Coddling murderers?

The Associated Press reports that the state Senate has passed a bill to re-instate the death penalthy in New York:

The state Senate's Republican majority on Tuesday accused Assembly Democrats of acting to "coddle murderers" after it effectively ended an effort to revive New York's death penalty.

"I don't for the life of me understand the majority over there in the Assembly, how they feel that they should coddle murderers instead of stepping up and protecting the innocent," said Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno.

The right honorable Senator should know that the Catholic bishops, probably all Democrats as obvious from their right-to-life stand, as well as our late Pope, another leftist agitator, opposed the death penalty. As St. Anthony Messenger noted in an editorial last year:

Our bishops have been calling for an end to the death penalty for 25 years, “out of a commitment to the value and dignity of human life.” Shortly before the death of Pope John Paul II, who also pleaded for an end to capital punishment, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) launched a new campaign. “Our Catholic teaching on the death penalty is both clear and complicated,” explained Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, archbishop of Washington, D.C. “The Catholic Church has long acknowledged the right of the state to use the death penalty in order to protect society. However, the Church has more and more clearly insisted the state should forgo this right if it has other means to protect society.”

The rest of the editorial is here.