Testimony and Statements

Co-spon­sored by the National Council of Synagogues and the Bishops’ Committee for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops1

Ford Foundation SymposiumNovember 12, 1998by Richard C. Dieter, Esq. Executive Director, Death Penalty Information Center

Question of the Death Penalty

Resolution Opposing the Death Penalty: Adopted unan­i­mous­ly by the General Assembly of the Texas Conference of ChurchesFebruary 24, 1998

NEWS RELEASE, IOWA CATHOLIC CONFERENCE

PHILADELPHIA BAR ASSOCIATION RESOLUTION CALLING FOR A MORATORIUM ON CAPITAL PUNISHMENT UNTIL SUCH TIME THAT FAIRNESS IN ITS ADMINISTRATION CAN BE ENSURED Adopted by the Board of Governors November 25, 1997, vot­ing 18 to 10.

October 20, 1997As spir­i­tu­al lead­ers in the com­mu­ni­ty we Catholic Bishops of Texas are acute­ly aware of the vio­lence in our state. Despite a grow­ing reliance on longer sen­tences, more pris­ons, and more exe­cu­tions, our state’s crime rate has escalated.

The Vatican issued the defin­i­tive Latin lan­guage ver­sion of its Universal Catechism on September 9, 1997. The pri­ma­ry change in the cat­e­chism focus­es on legit­i­mate defense and the death penal­ty . The new ver­sion reads: ​“The tra­di­tion­al teach­ing of the Church does not exclude … recourse to the death penal­ty when it is the only prac­ti­cal way to effi­cient­ly defend the lives of human beings from the unjust aggres­sor.” It con­tin­ues, ​“Today, in fact, because the means states have to repress crime effi­cient­ly and ren­der [crim­i­nals] inoffensive .…