Some beautiful, real news for a change.
March 9, 2011
Illinois has abolished the death penalty.
Take notes, Texas.
6 Comments
Comments are closed.
Catholic perspectives on culture, society, and politics
Blog Associations
Site Counter
Ad Free
Texas. Not in my lifetime.
Texas has shown some movement in the recent past, with actual death sentences down and at least one major paper (the Dallas Morning News) reversing itself and calling for abolition. But it will take some time.
Next up is Connecticut. The legislature passed an abolition bill in 2009 but it was vetoed by the governor. The new governor, a democrat, has promised to sign a bill if it reaches him. There was a hearing before the Judiciary committee on Monday, but because of the elections the vote is no longer a sure thing in the legislature. In particular, the vote count in the Senate is razor thin.
The good news is that the Connecticut Catholic Conference, the lobbying arm of the state’s bishops, has come out strongly in favor of abolition and has made it one of the key legislative goals this term. Bishop Peter Rosazza gave very powerful testimony at the hearing on Monday.
The bad news is that for the past several years Connecticut has been in a media frenzy over a grisley triple murder. If you want more information on it, google “murder”, “Cheshire” and “Petit”. The only survivor, Dr. William Petit (whose wife and two daughters were murdered) has become an outspoken advocate for the death penalty, and the media has taken to privileging his voice over those of murder victims family members who oppose the death penalty. It was quite sad listening to him say that he sees “no contradiction” between his Catholic faith and his fervent support for the death penalty, the testimony of his own bishop notwithstanding.
Thanks be to God.
A true pro-life victory.
Obviously (well, perhaps there’s no reason for this to be obvious) I am glad for this news too.
However, I was humoured by Gov. Quinn’s statement: “For me, this was a difficult decision, quite literally the choice between life and death.”
I’m sorry, but if you recognize it’s a choice between life and death, I don’t see the difficulty in which side to take. But that’s just me…
But Kelly, that is the very heart of the problem: the culture of death is very seductive. It makes death and violence look like good things.