Maryland's outgoing Gov. Martin O'Malley announced Dec. 31 he would commute the death sentences of the last four inmates on the state's death row to life imprisonment without possibility of parole. In 2013, Maryland's General Assembly repealed capital punishment, but that did not affect the sentences of what at the time were five inmates on death row. One of those inmates, John Booth-El, died of natural causes earlier in 2014. The state's last execution was in 2005. The action was lauded by the Maryland Catholic Conference, which has long advocated for the end of capital punishment. O'Malley, a Catholic whose second term as governor ends Jan. 21, said in a statement that recent appeals and an opinion by outgoing Maryland Attorney General Doug Gansler have called into question the legality of carrying out those earlier death sentences. "I have now met or spoken with many of the survivors of the victims of these brutal murders," said O'Malley's statement. "They are all good and decent people who have generously granted me the courtesy of discussing the cases of their individual family members."
The spiritual climax of the Gospel of John, as Father John Waiss points out, occurs at the foot of the Cross, where Jesus utters his parting words: “Woman, behold, your son!” and “Behold your mother!” (John 19:26-27). While these words were addressed to the Apostle John, the disciple whom Jesus loved, the Church has long understood this moment as a universal adoption. To truly image Christ, we must share in His parentage; if we embrace God as our spiritual Father but reject Mary as our mother, we treat Christ as a half-brother rather than our "firstborn among many brethren" (Rom. 8:29). As Origen noted as early as the third century, the profound depths of the Gospel are only accessible to those who, like John, rest their heads on Jesus’ breast and receive Mary into their own homes. This maternal role is deeply rooted in biblical typology, positioning Mary as the fulfillment of the great mothers of the Old Covenant. She is the New Eve , the mother of all the living according ...