Eight Catholic bishops serving Maryland dioceses urged President Donald Trump Dec. 22 to stop the planned federal execution of Dustin Higgs, a Maryland man on death row in Indiana.

A new report Dec. 16 by the Death Penalty Information Center said the use of capital punishment reached a historic low this year in the United States even with the return of federal executions by the Trump administration. Seventeen people were executed in 2020, down from 22 in 2019. This lower figure stems in part from the coronavirus pandemic, but the report also notes that before the pandemic struck, the nation was set for a sixth straight year of lower numbers of death sentences and executions.

While in Rome for a prayer meeting for peace with Pope Francis, the Orthodox patriarch Bartholomew spoke to Vatican News Oct. 20 about his reading of Pope Francis' recent encyclical, "Fratelli Tutti, on Fraternity and Social Friendship."

Lisa Brown, the mother of federal death-row inmate Christopher Vialva, speaks during a Sept. 24, 2020, news conference near the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute, Ind. Her son was executed less than eight hours later that day.

"This means that the federal government will likely execute four people using an untested lethal injection protocol ... without any real oversight from the Supreme Court," tweeted Sister Helen Prejean, a Sister of St. Joseph of Medaille.

"The federal government's decision to pursue executions is wrongheaded. It is profoundly disappointing to see our federal government take such great pains to restart executions"