Uh oh, Jerry! Don't look now, but even some of your fellow right wing Republicans are starting to rethink their pro-death penalty stances. Just yesterday, Roman Catholic Cardinal Theodore McCarrick announced the new "Catholic Campaign to End the Use of the Death Penalty" . Also yesterday, a new poll was released, showing that Catholic opposition to capital punishment increased 21 points -- from 27% to 48% -- in just the past four years,. Even worse (from your rabid pro-death perspective), U.S. Senator Rick Santorum (conservative Republican-PA) is now indicating that he's having second thoughts on the subject. Santorum, a religious Catholic, is quoted in today's Pittsburgh Post-Gazette as saying:
I agree with the Pope that in the civilized world ... the application of the death penalty should be limited. I would definitely agree with that. I would certainly suggest there probably should be some further limits on what we use it for.
Significantly, the Catholic Bishops'-commissioned poll shows that the most religious Catholics are also the most likely to oppose the death penalty. And even worse for execution-happy politicians like yourself, these people are among President Bush's biggest backers. In other words, conservative Republicans like Rick Santorum are turning against the death penalty.
As Santorum says, "the Pope has been very clear about his personal opposition to the death penalty." Pittsburgh Catholic Bishop Donald Wuerl explains that "The church's opposition to the death penalty in no way minimizes the horror of the actions of those who take the lives of others" but that "The destruction of human life, even in the form of capital punishment, takes away a gift that is God's alone to take. Capital punishment is irreparable."
Yet you, Jerry Kilgore, actually want to expand the application of the death penalty, even to people who haven't committed murder. Well, sorry to say, Mr. Tough Guy, but it looks like the rest of the world -- Catholic Bishops, Catholic Republicans, the conservative Supreme Court -- is moving in the opposite direction of your views on this subject. Feeling a bit lonely these days?
It's interesting, by the way, how your party's leaders like Tom DeLay and Bill Frist are so eager to save the life of a woman in a persistent vegetative state because of a "pro-life" stance, yet are not averse to executing minors and mentally retarded people, even in the face of overwhelming evidence that the state has executed innocent people, that the penalty is not a deterrent, and that it is applied disproportionately to poor people and minorities. Hmmm...all this couldn't possibly be about pandering to the political far right, now could it?
Oh, by the way, now that religious Catholic Senator Rick Santorum is turning against the death penalty, how long are you going to remain outraged that your opponent, a deeply religious Catholic like Tim Kaine, would adhere to his church's moral teachings on this issue? And what are you going to do as Tim Kaine finds more and more company from your fellow Republicans, as they jump off the sinking ship -- morally, religiously, and politically -- of the death penalty in America?