July 27, 2023

A daily news briefing from Catholic News Agency, powered by artificial intelligence. Ask your smart speaker to play “Catholic News,” or listen every morning wherever you get podcasts. www.catholicnewsagency.com - The US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit on Tuesday evening granted a stay of execution for Johnny Johnson, a Saint Louis-area man who had been scheduled to die August 1. Catholics in Saint Louis and across Missouri had advocated for a stay of Johnson’s execution, citing the Church’s teaching on the admissibility of the death penalty as well as arguments from Johnson’s attorneys that he is not mentally fit to understand his punishment. The Missouri Catholic Conference, which represents the state’s Catholic bishops, in a July 24 letter formally requested clemency on Johnson’s behalf, asking Republican Governor Mike Parson to commute his sentence to life imprisonment without parole. The Catechism of the Catholic Church, reflecting an update promulgated by Pope Francis in 2018, describes the death penalty as “inadmissible” and an “attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person.” https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/254906/missouri-death-row-inmate-granted-stay-of-execution-following-catholic-advocacy The FBI handed over to Congress on Tuesday internal documents relating to the bureau’s now-withdrawn leaked memo that recommended investigating devotees of the Traditional Latin Mass. The leaked memo, dated January 23, which originated from the bureau’s Richmond office, claims that racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists will likely become more interested in “radical-traditionalist Catholic ideology” within the next 12 to 24 months “in the run-up to the next general election cycle.” The new documents were only made available to the House Judiciary Committee. The FBI has requested that the committee not disseminate the documents without consulting it first. The document release comes after Ohio Republican Representative Jim Jordan, the chairman of the committee, threatened to ho