After Saddam hangs, Vatican says execution not way to justice
VATICAN CITY (CNS) --- Executing someone guilty of a crime "is not the way to restore justice and reconcile society," the Vatican spokesman said after Saddam Hussein was hanged Dec. 30. "A capital execution is always tragic news, a motive for sadness, even when it involves a person found guilty of serious crimes, said Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi in a formal statement issued shortly after Saddam's death was announced. "The position of the Catholic Church against the death penalty has been reaffirmed many times."

The death penalty not only will not restore justice in Iraq, but also can "increase the spirit of vengeance and sow new violence," said Father Lombardi. "In this dark time in the life of the Iraqi people one can only hope that all leaders will make every effort so that in such a dramatic situation spaces will open for reconciliation and peace."

Cardinal Renato Martino, president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, who earlier had expressed hope that the execution would not be carried out, told Vatican Radio Dec. 30, "I hope and pray that this act will not contribute to aggravating the already critical situation in Iraq, a country already so harshly tried by divisions and fratricidal struggles."

The cardinal said the Catholic Church's opposition to the death penalty is based on its recognition of every human life as a gift of God that must be defended from conception to natural death. "That position excludes abortion, experimentation on embryos, euthanasia and the death penalty, which are denials of the transcendent dignity of the human person created in the image of God," he said.

Latin-rite Archbishop Jean Sleiman of Baghdad told Vatican Radio justice was not served by hanging Saddam. Although he hoped it would not worsen the situation in the country, he said "it could. We already are in a situation that is more than tragic on the level of security, relations among populations and also the economy of the country."

Vatican agency says 24 church workers died violently in 2006
VATICAN CITY (CNS) --- Catholic Church personnel continue to be killed as they work in mission lands or among society's most disadvantaged groups, although they are more often the victims of violent crimes than of persecution for their faith. Fides, the news agency of the Vatican's Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, said that over the course of 2006 it had registered the deaths of 24 priests, religious and lay workers "who lost their lives in a violent way." The murdered church workers, it said, are often "the victims --- at least apparently --- of aggression, robbery or theft perpetrated in social contexts marked by particular violence, human degradation and poverty, which these peacemakers tried to alleviate with their presence and their work." Fides included in its list St. Joseph Sister Karen Klimczak, who was murdered in April at the Buffalo, N.Y., home she founded for former prisoners. A resident was charged with the murder. Africa was the continent with the highest number of violent deaths among church missionaries: nine priests, one nun and a lay volunteer. Six priests and a lay volunteer were murdered in Central and South America; two priests, a nun and a layman were killed in Asia; and a religious brother was killed in Papua New Guinea.

Death penalty support wanes as life without parole gains public favor
WASHINGTON (CNS) --- As 2006 came to an end, capital punishment was making headlines for what it is not doing: overall declining use, waning support and recent challenges at the state levels about how it is conducted. Shifting public support for capital punishment is a "ray of good news" for Frank McNeirney, co-founder of Catholics Against Capital Punishment, who said he hopes the trend continues. Death penalty statistics in a year-end report from the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington offered reasons for optimism among opponents of capital punishment. For starters, the group noted the results of a newly released Gallup Poll showing that more Americans support alternative sentences of life without parole over the death penalty as punishment for murder. The center also reported that U.S. death sentences are the lowest they have been in 30 years; executions have sharply declined and the number of people on death row has decreased. During 2006, 53 people were executed, down from 60 in 2005 and 98 in 1999, the report said.

Agencies try to aid families separated by immigration raids
WASHINGTON (CNS) --- Immigrants whose families were split apart by the Dec. 12 immigration raids on meatpacking plants in six states are being aided by Catholic social service programs in at least three dioceses. Meanwhile, immigrants' rights and Latino groups were among organizations issuing statements decrying the raids. Bishop Bernard J. Harrington of Winona, Minn., asked people of his diocese to relieve some of the burden on families left behind after the largest one-day immigration raids in U.S. history that included a Swift & Co. plant in Worthington, Minn. Immigration agents arrested 1,282 people at six Swift plants in Minnesota, Colorado, Iowa, Nebraska, Texas and Utah. "Families have been separated, children left without parents and households left without a breadwinner," said Bishop Harrington in a Dec. 21 statement. "Families that have lost their breadwinner now face a winter of uncertainty with no idea how long detainees will be held." He asked parishes, individuals and businesses to add to the $10,000 the diocese was contributing to aid affected families.

Bay State bishops call on legislators to vote on marriage amendment
BOSTON (CNS) --- As the Massachusetts Legislature neared the end of its session, the bishops who head the state's four Catholic dioceses urged lawmakers to vote on a citizens' initiative that seeks to end same-sex marriages there by enshrining the traditional definition of marriage in the state constitution. "We believe that a legislator's vote to recess (before taking a vote on the initiative) violates their sworn duty to uphold the constitution," the bishops said Dec. 29. Two days earlier the state's Supreme Judicial Court said it could not force the legislators to vote on the proposed amendment, but they should take the vote. The court said it could only seek to persuade legislators to act in good faith, since "there is no presently articulated judicial remedy for the Legislature's indifference to, or defiance of, its constitutional duties."

Sri Lankan church workers express frustration over tsunami rebuilding
GALLE, Sri Lanka (CNS) --- Church workers have expressed frustration over the disarray of tsunami reconstruction in northern and eastern Sri Lanka due to the ethnic war ravaging the country. While Caritas Sri Lanka has been able to proceed in its reconstruction programs in the south, "reports from the north and east are very frustrating," said Duncan MacLaren, secretary-general of Caritas Internationalis. Nongovernmental organizations have said only 10 percent of tsunami housing reconstruction has been completed in the north and east due to the war; reportedly, some of those houses in rebel-controlled areas already have been destroyed in bombing and shelling by government forces.