Church’s opposition to death penalty based on  its ‘seamless garment’ teaching, Utah bishop says Salt Lake City Bishop John C. Wester said the Catholic Church’s opposition to capital punishment “is rooted in our belief that God is the author of life and we must respect human life from conception to death.” Wester made the comment at an April rally protesting the planned execution of Ronnie Gardner, who opted to die by firing squad. The execution, which took place June 18, was Utah's first in more than a decade.  One tenet of the Catholic faith is the “seamless garment” concept, Wester told a reporter from the Deseret News. “The seamless garment theory,” he said, “is rooted in the sanctity of life. If all human life is sacred, that is true in all cases. We’re against abortion; we’re against euthanasia; we’re against the death penalty. I don’t see how you can pick and choose.” Allowing executions assumes a prerogative that belongs only to God, and it also engages society in a culture of death, said Wester, whose diocese covers the entire state. “There is a ‘just judge,’ and there will come a time when we will all stand before our maker, and God will take it from there,” he noted. The protest rally, held April 23 at Salt Lake City’s Matheson Courthouse, was held by a new group, Utahns for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (www.utadp.org), which includes representatives from a wide array of religious and secular groups as well as attorneys and other individuals. Most were also present at a vigil service held at St. Mark's Episcopal Cathedral on June 17, the night before Gardner's execution A message sent in mid-April by diocesan officials to all Catholic parishes in Utah had asked them to include in their weekly bulletins an explanation of church teaching concerning the death penalty, and to urge the state’s 300,000 Catholics to express opposition to the execution. Vatican Secretary of State reiterates the Holy See’s  anti-death-penalty stance      In a February 26 message sent to participants in the Fourth World Congress Against the Death Penalty in Geneva, Switzerland,  Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone reiterated the Holy See’s stance against capital punishment in language similar to that in Vatican statements delivered to the three previous World Congresses held in Strasbourg (2001), Montreal (2004) and Paris (2007).     “This event,” Bertone said, “highlights once more the awakening of consciences to the need for greater recognition of the inalienable dignity of the human person and the universality and inseparability of human rights, beginning with the right to life. In continuity with its practice at the three previous Congresses, the Holy See reiterates its support for all initiatives aimed at defending  the inherent value and inviolability of every human life from the moment of conception until natural death.”       The Congress, he said, “takes place at a time when the campaign to abolish the death penalty has made considerable progress in the Western world, but is still facing the disturbing fact that executions are on the increase in other parts of the world. For this reason, I invite the  participants to reflect on suitable guiding principles and effective measures for a criminal justice system which would better correspond to present day needs and concerns, while defending the common good and making possible the correction and rehabilitation of the guilty.” For more information, click on the “CACP’s Newsletter” box at left and see Item No. 1. Additional evidence of the Vatican’s opposition to capital punishment came in a letter written on behalf of Pope Benedict XVI to Florida’s Republican Governor Charlie Crist in early February. It was one of numerous requests to Crist asking him to commute the death sentence of inmate Martin Grossman to life in prison. Grossman was executed February 16.  The letter was written by Archbishop Fernando Filoni, Substitute for General Affairs in the Roman Curia, on behalf of the pope. “The prisoner has repented,” Filoni wrote, “and is now a changed person, having become a man of faith.” He asked Crist for “whatever steps may be possible to save the life of Mr. Grossman.” The letter was reportedly written following a personal request to the pope by the chief rabbi of Haifa, Israel. For more information on this, as well as news of Catholic-oriented anti-death-penalty activities in other states, click on the “CACP’s Newsletter” box at left, and scroll down to Item No. 3.                                            Tie vote in Kansas Senate derails repeal attempt, but backers aren’t giving up “We will definitely be continuing our efforts for abolition,” said CACP member Donna Schneweis, coordinator of the Kansas Coalition Against the Death Penalty, following a 20-20 tie vote in the Senate that failed to send a bill to repeal the state’s 16-year-old death penalty law to the House of Representatives.      It was the first time either house of the Kansas legislature had voted on repeal since the death penalty was reinstated in 1994. A similar bill in last year’s Senate failed to get out of committee.       “In 1994, legislators voted on the ‘concept’ of the death penalty,” Schneweis said. “Now there is a track record.” That track record, plus those with moral opposition, will indeed one day bring Kansas to abolition.”      Schneweis noted that 12 of the 20 “yes” votes were cast by Republicans ... that the chief sponsor of the bill, Sen. Carolyn McGinn, is a Republican ... and that among those who voted for the bill was Republican Senate president Steve Morris, who was one of those who voted to reinstate the death penalty in 1994.      Chief sponsor McGinn, a Catholic, argued that human life was sacred from birth to natural death. At one point she referred to lawmakers who want to outlaw abortions but who embrace the death penalty, and cited their  desire to protect the unborn child “because we say they are a child of God.”  People sentenced to death are still children of God, she said. “Tell me, at what point in time did they lose that status, and who made  that decision?”      McGinn also noted that the Kansas taxpayers have paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for capital prosecutions since the death penalty law was reinstated in 1994, even though no executions have taken place.     “Can we use this money to prevent future heinous, horrible crimes?” she asked “Can we use it to solve cold cases that are up on the shelf for those families who don’t even know who murdered their family member?”       The bill had been approved by a bipartisan 7-4 vote in the Senate Judiciary Committee on January 29, following testimony from Wichita Bishop Michael Jackels, who said that capital punishment “is too often associated with attitudes and behavior that are opposed to Christian life, such as hatred or vengeance.” For more information, click on the “CACP’s Newsletter” box at left and scroll down to Item No. 2. In other state news ... - The New Hampshire House of Representatives voted 201-161 against a bill to expand the death penalty law. The proposal was opposed by a representative of Diocese of Manchester, who said that in the present day, the death penalty is not necessary to ensure public safety, and that it has “the potential to contribute the the culture of violence” that the state seeks to control. - Virginia lawmakers have approved legislation that expands the death penalty by allowing it to be imposed for murders of auxiliary police officers, auxiliary deputy sheriffs and on-duty fire marshals. But they rejected two other death penalty expansion bills. One would have eliminated the so-called “triggerman” rule, under which, with few exceptions, only actual perpetrators of capital murders are eligible for the death penalty. The other would have added an even wider range of occupations (such as forest wardens, arson investigators, volunteer firefighters) to the murder victim categories in which death sentences could be sought. All the expansion bills were opposed by the Virginia Catholic Conference. - Among proposed legislation backed by the Missouri Catholic Conference are bills that would create a commission to study the state’s capital punishment system, including its costs, and would impose a moratorium on executions while the study is under way. For more information on these developments and news of Catholic-oriented anti-death-penalty activities in other states, click on the “CACP’s Newsletter” box at left, and scroll down to Item No. 3.  USCCB committee urged to place more emphasis on issue of death penalty An editorial in the April 8 issue of CACP News Notes criticizes the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities for failing to include opposition to capital punishment as an integral component of the Church’s pro-life message “whenever and wherever that message is preached.”       In the past three years, it notes, statements and press releases issued by the USCCB’s Pro-Life Office, including the materials in its annual “Respect Life Month” program (designed to encourage parish grassroots efforts on life issues), contained information about a host of subjects -- abortion, euthanasia, assisted suicide, same-sex unions, in-vitro fertilization, sexually-transmitted diseases, and contraception -- but not a word concerning the death penalty.      “Such omissions” the editorial argues, “serve to blur what should be a clear picture of our Church’s concern for human life at all stages. This, in turn, can cause confusion in the minds of Catholics, and may affect how credible the Church appears in the eyes of the general public and the media.      “We are concerned,” it continues, “that by disregarding the issue of the death penalty in its programs and statements, the Pro-Life Committee may be ignoring the wise counsel offered three decades ago by the U.S. bishops in their historic 1980 Statement on Capital Punishment. In it, the bishops affirmed that in voicing their opposition to the death penalty, they sought to remove ‘a certain ambiguity’ about our Church’s  affirmation of the sanctity of all human life.” For the text of the editorial, click on the “CACP’s Newsletter” box at left and scroll down to Item No. 13. New booklet examines cost of California’s death penalty system      CACP member Paul W. Comiskey, a retired defense attorney and former Jesuit priest, is the author of a 64-page booklet, A Taxpayer’s Guide to the California Death Penalty.       It aims, in Comiskey’s words, to show how “we can take the resources we put into the death penalty and turn them into help for crime victims and for utilizing  the powerful tool we have in DNA forensics to deter and stop violent crime.”      The book points out that California has the largest death row in the world (almost 700 inmates), and that, since the current death penalty law was passed in 1978 there have been 13 executions, 44 prisoners have died from natural causes, 17 have committed suicide, and 5 have died from drug overdoses and violence. “Money is spent trying to kill aging convicts whose death verdicts are likely to be reversed or who may die naturally before their appeal is completed,” Comiskey writes. “The reversal rate for death verdicts is between 70%-80%. The length of time for appeal completion is approaching 30 years. The system bleeds money, and basically functions as a lottery.”      For information on obtaining copies, contact Comiskey at paulcomiskey@earthlink.net).                          New Australian law ensures that death penalty cannot be reinstated                        On March 11, in a largely symbolic move supported on all sides of the political spectrum, the Australian Federal Parliament passed legislation ensuring that the death penalty can never be reinstated in any Australian jurisdiction. Although no state or territory in the nation currently employs the practice, backers said the laws were needed to make certain that it could never be reintroduced. The bill amends the Commonwealth Death Penalty Abolition Act of 1973 by extending its application to state laws. For more information on this and news of other overseas developments in the Dominican Republic and South Korea, click on the “CACP’s Newsletter” box at left and scroll down to item No. 4.                                  Archbishop Sheehan recalls New Mexico abolition drive In a February address at the Notre Dame Law School, Santa Fe Archbishop Michael J. Sheehan discussed his role in the 2009 campaign to repeal New Mexico’s death penalty law and how “building bridges” with other faith groups was a key component of the effort. To read excerpts from his talk, click on the “CACP’s Newsletter” box at left and scroll down to Item No. 5. High costs of capital punishment threaten public safety In a recent newspaper column, the Nebraska Catholic Conference’s executive director, James Cunningham, said that at a time when the manpower of his state’s police force is at its lowest level since 1986 and the state crime lab is underfunded, the high cost of the death penalty is “an exorbitant drain on already hard-hit state budgets and a highly inefficient use of taxpayer dollars.” For excerpts, click on the “CACP’s Newsletter” box at left and scroll down to item No. 6. Study examines death penalty attitudes of Catholic college students A new study indicates that if and when Catholic students attending Catholic colleges change their views on the issue of the death penalty, they are more likely to become against capital punishment than for it.      The project, carried out by the Georgetown-University-based Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA), generally found that Catholic students at Catholic colleges are less likely than Catholic students in public colleges to move away from the church’s teachings on various social and political issues.  The study was based on nationwide surveys of 14,527 students conducted in late 2004, when they were freshmen, and in early 2007, when they were juniors.      By the time they reached their junior year, just under half (49%) of Catholic students attending Catholic colleges said they agreed “strongly” or “somewhat” that the death penalty should be abolished, according to the study.      Some 31% of the students reported they had switched their position from pro-death-penalty to anti-death-penalty by the time they reached their junior year. Only 21% said they had changed from anti- to pro-death-penalty during the same period. The remaining 48% said their position on the issue did not change.       On pro-life issues in general, the results showed a “mixed pattern,” CARA said. When asked about abortion, a majority (56%) surveyed in their junior year disagreed “strongly” or “somewhat” that “abortion should be legal.” But more of them had opposed abortion when they were freshmen. Only 16% of the students said they had moved from being pro-choice to anti-abortion in their first three years in college, but 31% said they moved away from the church’s position on the issue during the same period.      The study can be accessed at http://cara.georgetown.edu.  CD resource for faith communities is updated The Death Penalty Information Center recently updated its information packet titled “Death Penalty Resources for Communities of Faith.”      The resource was initially developed two years ago to help religious groups address the death penalty by providing information, discussion questions, and multi-media resources.       According to DPIC, the materials offer a framework useful for any discussion of capital punishment and do not directly involve religious or moral instructions. They are presented in a way that is adaptable to many different faith communities. For more information, click on the “CACP’s Newsletter” box at left and scroll down to Item No. 8. Coming Events June 28-July 2: Abolition Action Committee’s 17th Annual Fast & Vigil to Abolish the Death Penalty at the U.S. Supreme Court, Washington, D.C. Info: www.abolition.org July 16-18: Pax Christi USA National Conference on Catholic Peacemaking, Rosemont Hotel at O’Hare, Rosemont, Ill. Info: info@paxchristiusa.org November 16-17: People of Faith Against the Death Penalty National Conference, Emory University, Atlanta, Ga. Info: www.pfadp.org January 13-16, 2011: National Coalition Against the Death Penalty Annual Conference, Renaissance Chicago Hotel, Chicago, Ill. Info: info@ncadp.org