"Moving from a Culture of Death to a Culture of Life" was the title of my talk in the adult education series at St. Mary's Parish in Annapolis, MD.  It is a parish of 5,000 familes with a staff of nine priests.  The Director of Religious Education is a former prosecutor for Anne Arundel County.  My talk focused on abolishing the death penalty to help our culture change from violence to forgiveness.  I spoke of three points when looking at the death penalty from a Catholic perspective:
l. Humans are fallible;  2. Racism is sinful; 3. All human life is sacred. 

The first man into the room on Sunday morning was a retired New York City policeman, who had spent 20 years in federal drug enforcement, and then became Deputy Supt. of the Maryland State Police and was responsible for putting two of the five men on Maryland's death row.  (You can probably guess that he had a different point of view on abolishing the death penalty than I do.) I brought with me a woman from Baltimore whose son had been murdered last year.  She spoke on her faith journey from anger to forgiveness.  After we had both given our presentations, we had a lively discussion with the group.

The Maryland Legislature created a commission to do a comprehensive study of the death penalty in preparation for the January session of the legislature.  The commission issued their report in mid-December and voted to recommend abolishing the death penalty in Maryland.  One of the Asst. Bishops of the Baltimore Archdicese, Dennis Madden, was appointed by the Governor as a member of the commission.

- Bro. Frank O’Donnell, SM