Copyright 2000 The Baltimore Sun Company
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The Baltimore Sun
November 16, 2000 Thursday FINAL EDITION
SECTION: TELEGRAPH, Pg. 3A
LENGTH: 642 words
HEADLINE:
Bishops urge sweeping
reforms in U.S.
criminal
justice system;
Statement rejects focus on vengeance, recognizes
dignity of victim, offender
BYLINE: John Rivera
SOURCE: SUN STAFF
DATELINE:
WASHINGTON
BODY: WASHINGTON - The U.S. Roman
Catholic bishops called yesterday for sweeping
reforms in the
nation's
criminal justice system, rejecting the increasing use
of mandatory sentences and the death penalty and advocating an approach that
includes compassion for crime victims and rehabilitation for criminals.
The bishops also approved statements during their annual fall meeting
denouncing mistreatment and rejection of immigrants and encouraging Catholics to
welcome them into their parishes, and a sharply worded critique of the Supreme
Court's ruling earlier this year overturning a Nebraska law prohibiting a
controversial abortion procedure.
In a statement lamenting the unrest in
the Middle East, the bishops called for the establishment of a Palestinian
state. Although they had previously echoed Pope John Paul II's call for a
Palestinian homeland, yesterday's statement marked the bishops' explicit call
for a state. The Catholic bishops of the South issued their own pastoral
statement on the abuses of workers rights in the poultry industry, including
workers on Maryland's Eastern Shore.
It questions the fairness of
contracts poultry growers must sign with corporations, which unfairly leaves
major decisions in the hands of the corporations and economic liabilities with
the growers, citing in its documentation an investigation on poultry farming
last year by The Sun.
"These brothers and sisters face many challenges
in common, including questions of a living wage and other workers rights, human
dignity and immigration issues," the pastoral says.
The statement on
criminal justice, which states the system is ignoring victims and failing to
rehabilitate criminals, clearly rejects an approach solely focused on vengeance.
"A Catholic approach begins with the recognition that the dignity of the
human person applies to both victim and offender," it says. "As bishops, we
believe that the current trend of more prisons and more executions, with too
little education and drug treatment, does not truly reflect Christian values and
will not really leave our communities safer."
The document rejects rigid
mandatory sentencing and "three strikes and you're out" approaches, calling them
"simplistic" and "one-size-fits-all" solutions to complex problems.
The
bishops deplored the increasing trend toward building prisons in remote areas,
which creates hardship for the families of inmates. And, in a theme echoed
throughout the document, it emphasized that prisons must be about more than
punishment.
"We call upon government to redirect the vast amount of
public resources away from building more and more prisons and toward better and
more effective programs aimed at crime prevention, rehabilitation, education
efforts, substance abuse programs and programs of probation, parole and
reintegration," it says.
To help implement these recommendations, the
Catholic Campaign for Human Development approved $
1 million in
grant money to fund educational and community-based efforts to address crime and
the criminal justice system.
Bishop Edward K. Braxton of St. Louis
praised the statement while warning that it may not be welcomed by Catholics in
the pews, a majority of whom surveys have shown support the death penalty.
"Our Catholic people, like society as a whole, has a very strong feeling
of vengeance," Braxton said. ""I suggest we may not find as receptive an
audience in the church as we might hope for."
In other action, the
bishops discussed a draft of the mandatum, a Vatican-mandated license that
Catholic theologians will be required to receive by June 2002 to teach at
Catholic colleges and universities.
The decision to require the mandatum
has been vigorously opposed by many theologians and presidents of Catholic
universities, who say it violates principles of academic freedom.
GRAPHIC: Photo(s), Bishops' conference:
Cardinal William H. Keeler of Baltimore, listens to a speaker in yesterday
morning's session of the National, Conference of Catholic Bishops in Washington.
The four-day meeting, concludes today., ASSOCIATED PRESS
LOAD-DATE: November 16, 2000