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Daniel Buechlein, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Indianapolis, Indiana, and Bishop Frank Griswold, presiding bishop of the Episcopal (Anglican) Church have criticized the planned execution of Timothy McVeigh, scheduled for May 16 in Indiana. McVeigh has been found guilty of the 1995 bombing of a federal office building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, in which 168 people were killed—one of the most highly publicized crimes in U.S. history. McVeigh will die by lethal injection.

In the state of Florida, a group of Episcopal bishops have publicly criticized a sentence for 14-year-old Lionel Tate, who was sentenced in March to life imprisonment without parole for beating a six-year-old girl to death.

The bishops have asked Florida's governor, Jeb Bush, brother of President George W. Bush, to consider clemency in the case. Lionel Tate was 12 years old when he committed the crime, which drew wide attention to the problems of juvenile crime.

In both the McVeigh and Tate cases, the religious leaders have condemned the crimes, but have said the punishments reveal deep problems in the justice system.

"It's hard to believe this happens in the U.S." Bishop Leo Frade of the Episcopal Diocese of southeast Florida , told ENI, referring to Tate's sentence. "We have no credibility in the world when this happens."

Archbishop Buechlein's condemnation of the McVeigh sentence stems from the Catholic Church's long-standing opposition to the death penalty, which is legal in many US states and has been applied with increasing frequency in recent years. The McVeigh case is the first execution in almost 40 years resulting from federal, rather than state, charges.

More than 580 people have been executed in the United States since 1976, over half of them since 1992.

Though most Americans support capital punishment, recent public opinion surveys indicate that support for the death penalty is on the decline.

Acknowledging the heinous nature of McVeigh's crime, Archbishop Buechlein said it was understandable that many people felt that if anyone deserved to be executed, it was Timothy McVeigh, who had shown little, if any, remorse for the bombing.

But, basing his opposition to the death penalty on church teaching, the archbishop said: "The good of society requires that we rise to the challenge of a measured and larger vision. The death penalty seems to fan the flame of revenge, rather than foster a genuine sense of justice in society."

Bishop Griswold also condemned the execution, pointing out that the Episcopal Church and other religious organizations had long opposed the death penalty. But his statement, issued on April 19, stressed what he called an appalling atmosphere surrounding the execution. Some merchants in the city of Terre Haute, Indiana—where the execution will take place—are selling T-shirts to commemorate the event.

Adding to the controversy is the decision by Attorney General John Ashcroft to allow the survivors and members of the victims' families to watch the execution on closed-circuit television.

Reports of such activities "conjure up images of executions in the Middle Ages and Roman times when these events were public entertainment," Bishop Griswold said. "Such an atmosphere demeans our judicial system as it promotes frenzy and revenge. A public ritual of death can only coarsen our spirits and deaden our sensibilities.

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April (Web-only) 2001, Vol. 45