Capital punishment

Catholic News Service reports on efforts in two states to end capital punishment.

In separate actions the Maryland Catholic Conference and Bishop Blase J. Cupich of Rapid City, S.D., have called for an end to the death penalty in their states.

Both states currently face a de facto moratorium on executions because of legal difficulties over the use of lethal injection to carry it out.

Maryland Catholic Conference executive director Richard J. Dowling Jan. 25 urged the state's General Assembly to adopt legislation that would substitute life imprisonment without parole for all crimes currently punishable by death in Maryland. The conference is the public policy agency of the bishops of Maryland.

"Most Marylanders are ready for repeal" of capital punishment, Dowling said in a one-page statement that noted the Catholic Church "has long been a leader on this issue."

He said a poll two years ago showed that 63 percent of Marylanders of voting age "viewed life without parole as an agreeable alternative to death by execution."

Read more here.