NEWS STORY: L.A. Cardinal Calls for `Moral Revolution’ Against Death Penalty

c. 2000 Religion News Service WASHINGTON _ The leader of the nation’s largest Roman Catholic archdiocese said Thursday (May 25) that recent reassessments of the death penalty may signal the beginning of a long, slow death for capital punishment. Cardinal Roger Mahony, leader of the Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles, told the National Press Club […]

c. 2000 Religion News Service

WASHINGTON _ The leader of the nation’s largest Roman Catholic archdiocese said Thursday (May 25) that recent reassessments of the death penalty may signal the beginning of a long, slow death for capital punishment.

Cardinal Roger Mahony, leader of the Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles, told the National Press Club that recent calls for a moratorium on the death penalty signal the birth of a “moral revolution” that may eventually lead to the end of the death penalty.


“Now, even some death penalty supporters are becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the status quo,” he said.

But Mahony stopped far short of calling for a kinder, gentler, more just death penalty. Mahony said the only death penalty acceptable to the Catholic Church is no death penalty at all.

“The church is not looking for a failsafe death penalty,” said Mahony, who has led Los Angeles’ 4 million Catholics since 1985. “I don’t care how good the attorneys are, or how good the evidence is. We are against the death penalty, period.”

Following the recent death of New York’s Cardinal John O’Connor, the soft-spoken Mahony has emerged as one of the most prominent voices in the U.S. church. And like O’Connor, Mahony toes a strict Vatican line against abortion, euthanasia and capital punishment.

Mahony used Thursday’s speech to say that despite surveys showing most Americans _ and even most Catholics _ overwhelmingly support the death penalty, the church is not retreating from its opposition to it. What’s more, Mahony said the church will lead the charge to outlaw it altogether.

Despite its popularity with most voters, recent months have seen a dramatic reassessment of how the death penalty is used, and whether it disproportionately targets minorities and the poor, or worse, sentences innocent people to death.

In January, Illinois Gov. George Ryan, a death penalty supporter, issued a moratorium on all executions until state officials determine why more death sentences have been overturned than carried out. Several other states followed suit, and a chorus of religious voices has led the call for a national moratorium.


President Clinton has refused to issue such a moratorium, but individual states and members of Congress are taking steps to look at the issue. Last week, New Hampshire’s legislature voted to ban the death penalty, but Gov. Jeanne Shaheen vetoed the measure.

Mahony issued his own challenge on Thursday, calling on California Gov. Gray Davis to impose a statewide moratorium until he, like Ryan, can be “100 percent sure” that capital punishment does not execute innocent people.

“The time is right for a genuine and reasoned national dialogue,” Mahony said.

Mahony said a collective reconsideration of the death penalty may ultimately lead to its own demise. In the long term, Mahony said, he believes such a discussion will lead to the end of capital punishment, not simply a modification of it.

“In the end, we are deceiving ourselves if we believe we can fix the current death penalty system to make it more humane and just,” Mahony said. “Social, political and economic factors make a complete overhaul of the system doubtful. Moral and ethical questions make such an endeavor impossible.”

Mahony also praised “common sense” gun control laws that keep criminals from obtaining guns and keep lawful guns safer. Mahony said the proliferation of firearms has “exacerbated the culture of violence” that pushes many people to support the death penalty.

Mahony quoted from church pronouncements on capital punishment, saying that defending life by taking life escalates “an insidious cycle of violence that, in the end, diminishes us all.” The only fair treatment for violent crime is nonviolence, which could include life in prison without parole, he said.


“We believe that every person is sacred, every life is precious _ even the life of one who has violated the rights of others by taking a life,” Mahony said. “Human dignity is not qualified by what we do. It cannot be earned or forfeited. Human dignity is an irrevocable character of each and every person.”

DEA END ECKSTROM

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