| Texas Catholics chip away against the death
penalty
By PATRICIA LEFEVERE
Special to the National Catholic Reporter
Last week Oblate Bishop Michael Pfeifer of San Angelo, Texas,
asked Gov. George W. Bush to spare the life of Glen McGinnis, who had been
sentenced to death at age 17. The bishop, who also heads the Texas Conference
of Churches, pointed to several international treaties signed by the United
States that prohibit using the death penalty against juveniles. Despite his
pleading and that of the pope and the apostolic nuncio in Washington, McGinnis
was executed Jan. 25.
Pfeifer is hopeful that the “moment of grace” available
in the Jubilee Year might move hearts and minds toward compassion and
understanding. The Texas bishops are also realistic, he said in a telephone
interview with NCR. “When we meet we feel we’re up against a
great rock. We can’t move it, but we can chip away at it and try to move
it piece by piece.”
The Catholic community in Texas, in official and unofficial ways,
is a major force in trying to change laws about the death penalty.
The Catholic Bishops Conference is working on the moratorium issue
by establishing educational programs about the death penalty in the
state’s 14 dioceses.
In Dallas, Joyce Hall and other members of Pax Christi Dallas,
have helped to write a study guide on the death penalty for the Greater Dallas
Community of Churches.
In Austin Holy Cross Br. Richard Daly believes momentum is
building toward dismantling the death penalty. He points to a bill to ban
executions for the mentally retarded, which passed the Texas Senate last spring
but did not make it out of committee in the House. Robison’s execution, as
well as that of Death Row evangelist Karla Faye Tucker, gave a human face to
those on Death Row, said Daly, spokesman for the Texas Catholic Conference.
Pope John Paul’s intervention in several Texas cases, as well
as a rewriting of the Catechism of the Catholic Church to reflect the
pope’s categorical no to the death penalty as expounded in his encyclical
Evangelium Vita, should help Catholics and others of good will to
reevaluate state executions, Daly said.
National Catholic Reporter, February 4,
2000
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