source: Vatican News

published: 10 October 2025

Image Credit: Pexels/Duda at www.pexels.com

On the World Day Against the Death Penalty [10 October], Krisanne Vaillancourt Murphy, Executive Director of the US-based Catholic Mobilizing Network, explores the many positive movements that have been made to abolish the death penalty, despite an uptick in executions this year.

By 2024, more than two-thirds of countries had abolished the death penalty—145 nations have now eliminated it either in law or in practice. Despite this progress, the number of executions recorded worldwide has increased, reaching 1,518 in 2024—the highest figure since 2015.

Countries such as China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and the United States account for the vast majority of these executions.

The World Day Against the Death Penalty, marked annually on October 10, offers an opportunity to assess the progress made in the global effort to end executions.

“In the United States,” explained Krisanne Vaillancourt Murphy, Executive Director of Catholic Mobilizing Network (CMN) - an organization working across the U.S. to raise awareness against capital punishment - “we’re in the middle of the effort to end the death penalty.”

“About half of the states in the United States have the death penalty, and about half of them have repealed the death penalty and taken it off the books,” she said. “We are in the middle of, unfortunately, many executions right now in the United States. There's been somewhat of an uptick of executions and a regression. The political rhetoric of this time is difficult. We need to value the dignity of every human person. That includes people who are sitting on death row. So we will not give up this fight. And the progress that we've made has been hard won. We will move forward and continue in order to end the death penalty in the United States.”

Even on Friday, October 10, an execution is scheduled to take place in the US state of Indiana.

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