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Please send a message to your state senator in opposition to the restoration of the death penalty: Oppose the reinstatement of the death penalty in Iowa
The Iowa Catholic Conference opposes Senate File 357, which would reinstate the death penalty in Iowa for murder in the first-degree offenses involving kidnapping and sexual abuse against the same victim who is a minor. The bill has passed the Senate Judiciary Committee and is eligible to be debated on the floor of the Senate.
The Iowa legislature abolished the death penalty in 1965. Currently, a first-degree murder conviction for an adult in Iowa means a sentence of life in prison without parole.
Every person is made in the image and likeness of God. Even those who have committed great harm retain their human dignity and the capacity to reform, to love, and to be loved. Marking the 25th anniversary of the Catechism of the Catholic Church last fall, Pope Francis said the death penalty is, in itself, “contrary to the Gospel, because a decision is voluntarily made to suppress a human life, which is always sacred in the eyes of the Creator and of whom, in the last analysis, only God can be the true judge and guarantor.”
For more information, go to the Iowa Catholic Conference website.
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