Catholic leaders urge DeSantis to halt record-setting Florida execution
Florida’s record-setting pace of executions has drawn renewed opposition from the Catholic Church, which is urging Gov. Ron DeSantis to halt the scheduled execution Thursday of a 74-year-old veteran.
The appeal comes as Florida continues an unprecedented run of executions under DeSantis, who oversaw a record 19 executions last year and has argued that carrying out death sentences delivers justice for victims’ families. The Catholic Church, which has a long history of opposing the death penalty, believes capital punishment ignores the inherent dignity of all human life and has long advocated for death penalty alternatives. Catholic leaders in Florida argue that there are better ways to protect the public from violent crimes and in Spencer’s case, the availability of life without parole is a moral way to punish Spencer without taking his life.
Spencer, a U.S. Marine Corp. Veteran, is set to be executed on Thursday for the 1992 murder of his wife, Karen Spencer, in Orange County. If carried out, Spencer would become the oldest person executed in Florida history and the ninth execution this year.
The Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops, the policy and advocacy arm of the church in Florida, is calling for the governor to commute Spencer’s sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Vigils and protests are being held around the state, including one in Fort Lauderdale on Thursday evening, in opposition to the execution.
In a letter to DeSantis, executive director of the group Michael Sheedy acknowledged the brutal nature of Spencer’s crimes but appealed to the governor to spare the 74-year-old’s life.
“Mr. Spencer’s crime was truly heinous and merits a severe punishment by the state. The murder of Mrs. Spencer, partially carried out in front of her son Timothy, was brutal,” wrote Sheedy. “Nevertheless, we ask that you spare the life of Mr. Spencer, who was sexually abused as a child by his father and had a paranoid personality disorder.”
Miami’s Archbishop Thomas Wenski said on Tuesday that it’s possible to stand in solidarity with the families of murder victims without seeking another death in return.
“The commutation to life imprisonment would serve the common good of all by helping break our society’s spiral of violence; an ‘eye for an eye’ mentality will just end up making us all blind,” Wenski told the Miami Herald.
Wenski also said that a life sentence in prison was “just punishment” which would allow for “continued reflection of wrongdoers on the grave harm they have caused.”
Catholic Church opposes death penalty
Last year, Florida nearly doubled the national average of executions with a record-breaking 19 executions carried out. Texas is the only other state that has ever exceeded 18 executions in a year’s span, doing so back in 2009.
Florida’s uptick in executions is due, in part, to the state’s new death penalty laws. In 2023 DeSantis signed a law that allows juries to recommend a death sentence with an 8-4 vote instead of unanimously. DeSantis pushed for the change after the Parkland school shooter, who killed 17 students and faculty members at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High in 2018, was spared from the death penalty in 2022.
READ MORE: Florida executed 19 death row inmates in 2025. That caused unusual national uptick
Spencer was found guilty in 1994 of first-degree murder, aggravated assault, aggravated battery, and attempted second-degree murder.
Court documents describe multiple violent altercations between Spencer and his wife leading up to the murder and one arrest after Spencer hit his wife and threatened to kill her. Spencer’s teenage son was awakened in the night in 1992 to find his father beating his mother in the head with a brick, according to court documents. When the police arrived at the scene, they found Karen dead. She had been stabbed multiple times in the chest, cut on the face and arms, and had suffered force trauma to the back of the head, according to court documents.
But Catholic leaders opposing Spencer’s execution say their position is not intended to diminish the suffering of victims or their families. Instead, they argue that even people convicted of the most heinous crimes retain an inherent human dignity that should prevent the state from taking their lives. The Church has long believed that human life is sacred and that only God can decide when to end a person’s life.
Sheedy echoed that sentiment in his letter and referenced Saint John Paul II who said “Not even a murderer loses his personal dignity.”
The Catholic Church sent similar letters to the governor before the eight other executions that were carried out in 2026.
In Daytona Beach, Father Phil Egitto’s congregation at Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church has been protesting the death penalty for over 30 years.
The day of every scheduled execution, Egitto organizes a bus to transport around 50 parishioners to Florida State Prison in Raiford, about three hours away from his church. There Egitto leads a prayer service with traditional funeral prayers and live worship music in order to bring “love and mercy” to the scene of the execution.
“As Catholics we care, and we’re trying to make a statement,” Egitto said. “We’re trying to get the word out that executions aren’t the answer.”
Egitto said he believes that executions are a part of a “broken system” which disproportionately impacts people with mental health issues, low-income people and people of color.
“It does not really bring healing, it is not justice, it’s simply retribution and revenge,” he said.
This story was produced with financial support from Trish and Dan Bell and donors in South Florida’s Jewish and Muslim communities, including Khalid and Diana Mirza and the Mohsin and Fauzia Jaffer Foundation, in partnership with Journalism Funding Partners. The Miami Herald maintains full editorial control of this work.
This story was originally published June 24, 2026 at 4:30 AM with the headline "Catholic leaders urge DeSantis to halt record-setting Florida execution."
