Bishops to Gov. Crist, ‘set a new standard of respect for life’

RELATED: Death penalty foe presses on Bishops to Gov. Crist, ‘set a new standard of respect for life’ DENISE O’TOOLE KELLY | FLORIDA CATHOLIC STAFF http://www.thefloridacatholic.org/rop/2008_rop/2008_roparticles/20080626_rop_schwab_execution.php Published: 06.26.08 TALLAHASSEE | Florida’s bishops have called on Gov. Charlie Crist to “set a new standard of respect for life” in the state by ending use of the death penalty, beginning by halting the July 1 scheduled execution of Mark Dean Schwab. Schwab, 39, is on death row for the April 18, 1991, rape and murder of 11–year–old Junny Rios–Martinez of Cocoa. In a letter to Crist dated June 25, the bishops said they are praying for the victim and know they are unable to fully grasp the pain experienced by his family. They lamented, though, that taking the life of another who has killed perpetuates violence as a solution. “The Lord commands us to forgive, just as our heavenly Father has forgiven us. It is only through the process of forgiveness that we are healed and our suffering can be alleviated,” Bishop Victor Galeone, episcopal moderator for the State Pro–Life Coordinating Committee of the Florida Catholic Conference and bishop of the Diocese of St. Augustine, said in press release from the conference. Schwab was scheduled to die by lethal injection Nov. 15, 2007, but the execution was blocked a day earlier by the U.S. Supreme Court while the court considered a Kentucky case concerning the constitutionality of lethal injection as a method of execution. Schwab’s is the first execution to be scheduled in Florida since the high court’s April 16 ruling that the use of the three–drug cocktail is not cruel and unusual punishment. The letter, signed by the leaders of Florida’s six dioceses and the leader and two auxiliary bishops of the Archdiocese of Miami, acknowledges that the state has the right to execute murderers. However, it pointed to problems with fairness in the way the death penalty has been applied. “More and more states in our nation are taking a second look at the use of the death penalty as a form of punishment. Over the years, studies within our own state have reported an inequality and inconsistency in who receives a death sentence,” Sheila Hopkins, the Catholic conference’s associate director for social concerns/respect life, said in the conference’s release. Catholics throughout Florida have planned prayerful protests of Schwab’s execution. For example, prayer vigils are scheduled in the Diocese of Venice for the scheduled time of the execution, and parishes in the Orlando Diocese have chartered a bus to protest outside the prison that houses that death chamber in Starke. The bishops, too, said they are approaching the execution with prayer. They wrote to the governor: “As we pray for Junny Rios–Martinez and his family, we pray also for you, as well as for those on death row, that we all will acknowledge God as the Lord of Life, and that we all may learn, not only to obey the commandment not to kill human life, but also to revere it.”