Il vescovo cattolico di St. Augustine Victor Galeone ha disposto che domenica in tutte le chiese della sua diocesi fedeli vengano invitati a firmare l�appello per la moratoria.

Times-Union -

FLORIDA: Bishop takes on death penalty ---Call for moratorium goes to the pews

Catholics throughout Northeast Florida will be asked this weekend to sign petitions seeking a moratorium on the death penalty.

 Bishop Victor Galeone has asked every priest in the Diocese of St. Augustine to make the petitions available to parishioners over age 16 at church services today and tomorrow.

 "While these petitions do not call for the abolition of the death penalty at this time, they do call for a moratorium during which the need for and equity in the carrying out of the death penalty can be evaluated," Galeone wrote to priests in the diocese's 51 parishes.

 The request is part of a larger interfaith effort to gather 100,000 signatures statewide and deliver them to Gov. Jeb Bush early next year after a march from Starke to Tallahassee.

 Jupiter-based Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty has collected about 10,000 signatures since forming last year and is just beginning a major push in the churches, said Director Abe Bonowitz, a self-described former capital punishment supporter.

 "We're in discussion with the Florida Conference [of Bishops] to get all the other bishops to do the same thing and the Florida Council of Churches to get the churches to do the same thing," he said.

 Last month members of Jacksonville Citizens for a Moratorium sponsored a capital punishment debate at St. John's [Episcopal] Cathedral downtown to draw attention to their cause and encourage dialogue. The group is part of the statewide effort.

 They concede convincing people in conservative North Florida to ask for a moratorium on executions is an uphill battle.

 Even most of the area's 135,000 Catholics, like Bush, support capital punishment, despite the pope's frequent admonitions against it.

 "There's no doubt that the Catholic leadership is trying to get the people in the pews to think about giving up their belief in the death penalty," said John Linnehan, a member of St. Joseph's Catholic Church in Mandarin. "The people in the pews are not quite there, but this is an effort to get them to take another look at it."

 In Starke, home of Death Row, the Rev. William A. Hochheim of St. Edward Catholic Church said he plans to honor the bishop's request by distributing the petition and preaching about it in his homily.

 He said he is optimistic his parish will respond "if I do a good enough job explaining it."

 "The death penalty just works against our belief in the sacredness of human life," Hochheim said. "We think it's not needed in our time because we have other ways of punishing people. If it were necessary to protect society, we would be for it."