Pope calls for global ceasefire, clemency for US death row inmates

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Praying for peace throughout the world, Pope Francis made an urgent appeal to world leaders to help bring about a global ceasefire in time for Christmas.

"We are continuing to pray for peace in battered Ukraine, in the Middle East, Palestine, Israel, Lebanon, now Syria, in Myanmar, Sudan and everywhere people are suffering from war and violence," he said after praying the Angelus with visitors gathered in St. Peter's Square Dec. 8.

"I am appealing to leaders and the international community that we may get to the Christmas holiday with a ceasefire on all war fronts," he said.

Another issue close to his heart, the pope said, was granting clemency to or commuting the death sentence of inmates awaiting execution in the United States.

He asked everyone "to pray for the detainees in the United States who are on death row."

"Let us pray for their sentence to be commuted, changed. Let us think of these brothers and sisters of ours and ask the Lord for the grace to save them from death," Pope Francis said.

Two men are scheduled for execution in December in Indiana and Oklahoma, while seven men are scheduled to be put to death in Texas and Ohio next year. All 22 executions scheduled for 2026-2028 are in Ohio, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

Twenty-three prisoners have been executed in eight states in the U.S. so far in 2024.

While federal executions are much rarer than state executions, there are 40 federal death row prisoners, according to the information center.

U.S. President Joe Biden, whose term ends in January, had promised in 2020 to end the federal death penalty during his administration. About 60 members of Congress and others have urged him to grant clemency to the men on federal death row, especially as President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to use and expand the federal death penalty when he takes office.

After the Angelus prayer on the feast of the Immaculate Conception, the pope also expressed his closeness to and called for prayers for the church and the people in Nicaragua as they were celebrating the Immaculate Conception of El Viejo, also known as "La Purisima" or "La Chinita."

As the faithful were "raising to her a cry of faith and hope," the pope prayed that Mary would "be a consolation for them in their difficulties and uncertainties and open the hearts of everyone so that we may always seek the path of respectful and constructive dialogue in order to promote peace, fraternity and harmony in this nation."

Under Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega and his vice president and wife, Rosario Murillo, more than 200 religious leaders and clergy members have been expelled from the country. Bishop Carlos Herrera Gutiérrez of Jinotega, president of Nicaragua's bishops' conference, was forced into exile in November -- the fourth Nicaraguan bishop forced out of the country since 2019.