Archbishop Henry J. Mansell will call on Roman Catholics this weekend to join him in opposing the upcoming execution of serial killer Michael Ross.

"The death penalty offers the tragic illusion that we can defend life only by taking life," Mansell wrote in a letter to be read in Roman Catholic churches during Masses Saturday and Sunday.

The Hartford archbishop is part of a broad spectrum of religious leaders and groups pushing to abolish capital punishment.

Mansell does not mention Ross by name in his letter, but refers to the intensifying debate over the death penalty "as we face the possibility of our first execution in 45 years."

Mansell's letter also calls on parishioners to sign a petition the church developed with the Connecticut Network to Abolish the Death Penalty. The petition will be available at church entrances.

He said inequities in the judicial process, where those most often sentenced to death are poor and minority, raise "serious doubts concerning the effectiveness of our criminal justice system in detecting the true source and nature of crimes that have been committed, and in protecting the rights and dignity of those who have been accused of them."

It's not clear how much Mansell's words will resonate with parishioners. According to a 2003 University of Connecticut poll, 58 % of Connecticut residents favor the death penalty.

A Quinnipiac Poll 2 years ago found that 42 % of Connecticut residents identify themselves as Catholics, and 56 % say they were raised as Catholics.

But there is also a disconnect between church teaching and public practice, which James M. O'Toole, a history professor at Boston College, discusses in a the new book, "Religion and Public Life in New England: Steady Habits, Changing Slowly." The book is edited by Mark Silk and Andrew Walsh of Trinity College's Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life.

O'Toole notes that while New England's Catholic bishops consistently condemned legislation to re-impose the death penalty, Catholic legislators continued to be among capital punishment's most regular supporters.

Alex Mikulich, a professor of religious studies at St. Joseph College in West Hartford, said that at one time Roman Catholic teaching left open the possibility that legitimate political and legal authorities could impose the death penalty. That changed when the Vatican rewrote the catechism in 1997, he said.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops now calls for a complete rejection of the death penalty, in accordance with Catholic teaching to uphold the human dignity of all persons.

"For one thing, we don't need the death penalty any longer to protect society. Individuals who are a threat to society can be incarcerated for life," Mikulich said, adding that most Western democracies have gotten rid of the death penalty in favor of reconciliation programs "that can protect society and make it possible for society to live justly and in peace."

Those who view such goals as misplaced idealism miss the point of Catholic teaching, which is the power of redemption, Mikulich said.

"I am as much in need of God's redemption as Michael Ross," Mikulich said. "He's not an alien. He grew up in Connecticut and graduated from Cornell. What we have to look at is how we are creating a culture of death, the way we perpetuate the very evil that we purport to reject."

Vigils And Forums Planned

A number of religious leaders are planning to call for the abolition of the death penalty during a press conference Wednesday on the state Capitol steps. Among them are Bishop Peter A. Rosazza of the Hartford Archdiocese; the Rev. Stephen J. Sidorak, executive director of the Christian Conference of Connecticut; and Rabbi Herbert Brockman of Mishkan Israel in Hamden.

Brockman will speak at a death penalty forum at Charter Oak Cultural Center in Hartford next Thursday at 7 p.m. He recently spoke against capital punishment to his own congregation. Getting the death penalty off the books is the goal, he said, not saving Michael Ross.

"I got a letter from a congregant who disagreed with me, who said, `You don't understand the pain of having someone close to you be murdered,"' Brockman said. "I'm sure I would want to carry out the sentence myself, if that happened to me.

"But part of my responsibility is to bring healing to people who are suffering. Mr. Ross clearly committed a grievous crime and has even asked to be executed," Brockman added. "But what he wants is inconsequential. What is consequential is the death penalty and what it says about us."

The Rev. Allie Perry, a leader of Reclaiming the Prophetic Voice, an anti-war interfaith coalition, will also speak at the Charter Oak forum. She said the religious community is united in its opposition to the death penalty.

"There are many things that divide the religious community, but this is not one of them," Perry said. "The religious community has been remarkably united on this, because at the heart of all religious commitment is the sacredness of life, the commandment that we not kill."

Even so, she acknowledged that much of the public seems to accept that death is a just punishment for Michael Ross' crimes.

"These are horrific crimes. ... It's human to feel angry and to call for revenge and retaliation," she said. "But if retaliation and retribution is the basis of law, then we become that which we abhor."

The Christian Conference of Connecticut will hold an ecumenical worship service Jan 25 at 8:15 p.m. at St. Lawrence O'Toole Roman Catholic Church in Hartford. The group is also planning an inter-religious prayer vigil beginning at 10:15 p.m. that night at Somers Congregational Church, about 5 miles from the prison where Ross is scheduled to be executed several hours later.

The Rev. Walter Everett, pastor of United Methodist Church in Hartford, plans to speak at the vigil at St. Lawrence O'Toole. Everett's son Scott was shot to death in Bridgeport in 1987 at the age of 24 by a young man who was high on cocaine.

Everett said he opposed the death penalty before his son's murder and still does. "The death penalty does not do for the victim's family what they expect it will - it doesn't give them back what they have lost, and someone else's son has also been killed."

Everett got to know his son's killer, and even spoke on his behalf before the parole board. The man now has a steady job and speaks at colleges and universities about addiction and the harm he caused.

"He's doing a lot of good for the world," Everett said. His reconciliation with his son's killer "was the thing that saved my emotional and spiritual life. I couldn't do it any other way."

 The Day

Opponents of the death penalty cite many reasons to abolish it: It does not deter murderers, it is racially biased, innocents die.

But for the Catholic Church, there is a single, doctrinal reason: "Human life is a gift from God that must be respected from conception to natural death."

So wrote Norwich Bishop Michael R. Cote in a letter read to most of the 227,000 parishioners of the diocese's 78 parishes Sunday.

Cote's letter accompanied a petition drawn up by the Connecticut Network to Abolish the Death Penalty, which is being circulated in churches across the state and will be collected Sunday to be sent to the General Assembly.

With just 14 days remaining until the scheduled execution of serial killer Michael Bruce Ross, those behind the petition drive acknowledge that any act by the legislature may come too late.

"It's a bigger issue than Michael Ross; it's the death penalty itself," said David W. Reynolds, the legislative liaison for the conference. "It's not about Michael Ross."

Robert Nave, the executive director of the Connecticut Network, concurred.

"First and foremost, we have to be very clear that our purpose is not necessarily to stop the execution of Michael Ross," Nave said. "Our purpose is to abolish the death penalty in Connecticut. Michael Ross may lose his life in this, but he is volunteering. Our purpose is not to save Michael Ross."

Nave said he believes that some discussion of the death penalty will take place in the legislature before Jan. 26, Ross' execution date, but he is uncertain as to how far that discussion might go.

While House Speaker James Amann, D-Milford, has called for Ross' execution to go forward, lawmakers opposing capital punishment have promised a debate on the matter this year. Rep. Peter Tercyak, D-New Britain, has already introduced a bill calling for the repeal of the death penalty.

But one of the likely leaders of that debate, Rep. Michael Lawlor, D-East Haven, the co-chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said the matter might not be addressed in his committee until after Jan. 26.

"Whatever happens will be after the 26th, I'm pretty sure," Lawlor said Monday. "I still think it's possible it (the execution) could be postponed in other ways. (But) We'll do whatever we do on it after the 26th."

In addition to the repeal bill, Lawlor said he expected a number of other "tinkering" measures to be raised, and added that having Ross out of the way could help lawmakers focus on the merits of execution, as opposed to the specifics of Ross' case.

"If you wait until after the 26th, then you can have a debate about the death penalty, not Michael Ross," he said.

Ideally, Reynolds said, the legislature would act before Ross' execution, "but given the time limits, I'm not sure that's going to happen."

Also unclear is how many Catholics will sign the petition, doctrine notwithstanding.

Nave, a Catholic, said that when he attended church on Sunday, there were people who did not sign the petition "either because they opposed it or were apathetic."

On the other hand, he said, "I did hear many people say their minds were changed by this when they were reminded pastorally of the teachings of Christ, and that there is no place for the death penalty in those teachings."

"I think it is a touchy issue, and there are Catholics on both sides of the issue," Reynolds said. He added that his office had not received any complaints from Catholics about the petition, but "they may directly complain to their pastors or to the bishop's office."

Perhaps the Catholic community where the issue might be most controversial is that of the Norwich Diocese, which covers eastern Connecticut, where Ross raped and murdered 5 girls and women and murdered a 6th more than 20 years ago.

Ross, who is serving two life sentences for 2 of those murders and faces death for the other four, is himself a Roman Catholic.

Jacqueline Keller, spokeswoman for the Norwich Diocese, said Monday that she was unaware of any calls to the diocese about the bishop's letter.

Pope John Paul II has said, "respect for human life must be ‘profoundly consistent,'" Cote's letter reminds parishioners.

"Specifically in regard to capital punishment, we note increasing reliance on the death penalty, which diminishes each of us," Cote writes. "The death penalty offers the tragic illusion that we can defend life by taking life."

Reynolds said he hoped Catholics would take the opportunity to reflect on the issue this week.

"We're sympathetic to the families of the victims," he said. "But we don't feel the death penalty really services them. It doesn't deter crime; it doesn't prevent criminals from carrying out heinous crimes, and since 1976, about 117 people have been released from death row who were found to be innocent."