Greg DalyBishops are “deeply troubled by a justice system in which the innocent might be executed”
Nebraska’s Catholic bishops have declared their support for a bill to abolish the American state’s death penalty.
The bishops of Omaha, Lincoln, and Grand Island said in a statement that although Catholic teaching allows for the death penalty under certain conditions, these conditions did not exist in Nebraska.
Expressing their compassion for those bereaved by violent crime, the bishops said they did not “believe that violence is best fought with violence” and that “We must all be careful to temper our natural outrage against violent crime with a recognition of the dignity of all people, even the guilty.”
Highlighting the problem of wrongful convictions and the disproportionate presence of racial minorities and the poor among those sentenced to death, they said they were “deeply troubled by a justice system in which the innocent might be executed, and in which race, education, and economics might play a factor in a death sentence”.
In a letter to the International Commission Against the Death Penalty, Pope Francis said capital punishment is devoid of legitimacy “given the defective selectivity of the criminal system and in face of the possibility of judicial error”. Describing it as a “failure” for any lawful society he said, “today the death penalty is inadmissible, no matter how serious the crime of the condemned”.