Pope Francis sent a letter to Georgia’s Board of Pardons and Paroles asking them not to execute Kelly Gissendaner, who is scheduled to die at 7 pm tonight. Gissendaner is the only woman on Georgia’s death row and would be the first woman killed by the state in 70 years. The pope joins hundreds of clergy members who have lobbied to save Gissendaner’s life as her third rescheduled execution date nears.
Gissendaner was sentenced to death for planning the murder of her husband in 1997. Her lover, Gregory Owen, carried out the actual kidnapping and murder of Douglas Gissendaner, but received life in prison for confessing and testifying against his former partner.
“While not wishing to minimize the gravity of the crime for which Ms. Gissendaner has been convicted, and while sympathizing with the victims, I nonetheless implore you, in consideration of the reasons that have been presented to your Board, to commute the sentence to one that would better express both justice and mercy,” Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano wrote on behalf of Pope Francis. “Please be assured of my prayers as you consider this request by Pope Francis for what I believe would be a just act of clemency.”
The pope specifically denounced the death penalty in a speech to Congress last week and called for its abolition. The United States consistently ranks in the top five nations responsible for the most executions in the world.
Francis also emphasized in his speech that “a just and necessary punishment must never exclude the dimension of hope and the goal of rehabilitation.” He reiterated that message of reform on his visit to a prison outside Philadelphia over the weekend. “It is painful when we see prison systems which are not concerned to care for wounds, to soothe pain, to offer new possibilities,” he said at the prison. “The Lord tells us this clearly with a sign: he washes our feet so we can come back to the table.”
Gissendaner has been held up as a textbook example of the rehabilitation Francis espouses. She completed a theology program while locked up and reportedly used her newfound spirituality to counsel other inmates on the brink of despair. Her children reconciled with her years after the murder and are pleading with the state to spare her life.
Clergy members in the state are continuing their push for clemency. Across the country and across religions, the faith community has begun mobilizing more aggressively against capital punishment.
“We are purportedly a Christian state, but this execution is just state-sponsored mob violence,” the Right Rev. Rob Wright, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Atlanta, told the Athens Banner-Herald during a protest of Gissendaner’s execution earlier this year. “It’s a lynching.”
Update:
Despite Francis’ request, the Georgia parole board denied clemency to Gissendaner Tuesday afternoon, allowing her execution to go on as scheduled tonight.