As the public policy voice for the Catholic Church in Kentucky, the Catholic Conference of Kentucky has
worked since its inception to replace the death penalty in Kentucky with lengthy prison terms, including
life without parole.
The Conference is one of the most active organizational members of the Kentucky Coalition to Abolish
the Death Penalty and has worked closely together on precluding mentally retarded persons from
execution in bills introduced in the early ‘90s and on the enactment of a Racial Justice Act which met
success in 1998.
Kentucky’s four Roman Catholic bishops are the Board of the Conference. The Board chairman has
always been the Archbishop of Louisville. The earlier pastoral letter issued by the bishops focused on
elimination of the death penalty. Updated in 1995, this document - Choose Life: Reflections on the
Death Penalty - is still posted on the website. A 1999 pastoral letter on issues of human life - Reverence
for Life: the Pursuit of Justice - also takes up the Church’s teaching on the use of the death penalty.
The former Archbishop of Louisville, Thomas C. Kelly, O.P. (recently deceased) as well as a former
Executive Director, Jane Chiles, have testified before lawmakers at the Kentucky General Assembly.
Their testimony, as well as other resources from the website are listed below.
* Archbishop Kelly Urges Abolition of the Death Penalty (October 1999)
* Jane Chiles Opposes Death Penalty (October 2001)
Rev. Pat Delahanty on Death Penalty and Mental Retardation (October 2001)
Louisville Deacon Community Statement on the Death Penalty
Louisville Priest Council Calls For Abolition of the Death Penalty
Owensboro Priests Urge Abolition of the Death Penalty
Homily on Capital Punishment—éth Sunday of Year B (February 2000)
Two recent undertakings required a close working relationship between the Conference and KCADP.
KCADP received a small grant that was unrestricted and its staff and board decided to use it to bring
members of Witness to Innocence to Kentucky. And, at the urging of a priest from Owensboro, KCADP
agreed to use some of the funding to work with the Conference and with the Kentucky Council of
Churches to provide some advocacy training to pastoral leaders.
Witness to Innocence is an organization of former death row inmates, now released due to innocence,
who are willing to speak about their experiences as condemned inmates and about a system that risks
killing innocent persons. Because of the close working relationship with the Conference, KCADP worked
with Thomas More College in northern Ky, with a deanery of parishes in Lexington, KY and with the
Newman Center at the Lexington campus of the University of Kentucky to bring Ray Krone, a WTI
participant, to speak. Through folks in Lexington he was also able to speak at another college campus
and overall reached more than 300 persons with a story that reveals how broken this system really is in
Kentucky.
The pastoral leadership training was also successful. Twenty-eight persons participated in the daylong
event, held in Louisville and Berea, and all left after having named an action step each would take to
push along abolition of the death penalty. An internal Yahoo group has been formed and those who had
registered, but had to cancel at the last moment, are included. Participants are holding each other
accountable and are reporting on their stated action steps. Several members of this group had taken
postcards with them to have signed by congregants asking the judiciary committee chairs of the General
Assembly to hold hearings regarding ending the death penalty for severely mentally ill persons and
those postcards are now pouring in.
The bishops have been active throughout the years, meeting with at least three governors who had
signed death warrants and asking these be lifted. The bishops continue to meet regularly with legislative
leaders and reducing the use of the death penalty and its abolition is always on the agenda for
presentation to these leaders. Once such meeting took place recently and focused on the pre-filed bill
that will end the death penalty for severely mentally ill persons. A similar meeting is scheduled with
Senate leadership during the session that begins in January.
The most recent action of the Conference was the placement of a new video statement in opposition to
the death penalty recorded by one former executive director, Jane Chiles. That is the first video placed
on the CCK YouTube channel. Jane had a nephew murdered in the World Trade Center attack in 2001
and is a member of Murder Victims’ Families for Reconciliation. She has maintained her steadfast
opposition to the death penalty and this statement is a moving witness to her faith.
The Conference will continue working in collaboration with others to repeal the death penalty in
Kentucky and make our Commonwealth a place that reflects the justice of God which always includes
mercy. That is what building up the Kingdom of God requires.
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