CAPITAL PUNISHMENT U.S. bishops to launch campaign denouncing the death penalty

Recent Supreme Court decisions are fueling the bishops' efforts.
CHICAGO TRIBUNE
CHICAGO -- Tying the move to the beginning of Holy Week, which celebrates the execution of Jesus more than two thousand years ago, the Roman Catholic bishops of the United States today will announce one of the most aggressive campaigns against the death penalty in recent years.
Chicago Archbishop Cardinal Francis George said the campaign -- featuring legislative action, legal advocacy, educational work and a new Web site -- stems from the church's belief that all life is sacred and should be preserved.
Catholic opposition
"As we contemplate the way in which Christ died ... this is a moment to ask how is it that we administer death as a society and to try to come to a better understanding that we don't need to kill people in order to protect ourselves," George said after Palm Sunday Mass at Holy Name Cathedral. "There are prisons for that, and we should trust them and allow people to live."
The effort will be unveiled Monday at a news conference in Washington, D.C., marking the 25th anniversary of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' decision to oppose capital punishment. The church first took a public stance against the death penalty after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled capital punishment unconstitutional in 1972. The court reinstated it four years later.
At the news conference, Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the Archbishop of Washington, is expected to announce the results of a new poll commissioned by the bishops that shows a dramatic rise in Catholic opposition to the death penalty. He will be joined by Bud Welch, whose daughter was killed in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, and Kirk Bloodsworth, who spent more than a decade on death row before he was exonerated, according to a statement issued by the group.
Recent decisions
The bishops' decision to launch a new campaign against the death penalty comes after two recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions limited the use of capital punishment. On March 1, the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed the use of capital punishment for juveniles under 18 years old, and in 2000 the court ruled the death penalty unconstitutional when it came to mentally ill defendants. In both cases, the bishops group filed briefs against capital punishment.
Steven Drizin, Legal Director for the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University, said he believes that those two decisions have fueled the latest efforts by the church, which has long been against the death penalty. Pope John Paul II has taken a stance against the death penalty in the United States and across the world. George pointed to a visit by the pope in St. Louis in 1999 where he spoke out against the punishment even for someone who has done great evil.
Since 1976, nearly 1,000 people have been executed in the United States, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, which opposes the death penalty.