On Monday, the U.S. Catholic Bishops launched a new "Catholic Campaign to End the Use of the Death Penalty." Cardinal Theodore McCarrick opened a press conference by noting: "This holy week is the time Catholics and all Christians are reminded of how Christ died - as a criminal brutally executed." The church first opposed the death penalty 25 years ago, but this new campaign, he said, "brings greater urgency and unity, increased energy and advocacy, and a renewed call to our people and to our leaders to end the use of the death penalty in our nation."
I am against the death penalty in principle. We simply should not kill to show we are against killing. It's also easy to make a fatal mistake, as alarming DNA testing has demonstrated. The death penalty is clearly biased against the poor who cannot afford adequate legal representation, and is outrageously disproportionate along racial lines. Few white-collar killers sit on death row and fewer are ever executed. And there is no real evidence that it deters murder; it just satisfies revenge.
More deeply, as Cardinal McCarrick explained, "For us, ending the use of the death penalty is not simply about politics, it is about our faith. We believe human life is a gift from God that is not ours to take away. ...We cannot teach that killing is wrong by killing. We cannot defend life by taking life."
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