Post by pumpkinpie on Dec 8, 2008 21:48:03 GMT -5
EXCERPTS FROM RELIGIOUS LEADERS’ STATEMENTS ON MARYLAND’S DEATH PENALTY
Following are excerpts from the testimonies of Most. Rev. Edwin F. O’Brien, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Baltimore, Rt. Rev. Eugene T. Sutton, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland, and Bishop John R. Schol of the Baltimore-Washington Conference of the United Methodist Church, presented before the Maryland Commission on Capital Punishment on August 19, 2008.
Archbishop O’Brien:
I am something of a latecomer to the position I espouse here today. Until relatively recently, my view about capital punishment was the view of most Americans: I thought it served a purpose. If it did nothing else, I thought, it was a deterrent - the prospect of its imposition would prevent the wrongful taking of human life. But that was then.
In 1995, Pope John Paul II published an encyclical letter, The Gospel of Life. In it, he called upon Roman Catholics, other people of faith and all people of good will to respect life, God’s great gift, and to defend it at all of its stages, from conception to naturaldeath.
Woven into the fabric of that exhortation was an appeal to end capital punishment—to stand against the killing of even those who have committed murder and, in doing so, have affronted God’s dominion and denied their own and their victims’ God-given humanity.
I had the privilege of hearing this appeal from Pope John Paul in person during his 1999 visit to St. Louis, when he declared that “The dignity of human life must never be taken away, even in the case of someone who has done great evil. Modern society has the means of protecting itself, without definitively denying criminals the chance to reform.” This was a real moment of conversion for me - a turning point, so to speak.
In the years since Evangelium Vitae, Catholic opposition to the death penalty and support for a “bloodless” alternative to executions each has grown precipitously.
Several years ago, with the help of the Mason-Dixon polling organization, our state conference undertook to measure statewide sentiment in the matter of capital punishment. While statewide support for the death penalty is at 56%, Catholic support is at 53%, and while statewide preference for life without parole as an acceptable substitute for the death penalty is at 63%, Catholic support is at 71%.
Other factors are contributing to a dramatically changed popular regard for capital punishment. Such factors as the increasing evidence of error in death penalty proceedings, the demonstrable biases which infect so many death penalty proceedings, and the inequities which too often mark defense efforts in death penalty cases have weighed heavily in the formation of my own conscience. I expect that this is true in a good many other cases, as well.
I should like to make one additional point. It has to do with those who most directly suffer the consequences of murderous violence. The pain that untimely death causes is often inconsolable. Though it diminishes with time, it endures. The sense of loss lasts, too, never diminished, a void that cannot be filled. The families and loved ones of murder victims have a special claim on our prayers, a special need for the caress of our helping hands, a special need for our encouragement to seek solace, understanding and ultimate judgment in a loving God.
Bishop Sutton:
For decades, the Episcopal Church has voiced strong public opposition to capital punishment. In the Bible, we find that every human being is given life by God, and only God the righteous Judge has the right to deny life. We understand that the state must seek justice and prosecute wrongdoing, but we cannot condone a decision by the state to pronounce a sentence of death for wrongdoing - no matter how violent and brutal the crime of the perpetrator may have been.
The death penalty is immoral, unjust and ineffective. It is immoral because as Christians we are commanded to adhere to the ethics of Jesus who continually forbade violence as a means to solve problems that are caused by evil. The death penalty is unjust because of the hugely disproportionate number of poor and black defendants who receive the death sentence. The death penalty is ineffective in that it has never been shown to have deterred anyone from committing a violent crime, nor has it lowered the murder rate in any state that regularly executes its most violent criminals.
How, in the end, does killing its citizens help the state to build the nonviolent, just and civil society that we all desire for ourselves and our children? We believe that everyone bears the image, or imprint, of God, and the face of Christ is marked on every human being - even murderers. Knowing this, capital punishment to us is tantamount to placing Christ on the cross again and again, using the state to sanction our own murderous outrage against those we’ve come to loathe and hate.
State-sponsored murder can be called many names, but it is also revenge - and where one seeks revenge, there is little room for forgiveness. To kill as the revenge for the killing of another contributes to the cycle of killing in a society. Instead, should we not seek to remedy the underlying conditions and causes for violence in our society?
Bishop Schol:
Capital punishment denies God’s power and ultimate authority to exact justice and also to transform and restore humanity. State-sponsored killing violates our Christian faith and basic life-affirming values of a civilized society. We oppose capital punishment because we believe in the sanctity of human life, which only God can give and only God should take away.
United Methodists cannot accept retribution or social vengeance as a reason for taking life. It violates our deepest belief in God as the creator and redeemer of all humankind. In the long run, the use of the death penalty by the State will increase the acceptance of revenge in our society, and will give official sanction to a climate of violence.
As a matter of sound government, we should hope our leaders would listen to the studies they, themselves, have commissioned, which fail to support the thesis that capital punishment deters homicide more effectively than imprisonment, and also the cost of the death penalty, and how that money could be better used to prevent future murders.
www.cacp.org
Following are excerpts from the testimonies of Most. Rev. Edwin F. O’Brien, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Baltimore, Rt. Rev. Eugene T. Sutton, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland, and Bishop John R. Schol of the Baltimore-Washington Conference of the United Methodist Church, presented before the Maryland Commission on Capital Punishment on August 19, 2008.
Archbishop O’Brien:
I am something of a latecomer to the position I espouse here today. Until relatively recently, my view about capital punishment was the view of most Americans: I thought it served a purpose. If it did nothing else, I thought, it was a deterrent - the prospect of its imposition would prevent the wrongful taking of human life. But that was then.
In 1995, Pope John Paul II published an encyclical letter, The Gospel of Life. In it, he called upon Roman Catholics, other people of faith and all people of good will to respect life, God’s great gift, and to defend it at all of its stages, from conception to naturaldeath.
Woven into the fabric of that exhortation was an appeal to end capital punishment—to stand against the killing of even those who have committed murder and, in doing so, have affronted God’s dominion and denied their own and their victims’ God-given humanity.
I had the privilege of hearing this appeal from Pope John Paul in person during his 1999 visit to St. Louis, when he declared that “The dignity of human life must never be taken away, even in the case of someone who has done great evil. Modern society has the means of protecting itself, without definitively denying criminals the chance to reform.” This was a real moment of conversion for me - a turning point, so to speak.
In the years since Evangelium Vitae, Catholic opposition to the death penalty and support for a “bloodless” alternative to executions each has grown precipitously.
Several years ago, with the help of the Mason-Dixon polling organization, our state conference undertook to measure statewide sentiment in the matter of capital punishment. While statewide support for the death penalty is at 56%, Catholic support is at 53%, and while statewide preference for life without parole as an acceptable substitute for the death penalty is at 63%, Catholic support is at 71%.
Other factors are contributing to a dramatically changed popular regard for capital punishment. Such factors as the increasing evidence of error in death penalty proceedings, the demonstrable biases which infect so many death penalty proceedings, and the inequities which too often mark defense efforts in death penalty cases have weighed heavily in the formation of my own conscience. I expect that this is true in a good many other cases, as well.
I should like to make one additional point. It has to do with those who most directly suffer the consequences of murderous violence. The pain that untimely death causes is often inconsolable. Though it diminishes with time, it endures. The sense of loss lasts, too, never diminished, a void that cannot be filled. The families and loved ones of murder victims have a special claim on our prayers, a special need for the caress of our helping hands, a special need for our encouragement to seek solace, understanding and ultimate judgment in a loving God.
Bishop Sutton:
For decades, the Episcopal Church has voiced strong public opposition to capital punishment. In the Bible, we find that every human being is given life by God, and only God the righteous Judge has the right to deny life. We understand that the state must seek justice and prosecute wrongdoing, but we cannot condone a decision by the state to pronounce a sentence of death for wrongdoing - no matter how violent and brutal the crime of the perpetrator may have been.
The death penalty is immoral, unjust and ineffective. It is immoral because as Christians we are commanded to adhere to the ethics of Jesus who continually forbade violence as a means to solve problems that are caused by evil. The death penalty is unjust because of the hugely disproportionate number of poor and black defendants who receive the death sentence. The death penalty is ineffective in that it has never been shown to have deterred anyone from committing a violent crime, nor has it lowered the murder rate in any state that regularly executes its most violent criminals.
How, in the end, does killing its citizens help the state to build the nonviolent, just and civil society that we all desire for ourselves and our children? We believe that everyone bears the image, or imprint, of God, and the face of Christ is marked on every human being - even murderers. Knowing this, capital punishment to us is tantamount to placing Christ on the cross again and again, using the state to sanction our own murderous outrage against those we’ve come to loathe and hate.
State-sponsored murder can be called many names, but it is also revenge - and where one seeks revenge, there is little room for forgiveness. To kill as the revenge for the killing of another contributes to the cycle of killing in a society. Instead, should we not seek to remedy the underlying conditions and causes for violence in our society?
Bishop Schol:
Capital punishment denies God’s power and ultimate authority to exact justice and also to transform and restore humanity. State-sponsored killing violates our Christian faith and basic life-affirming values of a civilized society. We oppose capital punishment because we believe in the sanctity of human life, which only God can give and only God should take away.
United Methodists cannot accept retribution or social vengeance as a reason for taking life. It violates our deepest belief in God as the creator and redeemer of all humankind. In the long run, the use of the death penalty by the State will increase the acceptance of revenge in our society, and will give official sanction to a climate of violence.
As a matter of sound government, we should hope our leaders would listen to the studies they, themselves, have commissioned, which fail to support the thesis that capital punishment deters homicide more effectively than imprisonment, and also the cost of the death penalty, and how that money could be better used to prevent future murders.
www.cacp.org