WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden commuted the sentences of about 1,500 people and pardoned another 39 Americans convicted of nonviolent crimes in the largest single-day act of clemency in modern history.
The same week in Washington, lawmakers debated the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2025, President-elect Donald Trump was named Time magazine’s “Person of the Year” for 2024, and Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio celebrated Mass for members of Congress and met with Nancy Pelosi.
— Biden issues clemency for nearly 1,500 Americans —
President Joe Biden will commute the sentences of nearly 1,500 people and pardon another 39, in a move the White House called the largest single-day act of clemency in modern history.
In a statement Dec. 12, the White House said Biden would commute the sentences of “close to 1,500 individuals who were placed on home confinement during the COVID-19 pandemic and who have successfully reintegrated into their families and communities,” as well as issue pardons for “39 individuals who were convicted of non-violent crimes.”
Biden said in a statement, “America was built on the promise of possibility and second chances.”
“As President, I have the great privilege of extending mercy to people who have demonstrated remorse and rehabilitation, restoring opportunity for Americans to participate in daily life and contribute to their communities, and taking steps to remove sentencing disparities for non-violent offenders, especially those convicted of drug offenses,” he said.
Biden’s action comes shortly after the controversial pardon of his son, Hunter Biden, which spared the younger Biden a possible prison sentence for federal felony gun and tax convictions amid concern about his fate under the new Trump administration.
Catholic activists are among those pushing Biden to commute the sentences of those on federal death row — currently 40 people — before he leaves office. Trump is expected to resume the pace of federal executions, which Biden had paused upon becoming president.
“In the coming weeks, the President will take additional steps to provide meaningful second chances and continue to review additional pardons and commutations,” the White House statement said.
— House passes defense bill despite controversy —
The House passed a massive annual defense policy bill Dec. 11 despite opposition from some Democrats over language banning certain types of medical or surgical gender reassignment procedures for children of service members on the military health plan who identify as transgender, sending the compromise measure to the Senate for consideration.
The National Defense Authorization Act was approved by the House in a bipartisan 281-140 vote.
In a statement, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said, “Today’s passage of the annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) includes important wins for our troops and ensures our military has the necessary resources and support to defend our great nation.”
“Our men and women in uniform should know their first obligation is protecting our nation, not woke ideology,” Johnson said. “It’s disappointing to see 124 of my Democrat colleagues vote against our brave men and women in uniform over policies that have nothing to do with their intended mission.”
But Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee, argued in a statement that “blanketly denying health care to people who need it — just because of a biased notion against transgender people — is wrong.”
“The inclusion of this harmful provision puts the lives of children at risk and may force thousands of service members to make the choice of continuing their military service or leaving to ensure their child can get the health care they need,” he said.
Previously, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops sent a letter to the leaders of the House and Senate regarding the NDAA, reiterating their objection to a Pentagon abortion policy allowing service members to be reimbursed for travel costs associated with getting an abortion, and support for policies including some refugee resettlement programs for “individuals who risked their lives and the lives of their family members to assist the U.S. mission and U.S. personnel in Afghanistan.”
“We thank you for your leadership and for your dedication to supporting our country’s service members through the NDAA,” the letter said. “We hope you will continue to do so in a manner that genuinely supports women, children, and families and does not contribute to the destruction of life.”
— Trump named Time’s ‘Person of the Year’ for the second time —
President-elect Donald Trump was named Time magazine’s “2024 Person of the Year,” that publication said Dec. 12. He was previously named Time’s person of the year in 2016.
Trump rang the bell the same day at the New York Stock Exchange in New York City to mark the occasion.
In a corresponding interview with the magazine, Trump was asked about his call for mass deportations, one of the hardline immigration policies he campaigned on. Since his election, Trump has also indicated his willingness to involve the military in such an effort.
While Trump has not yet offered specifics on how he would carry out such a program, mass deportations more broadly run contrary to the Second Vatican Council’s teaching in “Gaudium et Spes” condemning “deportation” among other actions, such as abortion, that “poison human society” and are “supreme dishonor to the Creator,” a teaching St. John Paul II affirmed in two encyclicals on moral truth and life issues.
Asked how he would use the military to carry out a mass deportation program since federal law prohibits the use of the military for domestic law enforcement, Trump replied, “Well, it doesn’t, it doesn’t stop the military if it’s an invasion of our country, and I consider it an invasion of our country.”
“I’ll only do what the law allows, but I will go up to the maximum level of what the law allows,” he said. “And I think in many cases, the sheriffs and law enforcement is going to need help. We’ll also get National Guard. We’ll get National Guard, and we’ll go as far as I’m allowed to go, according to the laws of our country.”
Trump also said he would pardon those charged in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol — the day 2,000 supporters of then-President Trump attempted to block Congress’ certification of President Biden’s 2020 election victory — not ruling out that these pardons would include those charged with violent crimes.
“A vast majority should not be in jail, and they’ve suffered gravely,” Trump said.
Trump was also asked, “If the prices of groceries don’t come down, will your presidency be a failure?”
“I don’t think so,” he said. “Look, they got them up. I’d like to bring them down. It’s hard to bring things down once they’re up. You know, it’s very hard. But I think that they will.”
Trump argued changes to energy and supply chain regulations could bring them down.
Walter Isaacson, who was then the editor of Time, wrote in 1998 that the publication bestowed the title on the individual “who most affected the news and our lives, for good or ill, and embodied what was important about the year, for better or for worse.”
— USCCB president says Mass for Catholics in Congress on Guadalupe feast —
Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio of the U.S. Archdiocese for the Military Services, who is president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, celebrated Mass for Catholic members of Congress on Dec. 12 for the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, according to Catholic News Agency. The archbishop called it “an opportunity to really pray as one and to pray also for the work that happens here,” he told CNA.
Archbishop Broglio also met with former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., following Mass, and CNA reported that though she had asked to receive Communion, Archbishop Broglio declined because Mass had ended and no consecrated hosts remained, according to Michelle Gress, executive director at the Office of Government Relations at the USCCB.
Pelosi told the National Catholic Reporter in an interview that she continues to receive Communion despite being banned by Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone of San Francisco in a May 2022 letter, and that it’s “his problem, not mine.”
After the interview was published, Archbishop Cordileone said in a statement, “I would like to renew my request for prayers for the Speaker’s conversion on the issue of human life in the womb, that it be consistent with the respect for human dignity she displays in so many other contexts.”
It was reported Dec. 13 that Pelosi had been admitted to the hospital after becoming injured from a fall while in Luxembourg. She’d traveled there with other members of Congress to commemorate the 80th anniversary of World War II’s Battle of the Bulge.
In a Dec. 14 statement, her spokesperson, Ian Krager, said Pelosi underwent a successful hip replacement “and is well on the mend.” She had been flown to the U.S. Landstuhl Army Base in Germany and had the surgery at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center.
Archbishop Cordileone had urged his followers in a Dec. 13 post on X, formerly Twitter, to pray for Pelosi’s “swift and full recovery.”
