On March 22, 1999, Cardinal Law made the following statement to Joint Committee
on Criminal Justice of the Massachusetts General Court:
The base line of our opposition is the inviolable dignity and right to life of every human person. We are poised on the threshold of a new millennium. We are leaving what could arguably be said to be the most violent of centuries. A day does not pass without some fresh atrocities reported from Borneo, Kosovo, or closer to home. With capital punishment, we all become victims.
We take our stand not because we are unmindful of the monstrous evil that is murder. It is precisely because we recognize that evil that we oppose capital punishment. We do not help those whose lives have been shattered with the murder of a loved one by reinstating capital punishment.
As a society we must not encourage or be motivated by vengeance. This is not the way to a more civil, a more humane society. Your efforts as legislators are rightly directed to addressing the concern of citizens for safety and freedom from the threat of capital offenders. No person and no family should feel unprotected. All of us have the right to live with a sense of peace and security in our own homes and neighborhoods. We should make any changes necessary in the judicial and penal systems to ensure this, short of taking the life of another person, even a guilty person.
