Connecticut bishops ask Catholics to oppose pending execution

Published: 2005-01-05

HARTFORD, Conn. (CNS) -- As the date neared for Connecticut's first execution in nearly 45 years, the state's Catholic conference joined forces with the Connecticut Network to Abolish the Death Penalty in a petition drive to end the death penalty. The petition was distributed to every parish in the Hartford Archdiocese, along with a letter from Archbishop Henry J. Mansell of Hartford reminding Catholics, "The Gospel mandates us to respect human life from conception to natural death." Michael Ross, 45, is scheduled to be executed Jan. 26. He was sentenced to death in 1987 for murdering four teenage girls in the early 1980s. He also was sentenced to life in prison for murdering two other young women and to 25 years in prison for murdering another. He has admitted to killing an eighth young woman, but has not been prosecuted in that case. He acknowledged raping most of the victims. Gov. M. Jodi Rell said she would not stand in the way of the scheduled execution. Ross himself has said he will not pursue any further appeals, though his father has filed a federal lawsuit challenging the lethal injection process as cruel and unusual punishment.

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