30 death penalty foes hold vigil (Group says it will hold a vigil on eve of every execution)

Sadness and concern marked the expressions of 30 people opposed to the death penalty who took part in an execution vigil for convicted killer Troy Kunkle Tuesday evening outside the convent next to Incarnate Word Academy.

"We realize that there is an enormous amount of pain for the families of the victims," said Sister Irma Gonzalez, superior general of the Sisters of the Incarnate Word and the Blessed Sacrament. "We aren't saying these people didn't do wrong but we don't want to do the same thing they did."

Sister Irma is part of the South Texas Alliance for Peace and Justice, an organization whose goal is to have state lawmakers impose a moratorium on executions with the ultimate goal to abolish the death penalty.

"Strictly looking at it from a spiritual standpoint, God did not intend for us to take a life," Dennis Kennedy said after taking part in the vigil.

Kunkle, who was convicted of the 1984 killing of Steven Wayne Horton, had received five stays of execution. The latest stay was issued Nov. 18 when the U.S. Supreme Court stepped in to consider his case. That stay was lifted last month.

Sister Rose Miriam Gansle said after the vigil that the move to re-examine the use of the death penalty seems to be growing.

Sister Rosa Ortiz said the alliance has always held prayer groups on the eve of executions but decided to hold a public vigil on Tuesday.

Wow, it's really fascinating all of these footnotes that Christ dropped during the Sermon on the Mount about how you should only act this way in certain situations and how what he was saying only applied sometimes. You know, my copy of the bible doesn't have those for some reason (lousy cheap printers, trying to save on production costs!), but if you could send me one, or just send me a link to Amazon where I could buy one with the footnotes, I'm sure my eternal soul would thank you.

We leave it to the court to judge.

I shouldn't mock. It's not very Christian. But in all seriousness, this is exactly what Christ is saying not to do in the Sermon on the Mount. We lock up criminals for a variety of reasons, but one of the main reasons is to protect society. Not morally judging them, but purely from a protection standpoint: you are a danger to the rest of us, you are being isolated.

The death penalty, on the other hand, goes far beyond this--there is simply no reason to execute someone other than out of pure moral outrage, which is exactly what Christ is telling us that we shouldn't do on the Sermon on the Mount. We don't leave it to the court to judge, we leave it to God to judge. We put criminals in prison not because we are making a moral judgment of their actions, but because we need to protect society. I think that's very different.

I think you are reading WAY too much into the Sermon on the Mount trying to justify your position. Fact of the matter is, though, people who sit here and go on and on about how these people need to be executed because they are horrible people are just throwing the Sermon on the Mount out the window. I don't think you should be saying that those of us opposed to the death penalty are turning scripture on its head when you are ignoring the Prime directives of the Christian faith.

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