Replace the Death Penalty with Life: Support SAFE California

Join us for a March and Gathering entitled Replace the Death Penalty with Life:  Support SAFE California, to be held at the Religious Ed Congress at the Anaheim Convention Center on Saturday, March 24^th.

Time:  11:30 a.m. immediately following Fr. Greg Boyle’s talk in the Convention Arena. 

The SAFE California Initiative seeks to replace the death penalty with a sentence of life imprisonment without possibility of parole.  The measure accords with the Church’s pro-life teaching on capital punishment and restorative justice, and eliminates the grave risk of executing an innocent person.  In the words of Bishop Gerald Wilkerson, the SAFE initiative is a “prudent, life-affirming, safety-enhancing, and cost-savings change in sentencing law.”

In an historic moment for the state of California, the SAFE Campaign has far exceeded the number of signatures needed to qualify the initiative for the November 2012 ballot. So now our work begins in earnest!  The March 24^th event will highlight the Church’s teaching on the death penalty and the critical importance of educational and formational efforts around SAFE CA in our parishes, and academic institutions in the months to come.

 

The event is co-sponsored by

·         The Archdiocese of Los Angeles Office of Restorative Justice

·         Office of Justice and Peace, Archdiocese of Los Angeles

·         SAFE CALIFORNIA

·         The Catholic Mobilizing Network

·         Death Penalty Focus

·         California People of Faith Working against the Death Penalty

·         The Diocese of Orange Office of Respect Life, Justice and Peace

·         The Dead Man Walking School Theatre Project

·         The California Province of the Society of Jesus

·         Pax Christi

·         JustFaith Ministries

 

TIME:  The March will commence at 11:30 a.m. immediately following Fr. Greg Boyle’s talk in the Convention Arena.

We will proceed along a path to the Grassy Knoll.  Students from Mater Dei High School will present a dramatic reading from the Dead Man Walking School Theatre Project.  Newman Centers and Campus Ministers from Southern CA Colleges and Universities that send delegations to the Religious Ed Congress have been invited to get the word out through their students, so this event will create a groundswell of solidarity and prophetic witness for life.

This is our moment:  we are closer than ever to replacing the broken and dysfunctional death penalty in California!