Christopher Sepulvado’s Execution Halted
Time to End the Death Penalty
by Alex Mikulich, Ph.D.
On February 7, 2013 Federal District Judge James Brady indefinitely stayed the execution of Christopher Sepulvado because the state of Louisiana failed to provide details of its new execution protocol. The protocol concerns who administers it, what drugs are utilized, and how the drugs work. Whether or not the protocol sustains the prohibition against “cruel and unusual punishment” in the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution stands at issue.
Ash Wednesday Execution
Executing a Life and Human Dignity
By Alex Mikulich Ph.D.
DeSoto District Judge Robert Burgess set an execution date for Christopher Sepulvado for Ash Wednesday, February 13, 2013. Sepulvado, 69, has served twenty years on death row at the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola.
A DeSoto Parish jury imposed the death penalty on Sepulvado in 1993 for the March 8, 1992 death of his stepson Wesley Allen Mercer, age 6. Court documents describe the torture the preschooler endured for days leading to his death.
Strangers No Longer
Catholic Teachings on Immigration Reform
by Sue Weishar, Ph.D.
Catholic Social Thought and the Common Good
individual, the social well-being and development of the group, and peace.</p>
By Fred Kammer, S.J.
The Dynamism of Catholic Social Teaching in the Pursuit of the Common Good
A Framework for Faithful Citizenship
Alex Mikulich, Ph.D.
Who Cares about the Broken World?
Celebrating The Church in the Modern World
by Fred Kammer, SJ
On October 11, 2012, we observed the fiftieth anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council—an event in Church and world history that is unprecedented in many ways. It was the largest and longest meeting ever held—over 2,000 bishops, cardinals, and other prelates meeting for four months every fall over the course of four years. Moreover, the tone and texture of its documents were like nothing before and have shaped public discourse in the Church ever since.
Continuity and Change in Caritas in Veritate
By Fred Kammer, S.J.
Toward a Global Economic Order at the Service of People, not Profits:
Pope Benedict XVI ‘s Caritas in Veritate
By Alex Mikulich, Ph.D.
(Note: Following the tradition of Catholic encyclicals, this commentary cites the numbered paragraphs in the text for easy reference, i.e., (#1, 2, 3, etc).)
Pope Benedict XVI ‘s first social encyclical Caritas in Veritate, “Charity in Truth,” advocates a new economic discourse and global economic order advancing a person-centered rather than profit-centered approach to globalization.
Catholic Social Thought and Restorative Justice
By Alex Mikulich, Ph.D.
Restorative Justice (RJ) is an alternative criminal justice practice that emphasizes repairing the harm of unjust behavior. As Howard Zehr, a leading founder of the RJ movement explains, RJ emerged in the mid-1970s to address three problems of how the traditional system: 1) fails victims, 2) does not call offenders to account, and 3) does not address broader community needs.1