VATICAN CITY — The Justice Department announced it will allow firing squads as a method of federal execution, a decision Pope Leo XIV addressed hours later in a video message from the Vatican. "The death penalty is inadmissible," Pope Leo XIV said in the message.

The video was shared with DePaul University in Chicago to mark the 15th anniversary of Illinois' abolition of the death penalty. "We affirm that the dignity of the person is not lost even after very serious crimes are committed," Leo said. He had previously condemned capital punishment aboard the papal plane when asked about executions carried out by the Iranian government. The Catholic Church teaches that each human life, from conception until natural death, is sacred and deserves protection.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said the Justice Department is reauthorizing lethal injection using the sedative pentobarbital. The Biden administration withdrew pentobarbital after a government review found that the injection may cause unnecessary pain and suffering. A Trump administration report argued that the review misread the science and that pentobarbital renders a prisoner unconscious rapidly enough to prevent pain.

The pentobarbital protocol was originally developed during Trump's first term under Attorney General Bill Barr, replacing a three-drug mixture that was last used during the early 2000s. After returning to office, Trump ordered the Justice Department to prioritize pursuing and carrying out death sentences. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, five states currently permit the use of firing squads: Idaho, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Utah.

President Biden commuted the sentences of 37 condemned federal inmates to life in prison during his final days in office, leaving three prisoners on federal death row. Those remaining include Dylann Roof, who murdered nine Black parishioners at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015; Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, convicted for carrying out the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing; and Robert Bowers, who killed 11 congregants at Pittsburgh's Tree of Life synagogue in 2018, the deadliest antisemitic attack in American history.

The Trump administration has moved to seek death sentences against 44 defendants. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, federal executions increased from 25 in 2024 to 47 in 2025, with executions in Florida accounting for 19 of that year's total.