Cardinal urges end to death penalty
Graduates asked to think globally

May 15, 2004,

By LA MONICA

Cardinal Oscar A. Rodriguez Madariaga said Saturday that he supported the effort by the Honduran government to remove two of its citizens from death row in Texas, but the man who may become the next pope defined his stance in spiritual terms.

"People take on the role of God, when God is the only creator of life and the only one who can take life away," Rodriguez said before he delivered the commencement speech to more than 500 graduates at the University of St. Thomas.

"There is a tendency in humanities to enforce the death sentence, but when you respond to violence with violence, that only creates hate," he said.

Honduran government officials asked Gov. Rick Perry on Friday to spare the lives of two men on death row in Texas. The government cited a decision by the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands. The world court ordered the United States to review the death sentences of 51 Mexicans, charging that they were denied their right to help from consular officials when they were arrested.

Rodriguez said the United States should move a step further and remove the death penalty. Honduras does not have the death penalty.

"I dream for the day that the world will respect human life so that the death penalty will be abolished," said Rodriguez, the first cardinal from Honduras, who is known for his social consciousness and human rights activism.

The underlying message in Rodriguez's afternoon address was similar to that of Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Houston, who spoke to Texas Southern University graduates Saturday morning. Both speakers emphasized the importance of thinking globally and acting locally.

In her address, Lee, who has seen the video of the alleged prisoner abuse by Army guards in Abu Ghraib prison, told graduates that unlike the guards, they should realize the importance of distinguishing between right and wrong.

"(The guards) knew right but they did not do right," Lee said in her address to 675 Texas Southern University graduates and 8,000 of their relatives and friends.

"Leadership is a lonely journey," she said. "They could not find their way to step away from popularity."

Deanna Jefferson said she was happy that Lee didn't sidestep such a politically charged issue.

"I like that she brought up the issues, because they were all in the back of our minds," said Jefferson, 36, who graduated with a degree in law.

"It relieved us of the question of whether we should be so hard on our military and to the people who did this to Iraq," Jefferson said. "What they did -- it was wrong."

Lee urged the audience to "be a soldier without cruelty" and to "be faithful without hypocrisy."

She urged students to "march, protest, proclaim," saying that "at these times you need to take what some people call a freedom walk and if you must do it alone, do it alone."