ShareThis TOPEKA, Kan. (CNS) -- The Kansas Catholic Conference praised the state's senators for their "impassioned and thoughtful" debate on the death penalty even though they failed to pass a measure to abolish it.

The senators voted 20 to 20 on the bill Feb. 19, falling one vote short of what was required for passage.

"While the outcome is a disappointment, the debate in the Senate chamber was in many respects an impressive display of statesmanship," the Catholic conference said in a statement released the same day. "The arguments on both sides were impassioned and thoughtful. Senators engaged the issue with seriousness and respect for the gravity of what was at stake."

The conference said it was "grateful for the advocacy of all who called or wrote their senators on behalf of this legislation."

In testimony Feb. 19, Bishop Michael O. Jackels of Wichita said that support for abolishing the death penalty "in no way diminishes the condemnation of evil deeds that brutally victimize innocent people or the profound sympathy toward people who have been made a victim or who grieve the murder of a family member or friend."

"This righteous anger and compassion notwithstanding, recourse can and should be made to bloodless means to protect public order and the safety of people, instead of making use of the death penalty," he said.

He said the Catholic Church teaches that "public authorities have the right and duty to punish criminals in a way that matches the seriousness of their crime."

"They are morally justified in the most serious cases to impose even the death penalty" as self-defense, Bishop Jackels said. "The guilt of an unjust aggressor and the need to protect society make capital punishment morally different from the killing of an innocent child in elective abortion, which is never justified," he said.

However, he continued, the church also teaches that the death penalty "should not be imposed if there are other ways to guarantee public order and the safety of citizens."

Among other reasons not to impose the death penalty, Bishop Jackels said, is the fact that it does not offer an offender a chance "to reform or pay his debt to society," which are "principal aims of punishment," and it is "too often associated with hatred or vengeance against the criminal," attitudes that "are opposed to Christian life."

Kansas, one of 35 states with the death penalty, reinstated it in 1994. It currently has 10 inmates on death row, all of whom were sentenced after 1994. The state has not carried out an execution since 1965.

The bill to abolish capital punishment would have maintained the death sentences of those now on death row and for those who commit crimes of capital murder before July 1. It would have created a new charge of "aggravated murder" carrying a possible sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

In neighboring Nebraska, new rules and regulations for using lethal injection for prisoners on death row went into effect Feb. 15. Gov. Dave Heineman approved them Feb. 11 to carry out a law passed last year that changed the method the state can use for executions -- from electrocution to lethal injection.

In early 2008 the Nebraska Supreme Court struck down the use of the electric chair, terming it cruel and unusual punishment. State lawmakers then approved the new method for capital punishment, but before it could be used, the new rules had to be approved. They call for the use of three drugs given in succession -- an anesthetic, a paralyzing substance and a chemical that stops the heart.

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