t eanco VOL. 36, NO. 13
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Friday, March 27, 1992
F ALL RIVER, MASS.
FALL RIVER DIOCESAN NEWSPAPER FOR SOUTHEAST MASSACHUSETTS CAPE COD & THE ISLANDS Southeastern Massachusetts' Largest Weekly
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511 Per Year
Politics of capital punishment Massachusetts Catholic Conference opposes Weld stance
SISTER BETH MAHONEY
Taunton sister tapped for national teleconference Sister Beth Mahoney, CSC, pastoral minister at St. Joseph's .parish, Taunton, will be a panelist on a national teleconference to be broadcast from Washington, D.C., from 3 to 4:30 p.m. Thursday, April 2, and to be carried live on the Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN). The program, one of a series of teleconferences jointly sponsored by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops and the National Pastoral Life Center, will have as its topic Non-Ordained Ministry in the Church in the 90s. St. Joseph's is one of 50 parishes throughout the nation participating in the final phase of a survey bl;ing conducted for the U.S. bishops by the Pastoral Life Center; and Sister Mahoney's contributions to parish life were identified in the course of a 1991 visit to the Taunton plant by a survey representative. The completed study, focusing on lay and religious ministry in parishes, will be forthcoming shortIy. Also participating in its final phase is Our Lady of Victory parish, Centerville. Sister Mahoney has served at St. Joseph's since August, 1988. Already qualified as a paralegal and the holder of a master's degree in counseling and pastoral care when she came to the parish, she conducts such services as novenas, stations of the cross, blessing of thrQats and distribution of ashes. She also offers prayers for the departed at wakes and interments and in recent months, since St. Joseph's has been functioning with only one priest, she has officiated twice a week at prayer services in lieu of Mass.
Her other responsibilities include working with lectors and eucharistic ministers, leading Bible study groups, making communion calls to shut-ins and counseling those with problems. She also meets with those planning marriage and baptism of infants. Sister Mahoney is a native ofSt. Kilian's parish, New Bedford, and was the parish presentee at the 1971 Bishop's Ball. She is a graduate of the former Holy Family High School, New Bedford, and Notre Dame College, Manchester, NH. During her high school and college years, she was a counselor at Cathedral Camp, East Freetown, and after college and paralegal training, she worked at a Manchester crisis center as a legal advocate for battered women and their children. Of her latest distinction, St. Joseph's pastor Msgr. Thomas J. Harrington says "Our entire parish community of faith takes enormous pride and encouragement from this recognition of Sister's ministry in our midst and of our openness as a parish family to new and urgently needed forms of ministry in the Church of this day and a~e." And Sister Beth says, "I may be the one going to Washington, but it is certainly the ministry we have shared here at St. Joseph's with Msgr. Harrington, Father Boffa and the parish family that is also very much included in this telecast. "The eiitiit paiish family owns some of this joy and has' helped manifest the building up of God's kingdom. When I travel to Washington, in my heart I will be bringing with me the parish, the diocese and my religious family."
Alice Miller, director of Amnesty WASHINGTON (CNS) - As A proposal by Massachusetts Garrey Carruthers prepared to take Gov. William Weld is potentially International USA's Program to over the New Mexico governor's the most significant effort to rein- Abolish'the Death Penalty, sees office late in 1986, he made it clear state the death penalty in more support for the death penalty as "a "the first piece of paper he wanted than a decade. Although Weld has mile wide and an inch deep," exto see on his desk was a death war- yet to introduce a capital punish- plaining that once advocates of rant," said his predecessor, former ment bill this term, he submitted capital punishment are pressed one last year and has promised to about circumstances under which Gov. Toney Anaya. they would condone executions, After a campaign that focused do so again. Death penalty support in the much of the support drops off. almost exclusively on the death penalty and crime control, Anaya state has been as high as 70 percent In California made a final stand of conscience recently, but the Massachusetts Meanwhile, in California Los Council of Churches, the state's before leaving office. Angeles Cardinal Roger M. MaHe commuted the sentences of Catholic conference and the Boseveryone on New Mexico's death ton archdiocese are collecting sig- hony and San Francisco Archrow, effectively eliminating any natures and planning other efforts bishop John R. Quinn are preparchance Carruthers could carry out to stop Weld's proposal. Also ing to reaffirm the church's opamong those opposed are the Mas- position to the death penalty as the his promised executions. Anaya is the only governor in sachusetts Bar Association and state approaches its first execution in 25 years. recent history to have carried per- many prosecutors. The prelates are expected to sonal opposition to the death . penalty to such an extent. Five Capital punishment is often release a statement opposing capiyears later, he remains convinced treated as a cure-all by politicians ' tal punishment and asking Gov. it was the right thing to do. confronted on crime, acording to Pete Wilson to commute the death He has company in that opinion. . writer E.J. Dionne, a Fall River sentence of convicted murderer SiI1ce 1974 the U.S. Catholic native and author of"Why Ameri- Robert Alton Harris. Harris is scheduled to be put to death in the bishops have been on record as cans Hate Politics." "Politicians talk about the death state's gas chamber April 21. opposing capital punishment. In The California Catholic Con1978 they reiterated their stand, in penalty increasingly because it's a the belief that a return to the use of lot more comfortable than to talk ference will encourage Catholics the death penalty can only lead to about cops being killed and crime to take part in prayer services, the further erosion of respect for in the streets," said Dionne in a marches and other activities indilife in our society." Pope John recent talk to Catholic social min- cating opposition to the execution. Harris was convicted 13 years Paul II has also issued statements istry workers. In 1986 Anaya's action drew ago of murdering two 16-year-old against the death penalty and has personaIly requested clemency for immediate applause from churches boys. He kidnapped them from a and various groups against the fast-food restaurant, shot them several condemned persons. Although many studies show death penalty, but it also stirred a and used their car to rob a San that prospect of the death penalty st.orm of negative response. The Diego bank. Thomas Chabolla of the Los does not deter crime, Massachu- legislature heatedly debated whethsetts and the District of Columbia er to restrict the governor's power Angeles Archdiocese's Office of are attempting to reinstate capital to commute sentences, but in the Peace and Justice, said he fears Harris' execution would "open the punishment after highly publicized end, the commutations stood. . floodgates" for more executions in A Catholic, Anaya saw his 1986 murders in Boston and Washington and a change of governors in decision as the inevitable response the state. There are more than 325 to his moral and religious beliefs. Turn to Page 10 Massachusetts.
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT IN THE UNITED STATES Since the reinstatement of capital punishment in 1976 through March 18, 1992, there have been 166 executions.
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