Cardinal Mahony on Death Penalty

Re “Mahony Urges End to Death Penalty,” April 3:

Since when and by what right does the Catholic hierarchy opt to pick and choose the passages of the Bible that it condones and those it doesn’t? Cardinal Roger M. Mahony is injecting himself against the will of the people and the courts, as well as many passages in the Bible relating to executions.

Manuel Babbitt is on death row at San Quentin and is scheduled to be executed May 4 for the robbery, attempted rape and pernicious murder of my then-78-year-old mother, on Dec. 18, 1980. He beat her so badly that they found her upper denture shattered on the floor and her lower denture protruding between her jaws. It would be a very dark day if Gov. Gray Davis listens to the cardinal and disregards the words of God and the populace.

DON SCHENDEL

Mission Hills

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The Times’ April 3 editorial, “The Ebbing Religious War,” stated, “What is wrong is to demand that religious doctrine be accepted on faith as public policy.” That applies to Mahony’s call on Catholics to fight the death penalty.

What makes the cardinal’s stand particularly offensive and illogical is that he equates the constitutional due process of law in criminal punishment with the wanton killing of innocent humans by abortion and euthanasia.

If he really wants a beneficial mingling of church and state, he should urge President Clinton to stop making horrible conditions in Serbia even worse with the mindless squandering of our military resources there.

BILL STARR

Burbank

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Everyone born on this Earth is born unto a visit. The length of the visits vary widely, but three score and 10 comes to mind. When any visitor terminates the life of another visitor, the visit of the terminator should swiftly be terminated. Apologies to Cardinal Mahony and the pope, amen.

JACK M. DE CAMP

Los Angeles