Dear Governor Bush: Mindful of the great burdens of your office, we, the Bishops of Florida, come to you with our pastoral concern about the pending executions of Thomas H. Provenzano and Allen Lee Davis. Governor, will our citizenry be any safer, will our State be any better protected, if we execute these men? Will not the safety of persons and the preservation of public order be as secure, if instead, you commute these sentences to lifelong confinement? The crimes of these men involved great evil. The victims and their families have been terribly wronged. Indeed, we too, in common with many of our fellow citizens, feel the anger, the revulsion. We express our deep sympathy for the victims, for their brutalization and loss of life, for their families and friends, and for their grief extending through the years. But we do not see more violence as relieving them of their pain or as helpful to our society. Responding to murder with the violence of executions sanctions revenge. What effect does this have on the people of our State? Willful murder is a heinous crime: it cries to God for justice. Yet God was merciful with Cain for having spilled Abel’s blood, and "put a mark"on him to protect Cain from those wishing to avenge Abel’s murder. (cf. Genesis 4:15) We affirm the proper role of the State to assure that society is protected, but we sense a growing opposition to the death penalty, even in cases as grievous as these. We see Florida’s existing alternative of life imprisonment without chance for parole as a better solution in a day when violence is erupting all around us. Killing people to show that killing is wrong is a piercing contradiction, and one that touches our very souls. Executions coarsen us. We daily condemn the glorification of violence, but what example is set when our State legitimizes killing? What results can we expect? Since entering public life, you have displayed great courage in your consistent stands to strengthen families and to protect the elderly, the poor and disabled. With fortitude and resolve, you lead as a defender of life, supporting laws to protect unborn children and vulnerable women and opposing efforts that would lead to euthanasia or assisted suicide. You readily see better solutions to the very real problems of an ill-timed or troublesome pregnancy and the difficulties of coping with the burdens of age and illness. We urge you now to see that the death penalty diminishes us all and contributes to a growing disrespect for the sacredness of all human life; it perpetuates a cycle of violence and feeds on an underlying sense of vengeance in our culture. In his recent appeal for a consensus to end the death penalty, Pope John Paul II said: "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." Governor, we appeal to you to commute these sentences to life imprisonment and to begin a review of the entire question of the death penalty. The recurring question of innocence, the exorbitant cost, the inconsistency in sentencing, and the capriciousness of who is executed, each calls for reexamination. As we pray for the victims and
survivors of these crimes, 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. John J. Snyder Robert N. Lynch
Norbert M. Dorsey,
CP John H. Ricard, SSJ
John J. Nevins Agustin A. Roman
Gilberto Fernandez Thomas G. Wenski |