TERRE HAUTE, Ind. (WTWO/WAWV) — The Sisters of Providence were not one of 82 advocacy groups that sent a letter to President Joe Biden urging that he act immediately to end the death penalty “on your promise of ensuring equality, equity, and justice in our criminal legal system,” but Sister Barbara Battista, Justice Promoter for the Sisters, said Wednesday that they fully support it.

Battista said the Sisters did sign an earlier letter calling for getting bills in front of Congress. “Lobbying our members of Congress because we want a Congressional legislative end to capital punishment, a legislative end to the death penalty,” she said. “Our hope is that (Biden) will follow through with what he himself has said, what the Democratic platform includes, and that is to honor human dignity, to respect human dignity and end this barbaric practice.”

She added, “We expect our federal government to join the rest of the Western democracies and stop executing persons. You know, it just adds violence on top of violence.”

Under former President Donald Trump, the federal government carried out 13 executions in six months, beginning July 14 of 2020 and Jan. 16 of this year, just four days before Biden’s inauguration. They represented the first federal executions in 17 years, and were more than had been performed in the previous 56 years combined.