English bishop joins protests against Saddam Hussein's execution

BY MARK GREAVES
AN ENGLISH bishop has joined Catholic critics of the execution of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.
Bishop William Kenney of Birmingham, former president of Caritas Europe, spoke out against the killing.
The bishop told The Catholic Herald that the law against capital punishment applied to the former dictator as much as anyone else.
He said: "The chance must be given to people to come to repentance and that often takes time. Capital punishment stops people doing that." The bishop added that capital punishment "degraded" any nation that allowed it.
Across the world Catholic voices have denounced the execution. In Rome Fr Federico Lombardi, the director of the Vatican press office, said that the hanging of Saddam Hussein was "tragic and an occasion for sorrow".
He expressed concern that the execution might "fuel the spirit of revenge" in Iraq. Fr Lombardi also reiterated the Church's position that capital punishment is wrong, "even when the person put to death is one guilty of grave crimes".
He told Vatican Radio: "The killing of the guilty party is not the way to reconstruct justice and reconcile society. On the contrary, there is a risk that it will feed a spirit of vendetta and fuel new violence.
"In these dark times for the Iraqi people, one can only hope that all responsible parties truly make every effort so that glimmers of reconciliation and peace can be found in such a dramatic situation," he said.
"It is degrading for the people who did it, degrading obviously for Saddam Hussein, and degrading for any nation that allows it. It seems to have been a public hanging."
He added that the timing of the execution — on the first day of the Muslim feast Eid alAdha — made it even more inappropriate.
Cardinal Renato Martino, president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, last week condemned the Iraqi court's ruling that Saddam Hussein should be executed.
The court had decided that the deposed Iraqi leader was responsible for the mass murder of 148 people in northern Iraq in 1982.
The cardinal said there was "no doubt" that Saddam Hussein was guilty of the charge, but added: "I hope a crime will not be avenged with another crime. The Church proclaims that human life is to be protected from conception to natural death," the cardinal explained. "The death penalty is not a natural death."
Cardinal Martino said it was not morally licit for anyone, "not even the state", to kill another person.
The Italian cardinal went on to tell the La Repubblica newspaper that the decision to go to war in Iraq was wrong. He cited the prediction of Pope John Paul II, who urged the American government not to invade Iraq, saying that it would be "an adventure from which there is no return".