Bishops' conference launches all-out drive against death penalty

Buoyed by new polls showing that support among U.S. Catholics for capital punishment has fallen below 50 percent for the first time, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops opened Holy Week with a press conference launching a new, all-out Catholic Campaign to End the Use of the Death Penalty.

The drive will expand USCCB advocacy with Congress, state lawmakers, and the courts, and beef up education efforts in schools, parishes and universities. USCCB works closely with Sr. Helen Prejean, who credits Pope John Paul II with changing the Catholic Catechism to oppose the death penalty, took seriously her own letter to the pope in 1997, and spoke against the death penalty in uncompromising terms during his 1999 visit to St. Louis.

Prejean recounted her story of the pontiff's leadership at CTA National Conference in 2000, and repeated it in her tribute to the late pope on the New York Times op-ed page April 4.

Gallup polls found 80 percent of Americans support the death penalty in 1994, an all-time high. Last fall the figure had dropped to 66 percent. Until recently, Catholics tended to support capital punishment by about the same percentage as the general public. But Zogby polls of Catholics last November ad again in March showed only 48.5 percent support for the use of the death penalty.

Learn more about the Catholic Campaign, and how you can help: visit www.ccedp.org