Catholic Publications Call For Abolition of U.S. Death Penalty.

Some folks say that there are no coincidences. I don't know; I can't say for certain,one way or another. I do know, however, that when I wrote my two recent posts on the death penalty - [Mary Jane Fiesta Veloso and Australia and Indonesia at Odds over Death Penalty] - I was unaware that four leading Catholic publications would be issuing a joint editorial calling for an end to the death penalty in the U.S..

The four publications are;

National Catholic Register
National Catholic Reporter
America Magazine
Our Sunday Visitor.

Clicking on any of the links above will take you to the joint editorial.

While I applaud the publications' efforts, I am a little disappointed that in only one of the four publications - National Catholic Register - did any other writer in the respective publication add anything.

The National Catholic Register had death penalty articles by Pat Archbold of Creative Minority Report and Mark Shea. Mr. Shea went above and beyond the call of duty by posting a second piece on this on his Patheos blog.

While generally against the death penalty, Archbold is leery of the USCCB  "specifically calling on a Court to override the proper legislative authority of the states". I can certainly sympathize with his concerns.

I do not always agree with Mark Shea, but I want to highly recommend his Remarks on Pro-Death Penalty Arguments . He does an excellent job hitting ever pro-death penalty argument out there. If there are any arguments he's missed, I'd love to hear them.