2018, he revised the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the doctrine of the church, to state clearly that the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviability and dignity of the person, and that the church should be working towards its abolition worldwide. And finally, we get to the first American pope, Pope Leo who has continued to affirm that teaching, reminding us that no matter what someone has done, they never lose their human dignity. And so that’s where we are today. The Catholic Church opposes the death penalty and calls us to seek justice in ways that protect society, hold people accountable, and care for victims and survivors, while also respecting the dignity of every human person. And we don’t need to minimize harm to believe that justice doesn’t require another death.

Anne Holsinger 03:22

Could you tell our listeners a little bit more about Catholic Mobilizing Network, how it was founded, what its mission is, and how it fits into the broader Catholic landscape?

Emmjolee Mendoza Waters 03:31

Sure. Catholic Mobilizing Network or CMN is a national Catholic organization working to end the death penalty, advance justice, and promote restorative practices. In 2005, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, the USCCB, which are the US leaders of the Catholic Church, launched the Catholic campaign to end the use of the death penalty. And it was in 2008, around a kitchen table, a collection of activists, murder victim family members, representatives from prominent Catholic organizations, women religious, including Sister Helen Prejean. We had Sil and Vicki Schieber, whose daughter Shannon was murdered, and other advocates that came together to brainstorm how they could support this campaign. As a result, the Bishops Conference Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development launched Catholic Mobilizing Network in January of 2009. And I think that’s really important is that it really was the leadership of the church launching this campaign. It was advocates. It was directly impacted people who were shaping its founding. And so today, we work with Catholics and people of goodwill across the country. That includes bishops and other Catholic leaders, diocese, parishes, Catholic colleges and universities, young adults, and people who’ve been directly impacted by violence, crime, and the criminal legal system. I think CMN fits into the broader Catholic landscape by helping people connect what we believe with what we do. A lot of Catholics may know that the Catholic Church opposes the death penalty or that their bishop has spoken out against an execution. But we also know there are many Catholics who still support the death penalty or who are unsure where they stand on the issue. So CMN provides education, opportunities for advocacy and prayer. and practical ways for people to learn more, form their conscience, and get involved.

Anne Holsinger 05:29

How does CMN translate that teaching into action? What does your organizing and your advocacy work look like on the ground?

Emmjolee Mendoza Waters 05:36

For CMN, translating Catholic teaching into action really starts with relationships. And one of the things that’s so unique about the Catholic Church is that There are already communities and structures in place. So, we already have parishes and diocese and campus ministries and pro-life ministries and Catholic institutions. And so, we work within these existing communities to help people understand the church’s teaching and give them opportunities to put their faith into action. Sometimes that means working with a bishop or diocese that wants to speak out when an execution is scheduled. Sometimes it’s helping Catholics contact their governor about clemency or providing resources to a parish, campus ministry, or ministry group. A big part of our work is connecting Catholics who care about this issue with one another and with opportunities to take action in their own communities. Catholics have an important voice in our country. About one in five people in the United States is Catholic, and Catholics make up about 28% of Congress. So we want to help activate and mobilize these voices and give Catholics opportunities to let their elected leaders know where they stand. But we’re also trying to meet people where they are. Not everyone comes to this issue with the same experiences or questions. Some people are already opposed to that death penalty, while others are unsure or may support it because they’re thinking this is what we need for accountability or for the pain of victims and survivors. So we create space for honest conversations and help people wrestle with those questions through the lens of our Catholic faith. We want Catholics to know that their voice matters. When Catholics speak out, when they pray, when they educate their communities, when they contact elected officials, they can help bring about change.

Anne Holsinger 07:22

How are you engaging young people to join this cause?

Emmjolee Mendoza Waters 07:25

This is where I think I get very excited about the work, is that young people are such an important part of this work. We know that more than half of young adults ages 18 to 43 now oppose the death penalty. So, there’s a real opportunity here. The executions we’re witnessing today really reflect public opinion from 20 or more yearsago. So if we want to build a different future, we need to be engaging young people now. And CMN is investing in that. We recently created a position dedicated specifically to young adult engagement because we know young people, they’re already asking these big questions about justice and the kind of world they want to live in. They’re asking questions about violence, racial justice, incarceration, and whether our systems are actually helping people and communities heal. We want to help connect those questions with their faith. One program I’m really excited about is our Next Gen for Justice college tours. We partner with Catholic colleges, universities, and campus ministries to bring education about the death penalty directly to young people. These events always include people who have been directly impacted sharing their own stories because we know some of the most powerful learning happens through relationship and proximity to one another. We’re also working with educators to develop curriculum about the death penalty and creating study guides for books that explore the issue. We have our Justice and Mercy poetry contest, a robust internship program, and we’re beginning a young adult advisory. But I think one of the most important things is that we don’t want to just hand young people a list of talking points and tell them what to think. We want to listen to them, invite their questions, and help them bring their own experiences and gifts to this work. I think young people are especially drawn to the question, what can we build instead? And that’s where restorative justice is so meaningful. Yes, we can talk about ending the death penalty, but we can also talk about how we prevent harm, build stronger communities, and respond to harm in ways that promote accountability and healing.

Anne Holsinger 09:29

You discussed earlier the fact that church leadership like the USCCB is very aligned in opposition to the death penalty. Despite that, Catholic elected officials across the country hold widely varying views on this issue. What do you say to Catholic politicians about the church’s position?

Emmjolee Mendoza Waters 09:48

This is hard. I think first, it is important to be clear that the Catholic Church’s teaching on the death penalty is not ambiguous. The Pope, the U.S. bishops, the Catholic bishops around the country have been clear in their opposition to the death penalty. So, when we talk with Catholic elected officials, we want them to understand what the church teaches and why, but we also know that simply telling someone that the church teaches is not always enough. We have to be having conversations with them. We need to understand what concerns someone has. Often, when I’m talking to people who support the death penalty, they’re thinking about accountability. They’re thinking about victims and survivors. They’re thinking about public safety. And those are all important concerns, but we can say that accountability does not require execution. We can care deeply about victims and survivors without supporting another act of violence. We can protect society without taking another life. For Catholic elected officials, I think this is an opportunity to really reflect on what it means to have a consistent pro-life ethic. If we believe that every human life has dignity and value, what does that mean when someone has committed terrible harm? That is often the difficult part of this conversation. It’s easy to talk about the dignity of people we know and love. Our faith challenges us to recognize that dignity, even if people have done terrible things. And I think Catholic politicians have a real opportunity to lead in that way.

Anne Holsinger 11:21

Ohio has recently been a focal point for CMN’s work. Can you tell us about what’s happening in Ohio and what role CMN has played there?

Emmjolee Mendoza Waters 11:29

Ohio’s been a priority state for CMN for the last couple years, and there’s a long history of people working to end the death penalty there. And we’ve had the privilege of working alongside Catholic leaders, state advocates, people directly impacted by the criminal legal system, and so many others who’ve been committed to this issue for years. In the last couple years, there have been real opportunities for change, including repeal legislation and a statewide campaign encouraging Governor DeWine to commute the sentences of people on death row. Our role has really been to help mobilize the Catholic community. And so we’ve been working with bishops, diocese, parishes, and individual Catholics to make sure the church’s teaching is a part of that conversation. We’ve also worked with communities at the University of Dayton, Xavier University, John Carroll University, and Ursuline College to engage and educate young students around the different repeal legislation and clemency campaigns. A big part of our work has also been lifting up the stories of people directly impacted. We brought people from Ohio to share their experiences with Catholic communities and helped elevate those stories through Catholic media, both locally and even at the Vatican. Recently, our executive director, Krisanne Vallancourt Murphy, recently had the opportunity to meet Pope Leo and share this work with him. She gifted him a piece of art depicting Jesus crucified created by a man on Ohio’s death row, along with the names of the 28 people on Ohio’s death row who have exhausted their appeals. So our work in Ohio has really been a combination of education on the ground, advocacy, relationship building, and helping bring greater awareness to the issue. Ohio has also seen some important movement. Governor DeWine, who is Catholic, has expressed serious concerns about the death penalty and has said that he believes Ohio should abolish it. But there’s still a lot of work to do. More than 100 people remain on Ohio’s death row, and abolition efforts have not yet become law. I think Ohio is a good example of why this work takes time. Change rarely happens because of one event or one person. It happens because people continue to show up, building relationships, educating their communities and speaking out. And the Catholic community has had an important role to play in that.

Anne Holsinger 13:56

Florida presents a different challenge with Governor Ron DeSantis significantly expanding use of the death penalty while the state’s archdiocese has been vocal in opposing executions. Could you tell us about CMN’s work in Florida and how it’s responding to the number of executions in that state?

Emmjolee Mendoza Waters 14:14

Florida is one of the most urgent states for CMN’s work right now. The number and pace of executions have been incredibly alarming, especially under Governor DeSantis. And at the same time, the Catholic Church in Florida has been very clear in its opposition to the death definitely. The leadership of the Florida bishops around this issue has been outstanding. They recently wrote a pastoral letter to Catholics across the state about the death penalty. Bishops have stood vigil on execution days, spoken out publicly, and led people in prayer. It was pretty amazing, last year, they even led a nine-day prayer campaign focused specifically on the death penalty. For us at CMN, we know that the ground game in Florida is really education. We have been working to amplify the strong Catholic voice that is already there and bring greater national attention to what is happening in the state. So, some of the things that we’ve done is we’ve invited Florida bishops to lead our first Friday vigils, participate in webinars, and join us on our delegation to Montgomery. This week, for example, Archbishop Wenske from the Archdiocese of Miami is joining us to talk about why the death penalty is a pro-life issue. We’re also working alongside the Florida Catholic Conference, diocesan leaders, parishes, and state and national advocates to continue to educate Catholics about what is happening and why the church opposes the death penalty. We are responding to individual executions through advocacy and prayer and trying to create opportunities for people to come together and take action. I recently had the privilege of traveling to Florida and praying outside the prison on the day Daniel Conahan was executed last week. It was a really sobering experience, but also hopeful to see people showing up week after week to pray and witness that there is another way besides state sanctioned death.And every time an execution is scheduled, there are so many people impacted.There are victims, families, and survivors, the family of the person facing execution, correctional staff, attorneys, faith communities, and entire communities. It’s just a reminder that an execution doesn’t just impact one person. I also think Florida is an important example of why we can’t assume that because the church has a clear teaching, Catholics know about it, understand it or agree with it. Governor DeSantis himself is Catholic. There are many Catholics who still support the death penalty or who have never really had the opportunity to think about it through their lens of their faith and connect it to what the church teaches about the dignity of every human person. So, there’s a lot of education and relationship building that still needs to happen. But there are so many faithful Catholics in Florida who continue to show up and speak out, reminding us that mercy is not weakness and accountability is not annihilation.

Anne Holsinger 17:05

Beyond your work on the death penalty, CMN also does work promoting restorative justice. How do you see these two issues intersecting, and how do those two aspects of CMN’s work inform one another?

Emmjolee Mendoza Waters 17:18

For CMN, these two areas of our work are deeply connected. From our foundation, from the beginning of our organization, we knew what we were against: the death penalty. But the people around the table kept coming back to the same question, what are we for? If we believe the death penalty is the wrong response to violence, then what is a better response? I think that question and the stories of people directly impacted by the death penalty really pushed us towards restorative justice. Our work to end the death penalty is rooted in the belief that every person has inherent dignity and that no one is beyond redemption. Restorative justice takes that same belief and asks, how can we respond to harm in ways that center relationships and human dignity? We think about it in three areas: preventing harm, building community and responding to harm. When harm does occur, how do we promote accountability, healing and transformation? And that’s where it connects so directly to the death penalty. Accountability doesn’t have to mean simply punishing someone or taking another life. We can take harm seriously, care for victims and survivors, hold people accountable, and protect our communities while still upholding the dignity of every person. So, for us, ending the death penalty is a part of a much bigger vision of justice. We don’t want to just end executions. We want to help build something better.

Anne Holsinger 18:48

What do you want Catholics and other people of faith to understand about why the death penalty matters from a religious perspective, even if they come to different conclusions about this issue?

Emmjolee Mendoza Waters 18:58

What I would want Catholics and other people of faith to understand is that this issue asks us some really fundamental questions about what we believe. What do we believe about human dignity? Do we believe that someone can commit a terrible crime and still have dignity? Do we believe in redemption? Do we believe that people can change? And I think those are hard questions, especially for someone who has experienced violence or lost someone they love. I don’t think our faith asked us to have easy answers, but I do think it asks us to sit with those difficult questions. For me, one of the most important things is that we don’t have to choose. We can care deeply about victims and survivors, take harm seriously, and believe in accountability while also recognizing the dignity of the person who caused that harm. We can hold both. And for Christians, mercy is really at the heart of who we are. Mercy doesn’t mean ignoring harm or pretending that it didn’t happen. It doesn’t mean there shouldn’t be accountability. But Mercy asks us to believe that no one is beyond God’s love and no one is beyond that possibility of redemption. So even if someone is still unsure where they stand on the death penalty, I would encourage them to learn more, listen to people who have been directly impacted, and really reflect on what is our faith calling us to believe about the dignity of every human life. Because ultimately, I think the death penalty is about more than politics or the law. It’s about what we believe about people and whether we believe anyone is beyond mercy.

Anne Holsinger 20:40

Is there anything else you’d like to share with our listeners?

Emmjolee Mendoza Waters 20:43

I think I would just encourage people not to feel like they have to have everything figured out before they engage with this issue. This issue is complicated and it’s an emotional issue and people come to it with a very different experiences and questions. But I would encourage people to be curious. For those who are Catholic, learn more about what the Catholic Church teaches. Listen to victims and survivors. Listen to family members on people on death row and people who have experienced incarceration. Listen to the people in communities most impacted by violence. And then ask yourself, what does my faith call me to do? For some people, that might mean praying. For others, it might be having a conversation in their parish learning more about what is happening in their state or contacting an elected official, there really is a role for everyone. And that’s what gives me hope. I’ve met so many people who have come to this work from very different places, some people who’ve been advocates for decades and some who are just beginning to ask questions. But when we come together around the belief that every person has dignity, and that we can respond to harm with accountability, healing and mercy, I really believe change is possible. And so, because CMN isn’t just working to end the death penalty, we’re also working towards something, we’re working towards a culture and a vision of justice where every person’s dignity is upheld. People are held accountable for harm and healing and transformation are possible. And I think that’s a vision that Catholics and people of goodwill can be a part of it. I’m just so amazed by the people who continue to come to this issue with a posture of curiosity and learning. And I think when they actually spend time thinking about it, they’ll come to the realization that we don’t need the death penalty.

Anne Holsinger 22:43

Thank you so much for sharing all this with us today.

Emmjolee Mendoza Waters 22:46

Thanks, Anne, for having me.

Anne Holsinger 22:48

If our listeners would like to learn more about Catholic Mobilizing Network and their work to end the death penalty, visit their website at catholicsmobilizing.org. To learn more about the death penalty across the US, you can visit DPI’s website at deathpenaltyinfo.org. And to support the 12:01 podcast and all of DPI’s work, please visit deathpenaltyinfo.org/donate. To make sure you never miss an episode, please subscribe to 1201 in your podcast app of choice.