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Catholics seek stay of execution

Zoey Dimauro | Catholic Herald

Jeff Caruso of the Virginia Catholic Conference speaks to the crowd at Our Lady, Queen of Peace Church in Arlington.

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Megan Ward of the Catholic Mobilizing Network spoke to the group Jan. 6.

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When Pope Francis visited the United States in September, he
told a joint meeting of Congress it was time for the “global
abolition of the death penalty.” Yet right now in Virginia,
two men are awaiting scheduling for execution, which would
bring the total to more than 110 executions in the
commonwealth since 1982. Catholics and death penalty
opponents gathered at Our Lady, Queen of Peace Church in
Arlington Jan. 6 to discuss ways to save these lives. Leaders
of the Virginia Catholic Conference and Virginians for
Alternatives to the Death Penalty guided the meeting.

Megan Ward of the Catholic Mobilizing Network spoke about the
needed focus on capital punishment in this Jubilee Year of
Mercy. “Executions should be particularly repulsive and
abhorrent in a Year of Mercy. God’s mercy is always extending
a hand to the offender and offering him a chance to receive
forgiveness,” she said.

Ward noted that two holy doors of mercy are located in
prisons, one in Rome and the other in Argentina, as a sign
that all are welcome to receive forgiveness. “Executions cut
off that chance of mercy, forgiveness and redemption,” she
said. “Executions place limits on God’s mercy.”

In the meeting, more than 30 people discussed ways to reach
out to Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe, legislators and
fellow Virginians via the press, social media and individual
parishes. In the commonwealth, the governor has the power to
issue a pardon, or to commute a sentence to life without
parole. Prior to every execution, Arlington Bishop Paul S.
Loverde and Richmond Bishop Francis X. DiLorenzo send a
letter to the governor asking him to spare the inmate’s life.
The papal nuncio, on behalf of Pope Francis, also sends a
plea. The VCC sends out alerts and organizes local Catholics
to advocate.

“Here in our state, curbing executions has been an uphill
battle,” said Jeff Caruso, VCC executive director, “but it’s
vital that we all work together to change the conversation
and help move our commonwealth’s practices in a different
direction.”

The execution dates of Ricky Jovan Gray and Ivan Teleguz are
likely to be scheduled soon, said Michael Stone, executive
director of Virginians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty.
In Virginia, a number of mandatory appeals are set up to
ensure the sentence is fair, but both Gray and Teleguz are
running out of legal recourse. In Gray’s case, the
commonwealth already has requested that an execution date be
set.

Gray was sentenced to death for the killing of Kathryn and
Brian Harvey and their young daughters, Stella and Ruby,
during a home robbery. His accomplice is serving life in
prison without parole.

Ivan Teleguz was found guilty of hiring a hitman to kill the
mother of his child, Stephanie Sipes. The man who killed
Sipes is serving a life sentence.

Though gruesome crimes, advocating for the lives of Gray and
Teleguz is still the right thing to do, said Terri Steinberg,
a parishioner of St. Timothy Church in Chantilly. “It’s not
about what Ricky did, it’s about who we are. We are Catholic.
This is the Year of Mercy, and we are more than the worst
things we’ve ever done,” she said.

Steinberg first became interested in the fight against the
death penalty when her son, Justin Wolfe, was wrongfully
convicted of a capital crime: murder for hire. “I’ve always
been a Catholic and believed that all life was sacred, I just
didn’t do anything about it,” she said. Now she advocates
against the death penalty to protect those falsely convicted
as well as those who are guilty of heinous crimes.

“Life is life,” she said.

Steinberg knows, too, that death row inmates are not the same
people who committed the crime. “Most have changed, most have
grown, most have come off the drugs or alcohol that caused
them to do something so stupid,” she said.

Her son’s experience has given Steinberg a glimpse of the
pain caused by capital punishment. “God gave me this cross
because the death penalty can happen to anyone,” she said.

Betsy Pugin, a parishioner of Church of the Nativity in
Burke, believes that advocating against the death penalty is
a powerful testament to the belief in an all-loving,
all-merciful God. “To say that someone cannot possibly be
forgiven, in its worst case it causes vendettas and
vengeance,” she said. “There’s nothing nonviolent about the
death penalty. It keeps the violence going.”

Since 2000, Pugin and others have attended more than 30
vigils on the night of an execution outside of historic St.
Mary of Sorrows Church in Fairfax. “We’re always praying (the
inmates) have made their peace with God, and we’re praying
for the victims and their families,” she said.

Find out more about the death penalty and other life issues
at Virginia Catholic
Conference
and Virginians
for Alternatives to the Death Penalty.

Di Mauro can be reached at [email protected] or on
Twitter @zoeydimauro.

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