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Promoting Respect for
Life, Opposing the Taking of Life
"The new evangelization calls for
followers of Christ who are unconditionally pro-life - who will proclaim,
celebrate and serve the Gospel of Life in every situation. A sign of hope
is the increasing recognition that the dignity of human life must never be
taken away, even in the case of someone who has done great evil. Modern
society has the means of protecting itself, without definitively denying
criminals the chance to reform. I renew the appeal . . . for a consensus
to end the death penalty, which is both cruel and unnecessary."
Pope John Paul II, St Louis, MO. 1999
Resources and Information
on the Death Penalty
Books
The Death of Innocents by Sr. Helen Prejean. New
York. See also http://www.sisterhelen.org/
Dead Man Walking by Sr. Helen Prejean. New York:
Random House, 1993.
Choosing Mercy: A Mother of Murder Victims Pleads to End the Death
Penalty by Antoinette Bosco. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis
Books, 2001.
Religion and the Death Penalty: A Call for
Reckoning. Erik C. Owens, John D. Carlson, and Eric P. Elshtain,
eds. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B Eerdsmans Publishing Co.,
2004. Seventeen essays from a full spectrum of ideas and
positions on religion and the death penalty, including teachings from
various faith traditions both for and against the use of the death
penalty.
Websites
United States
Conference of Catholic Bishops: Catholic Campaign to End the Use of the
Death Penalty
Virginia Catholic Conference
Sign up for their email alerts!
United
States Conference of Catholic Bishops: Efforts to End the Death
Penalty This is an older USCCB site with links to several
interesting articles.
The Death
Penalty and the Catholic Church This web site is at
AmericanCatholic.org, the home of the online edition of St. Anthony
Messenger
Catholics Against Capital Punishment
The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life: Death Penalty Issues and A Call
for Reckoning: Religion and the Death Penalty
Death Penalty Information
Center
National Coalition to Abolish the Death
Penalty
Task Force to Abolish the Death
Penalty
Virginians for Alternatives to the Death
Penalty
Murder Victim’s Families for
Human Rights
Murder Victim’s Families for
Reconciliation |