Alabama Bishops and Death Penalty

Thursday, March 24, 2005
CARLA CROWDER
News staff writer

Catholic bishops in Birmingham and Mobile are leading outreach and education efforts in Alabama – the state with the largest per capita
Death Row – in support of a campaign launched this week by U.S.
Catholic bishops to end the death penalty.

The bishops said stopping state-sanctioned executions is consistent
with the church’s sanctity-of-life teachings, and that a rise in
exonerations of the innocent has cemented their beliefs.

The church wants to counter the “culture of death,” said Bishop David
E. Foley of Birmingham.

“We have a culture of death in the United states that is growing and
growing and growing,” Foley said. “Killing somebody who has killed
somebody adds to the violence that goes on.”

Historically, the Catholic Church’s teachings permit taking a life
only to preserve your own. States can execute to protect society.
However, today’s maximum-security prisons protect just as well, they
say.

Quoting the pope, Foley said, “The cases in which the execution of the
offender is an absolute necessity are very rare if not practically
nonexistent.”

Foley added, “To take someone’s life is not necessary because he can
be incarcerated for life, and there have a chance to do penance and
redeem himself.”

Catholic leaders say their position against capital punishment is
consistent with pro-life stances against contraception and abortion.
Holy Week was chosen for the launch of the campaign because it is the
week when Christians commemorate the execution of Jesus.

Alabama’s bishops have their work cut out for them.

As in many Southern states, Alabama’s prosecutors frequently seek the
death penalty, giving the state the seventh-largest Death Row in the
country and the largest per capita. About 195 people are on Alabama’s
Death Row, a number that will soon drop as a result of a recent U.S.
Supreme Court decision barring the execution of people who committed
crimes as juveniles.

In the most recent state poll, 63 percent of Alabamians said they
supported capital punishment, and 25 percent opposed it. That was in
2000.

Foley said he is not daunted. “The South may be conservative, but it’s
just. I have found that when you talk to people, it’s not that people
have a closed mind, they haven’t heard the message.”

Archbishop Oscar H. Lipscomb of Mobile was officiating at a funeral
Wednesday and unavailable for comment. He has in the past appealed to
governors on behalf of inmates, asking for clemency.

Catholic DA’s stance:

The church’s position places some Catholic prosecutors and judges in
the state at odds with church teaching.

Doug Valeska, district attorney for Houston and Henry counties and a
practicing Catholic, has sent more people to Death Row than any other
DA in the state except those in more populous Jefferson and Montgomery
counties.

Valeska said that though his faith is important to him, he believes
the sanctity-of-life philosophy should not apply to people who have
taken a life.

“It’s my opinion they should forfeit their life,” he said. “As far as
incarcerating them for the rest of their lives … they can take
others’ life in prison, hurt guards, hurt other people.”

Valeska said the priest at his church in Dothan has written him,
asking him not to seek the death penalty in specific cases, but he has
not complied.

There are 13 people on Death Row from Houston and Henry counties, more
per capita than anywhere except Talladega County.

“I’ll continue to seek the death penalty. If that means that I’m going
to hell then God’s going to send me to hell,” Valeska said. “I have a
problem with the bishops, their liberal stance.”

Nationally, the Catholic Campaign to End the Use of the Death Penalty
will include legislative and legal action, education and a Web site.

Foley said he sees his role as a teacher, like his role in the church
in general. He hopes to reach out to children and high school
students.

“We’re beginning to create a generation that will turn away from
this,” Foley said. “I believe that everyone wants a culture of life.”